SEVEN: KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE
“Lord Shri Krishna said: Listen, O Arjuna! And I will tell thee how thou shalt know Me in
my Full perfection, practising meditation with thy mind devoted to Me, and having Me
for thy refuge.
I will reveal to this knowledge unto thee, and how it may be realised; which, once
accomplished, there remains nothing else worth having in this life.
Among thousands of men scarcely one strives for perfection, and even amongst those who
gain occult powers, perchance but one knows me in truth.
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and personality; this is the eightfold division of
My Manifested Nature.
This is My inferior Nature; but distinct from this, O Valiant One, know thou that my
Superior Nature is the very Life which sustains the universe.
It is the womb of all being; for I am He by Whom the worlds were created and shall be
dissolved.
O Arjuna! There is nothing higher than Me; all is strung upon Me as rows of pearls upon a
thread.
O Arjuna! I am the Fluidity in water, the Light in the sun and in the moon. I am the mystic
syllable Om in the Vedic scriptures, the Sound in ether, the Virility in man.
I am the Fragrance of earth, the Brilliance of fire. I am the Life Force in all beings, and I am
the Austerity of the ascetics.
Know, O Arjuna, that I am the eternal Seed of being; I am the Intelligence of the intelligent,
the Splendour of the resplendent.
I am the Strength of the strong, of them who are free from attachment and desire; and,
O Arjuna, I am the Desire for righteousness.
Whatever be the nature of their life, whether it be pure or passionate or ignorant, they are
all derived from Me. They are in Me, but I am not in them.
The inhabitants of the world, misled by those natures which the Qualities have
engendered, know not that I am higher than them all, and that I do not change.
Verily, this Divine Illusion of Phenomenon manifesting itself in the Qualities is difficult to
surmount. Only they who devote themselves to Me and to Me alone can accomplish it.
The sinner, the ignorant, the vile, deprived of spiritual perception by the glamour of
Illusion, and he who pursues a godless life – none of them shall find Me.
O Arjuna! The righteous who worship Me are grouped by stages: first, they who suffer,
next they who desire knowledge, then they who thirst after truth, and lastly they who
attain wisdom.
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