The Bhagavad Gita

by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

KRISHNA 1 Because of your faith, I shall tell you the most profound of secrets: obtaining both jnana and vijnana, you will be free from all evil. 2 This royal knowledge, this royal secret, is the greatest purifier. Righteous and imperishable, it is a joy to practice and can be directly experienced. 3 But those who have no faith in the supreme law of life do not find me, Arjuna. They return to the world, passing from death to death. 4 I pervade the entire universe in my unmanifested form. All creatures find their existence in me, but I am not limited by them. 5 Behold my divine mystery! These creatures do not really dwell in me, and though I bring them forth and support them, I am not confined within them. 6 They move in me as the winds move in every direction in space. 7 At the end of the eon these creatures return to unmanifested matter; at the beginning of the next cycle I send them forth again. 8 Controlling my prakriti, again and again I bring forth these myriad forms and subject them to the laws of prakriti. 9 None of these actions binds me, Arjuna. I am unattached to them, so they do not disturb my nature. 10 Under my watchful eye the laws of nature take their course. Thus is the world set in motion; thus the animate and the inanimate are created. 11 The immature do not look beyond physical appearances to see my true nature as the Lord of all creation. 12 The knowledge of such deluded people is empty; their lives are fraught with disaster and evil, and their work and...