THE THIRTEENTH TEACHING

KNOWING THE FIELD

Lord Krishna

The field denotes
this body, and wise men
call one who knows it
the field-knower.

1

Know me as the field-knower
in all fields—what I deem
to be knowledge is knowledge
of the field and its knower.

2

Hear from me in summary
what the field is
in its character and changes,
and of the field-knower's power.

3

Ancient seers have sung of this
in many ways, with varied meters
and with aphorisms on the infinite spirit
laced with logical arguments.

4

The field contains the great elements,
individuality, understanding,
unmanifest nature, the eleven senses,
and the five sense realms.

5

Longing, hatred, happiness, suffering,
bodily form, consciousness, resolve,
thus is this field with its changes
defined in summary.

6

Knowledge means humility,
sincerity, nonviolence, patience,
honesty, reverence for one's teacher,
purity, stability, self-restraint;

7

Dispassion toward sense objects
and absence of individuality,
seeing the defects in birth, death,
old age, sickness, and suffering;

8

Detachment, uninvolvement
with sons, wife, and home,
constant equanimity
in fulfillment and frustration;

9

Unwavering devotion to me
with singular discipline;
retreating to a place of solitude,
avoiding wordly affairs;

10

Persistence in knowing the self,
seeing what knowledge of reality means—
all this is called knowledge,
the opposite is ignorance.

11

I shall teach you what is to be known;
for knowing it, one attains immortality;
it is called the supreme infinite spirit,
beginningless, neither being nor nonbeing.

12

Its hands and feet reach everywhere;
its head and face see in every direction;
hearing everything, it remains
in the world, enveloping all.

13

Lacking all the sense organs,
it shines in their qualities;
unattached, it supports everything;
without qualities, it enjoys them.

14

Outside and within all creatures,
inanimate but still animate,
too subtle to be known,
it is far distant, yet near.

15

Undivided, it seems divided
among creatures;
understood as their sustainer,
it devours and creates them.

16

The light of lights
beyond darkness it is called;
knowledge attained by knowledge,
fixed in the heart of everyone.

17

So, in summary I have explained
the field and knowledge of it;
a man devoted to me, knowing this,
enters into my being.

18

Know that both nature
and man's spirit have no beginning,
that qualities and changes
have their origin in nature.

19

For its agency in producing effects,
nature is called a cause;
in the experience of joy and suffering,
man's spirit is called a cause.

20

Man's spirit is set in nature,
experiencing the qualities born of nature;
its attachment to the qualities causes
births in the wombs of good and evil.

21

Witness, consenter, sustainer,
enjoyer—the great lord
is called the highest self,
man's true spirit in this body.

22

Knowing nature and the spirit of man,
as well as the qualities of nature,
one is not born again—
no matter how one now exists.

23

By meditating on the self, some men
see the self through the self;
others see by philosophical discipline;
others by the discipline of action.

24

Others, despite their ignorance,
revere what they hear from other men;
they too cross beyond death,
intent on what they hear.

25

Arjuna, know that anything
inanimate or alive with motion
is born from the union
of the field and its knower.

26

He really sees
who sees the highest lord
standing equal among all creatures,
undecaying amid destruction.

27

Seeing the lord standing
the same everywhere,
the self cannot injure itself
and goes the highest way.

28

He really sees who sees
that all actions are performed
by nature alone and that the self
is not an actor.

29

When he perceives the unity
existing in separate creatures
and how they expand from unity,
he attains the infinite spirit.

30

Beginningless, without qualities,
the supreme self is unchanging;
even abiding in a body, Arjuna,
it does not act, nor is it defiled.

31

Just as all-pervading space
remains unsullied in its subtlety,
so the self in every body
remains unsullied.

32

Just as one sun
illumines this entire world,
so the master of the field
illumines the entire field.

33

They reach the highest state
who with the eye of knowledge know
the boundary between the knower and its field,
and the freedom creatures have from nature.

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