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Now I will speak to you, who are not given to carping, of that most mysterious knowledge, accompanied by experience, by knowing which you will be released from evil. It is the chief among the sciences, the chief among the mysteries. It is the best means of sanctification. It is imperishable, not opposed to the sacred law. It is to be apprehended directly 1, and is easy to practise. O terror of your foes! those men who have no faith in this holy doctrine, return to the path of this mortal world, without attaining to me. This whole universe is pervaded by me in an unperceived form. All entities live in me, but I do not live in them 2. Nor yet do all entities live in me. See my divine power. Supporting all entities and producing all entities, my self lives not in (those) entities. As the great and ubiquitous atmosphere always remains in space, know that similarly all entities live in me 3. At the expiration of a Kalpa, O son of Kuntî! all entities enter my nature; and at the beginning of a Kalpa, I again bring them forth. Taking the control of my own nature 4, I bring forth again and again this whole collection of entities, without a will of its own 5, by the power of nature. But, O Arguna! these actions do not fetter 6 me, who remain like one unconcerned, and who am unattached to those actions. Nature gives birth to movables and immovables through me, the supervisor, and by reason of that 7, O son of Kuntî! the universe revolves. Deluded people of vain hopes, vain acts, vain knowledge 8, whose minds are disordered, and who are inclined to the delusive nature of Asuras and Râkshasas, not knowing my highest nature as great lord of all entities, disregard me as I have assumed a human body 9. But the high-souled ones, O son of Prithâ! who are inclined to the godlike nature, knowing me as the inexhaustible source of (all) entities, worship me with minds not (turned) elsewhere.
Constantly glorifying me, and exerting themselves 10, firm in their vows 11, and saluting me with reverence, they worship me, being always devoted.
Foot Notes :
1. I. e. by immediate consciousness, not mediately; 'not opposed to the sacred law,' i.e. like the Syena sacrifice for destroying a foe.
2.. Because he is untainted by anything. And therefore also the entities do not live in him, as said in the next sentence. See supra.
3. As space is untainted and unaffected by the air which remains in it, so am I by the entities.
4. Supra, Nature = the unperceived principle.
5. Cf. supra.
6. I am not affected by the differences in the conditions of these entities.
7. Viz. the supervision.
8. Hope, viz. that some other deity will give them what they want; acts, vain as not offered to the supreme; knowledge, vain as abounding in foolish doubts, &c.
9. Cf. supra.
10. For a knowledge of the supreme, or for the means of such knowledge.
11. Vows = veracity, harmlessness, &c.
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