God is Nature and Spirit
sribhagavãn uvaca
1. mayy asaktamanah partha
yogam yunjan madasrayah
asamsayam samagram nam
yatha janasyasi tac chrnu
The Blessed Lord said :
(1) Hear then, 0 Partha (Arjuna), how, practising yoga, with the mind clinging to Me, with Me as thy refuge, thou shalt know Me in full, without any doubt.
The author wishes to give a complete or integral knowledge of the Divine, not merely the Pure Self but Its manifestation in the world.
2. jnanam te 'ham savijnanam
idam vaksyamy agesatah
yaj jnatva ne 'ha bhuyo 'nyaj
jnatavyam avasisyate
(2) I will declare to thee in full this wisdom together with knowledge by knowing which there shall remain nothing more here left to be known.
See III, 41 note. Juana is interpreted as wisdom, the direct spiritual illumination and vijnana as the detailed rational know-ledge of the principles of existence. We must have not merely knowledge of the relationless Absolute but also of Its varied manifestation. The Supreme is in man and nature though these do not limit Him.
3. manusyanam sahasresu
kascid yatati siddhaye
yatatam api siddhanam
kascin mama vetti tattvatah(3) Among thousands of men scarcely one strives for perfection and of those who strive and succeed, scarcely one knows Me in truth
Another reading : yatatam ca sahasranam : "and of thousands of strivers." Most of us do not even feel the need for perfection. We grope along by the voice of tradition and authority. Of those who strive to see the truth and reach the goal, only a few succeed. Of those who gain the sight, not even one learns to walk and live by the sight.
The Two Natures of the Lord
4. bhumir apo ' nalo vdyuh
kham mano buddhir eva
ca aharikara iti 'yam me
bhinna prakrtir astadha
(4) Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind and understanding and self-sense---this is the eightfold division of My nature.
prakrtih. Nature, which is identified with Sakti or maya,[1] the basis of the objective world.[2]
These are the forms which unmanifested nature, prakrti, takes when it becomes manifested. This is an early classification which later becomes elaborated into twenty-four principles. See XIII, 5. The senses, mind and understanding, indriyas, manas and buddhi, belong to the lower, the material nature. For, according to the Samkhya psychology, which is accepted by the Vedanta, they effect contact with objects and consciousness results only when the spiritual subject, purusa, illuminates them. When the self illumines, the activities of the senses, of mind and of understanding become processes of knowledge and objects become objects of knowledge. Ahamkara or the self-sense belongs to the "object" side. It is the principle by which the ego relates objects to itself. It attributes to itself the body and the senses connected with it. It effects the false identification of the body with the spiritual subject and the sense of "I" or "my" is produced.
