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The Lord said:
1. Son of Kunti, this body is called “the field”, and the one who knows it is “the knower of the field” – so those who are expert in this say.
2. You should know, Bharata, that in all fields I am the knower of the field. Knowledge of the knower and of the field – that is what I consider knowledge.
3. What this field is, what its characteristics and mutations are, and how they come about, who the knower is, and what his powers are, here from me in short.
4. It has been chanted distinctly by the seers in many ways, and in various metres, and it has been given expression in aphorisms about Brahman with compelling reasons.
5. The gross elements, the ego, the intelligence, and the unmanifest, the eleven faculties, and the five realms of the senses,
6. Desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the bodily organism, consciousness, and will – these in short are designated the field and its modifications.
7. Lack of pride, lack of deceit, non-violence, endurance, sincerity, serving one’s teacher, purity, stability, self-control,
8. Dispassion with regard to the objects of the senses, freedom from egoism, perceiving the deficiencies of birth, death, old age, disease, and pain,
9. Non-attachment, distancing oneself from sons, wife, the home, etc., and constant even-mindedness in the face of pleasing or unpleasing events,
10. Unswerving devotion to me through exclusive yogic discipline, seeking out an isolated place, dissatisfaction with the society of men,
11. Constancy in knowledge of what relates to the self, perceiving the purpose of knowledge of reality – this, it is declared, constitutes knowledge; anything opposed to this is ignorance.
12. I shall tell you of that object of knowledge, knowing which one reaches immortality – beginningless, supreme Brahman, characterised as neither existent nor non-existent.
13. Hands and feet everywhere, eyes, head, and face everywhere, ears everywhere, covering everything in the world it stands.
14. Appearing to have all sense qualities, it is free of all senses, detached and yet supporting everything, devoid of the constituents and yet experiencing them.
15. Outside and inside creatures, unmoving and moving, too subtle for comprehension, it is both present and remote.
16. Existing in creatures as though divided, yet undivided, it should be known as the sustainer, swallower, and source of creatures.
17. It is called the light of lights beyond darkness – knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the goal of knowledge, inherent in the heart of everyone.
18. Thus the field, knowledge, and the object of knowledge have been succinctly described: realising this, my devotee arrives at my state.
19. You must know that material nature and the person are both beginningless, and know that the modifications and the constitutents also arise from material nature.
20. Material nature, it is said, is the reason for cause and effect and agency; the person is said to be the cause in the experiencing of happiness and unhappiness.
21. For the person situated in material nature experiences the constituents arising from material nature: its attachment to the constituents causes it to be born in good and bad wombs.
22. The highest person in this body is called witness, consenter, supporter, experiencer, the Great Lord, the Supreme Self.
23. He who thus knows the person, and material nature together with its constituents, is not born again whatever his present condition.
24. There are some who by meditation see the self in the self themselves, others do so by the discipline of Sankhya, and others again by the discipline of action.
25. And there are some, not knowing these ways, who nevertheless esteem what they have heard from others, and, revering what they hear, they too go beyond death.
26. You should know, Bull of the Bharatas, that any being whatever, whether moving or stationary, is born from the union of the field and the knower of the field.
27. He who sees the Supreme Lord as situated equally in all creatures, not perishing when they perish, he sees.
28. For seeing the Lord equally present everywhere, he cannot through himself injure the self, and so he takes the highest path.
29. And he who sees that actions are performed exclusively by material nature, and that the self is therefore not the agent, sees.
30. When he perceives the various separate states of being as existing in the one, and extending from that alone, he attains Brahman.
31. This Supreme, imperishable Self, because it has no beginning and no constituents, even though it exists in the body, Son of Kunti, does not act and is not polluted.
32. Just as the all-pervading ether is not polluted because of its subtlety, so the self, although it is present in everybody, is not polluted.
33. Just as the one sun lights up this entire world, so, Bharata, the owner of the field lights the entire field.
34. Those who with the eye of knowledge thus know the difference between the field and the knower of the field, and the way in which creatures are liberated from material nature, attain to the highest.