13 Verses, and Chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita

For some strange reason I felt compelled to extract all of the 13th verses from the Bhagavad Gita. This book came to me, from a friend, totally out of nowhere - in a Spanish speaking country. I am on about my 6th reading. I have felt from the beginning that the 13th Chapter is the most comprehensive and descriptive of the relationship between the ONE and our human experience.

I am just sharing this here because I continue to get evidence that 13 is a very powerful number. Maybe there is some greater weaving of truth from this idea. Otherwise, I guess just because it came to me to do, so I could inculcate the truth of this ancient wisdom more deeply. With Love - Andy

The Bhagavad Gita Translated from the Sanskrit with an introduction by Juan Mascaró, Penguin Classics, 1962.

Krishna speaks to Arjuna on the field of Battle

1:13 Then the rumbling of war drums, the stirring sound of cymbals and trumpets, and the roaring of conch-shells and horns filled the sky with a fearful thunder.

2:13 As the spirit of our mortal body wanders on in childhood, and youth and old age, the Spirit wanders on to a new body of this the sage has no doubts.

3:13 Holy men who take as food the remains of sacrifice become free from all their sins; but the unholy who have feasts for themselves eat food that is in truth sin.

4:14 The four orders of men arose from me, in justice to their natures and their works. Know that this work was mine, though I am beyond work, in Eternity.

5:13 The ruler of his soul surrenders in mind all work, and rests in the joy of quietness in the castle of nine gates of his body: he neither does selfish work nor causes others to do it.

6:13 With upright body, head, and neck, which rest still and move not; with inner gaze which is not restless, but rests still between the eye-brows;

7:13 How the whole world is under the delusion of these shadows of the soul, and knows not me though forever I am!

8:13 And remembering me he utters OM, the eternal WORD of Brahman, he goes to the Path Supreme.

9:13 But there are some great souls who know me: their refuge is my own divine nature. They love me with one-ness of love: they know that I am the source of all.

Arjuna – 10:13 Thus all the seers praised thee: the seer divine Narada; Asita, Devala and Vyasa. And this is now thy revelation.

Sanjaya – 11:13 And Arjuna saw in that radiance the whole universe in its variety, standing in a vast unity in the body of the God of gods.

Krishna – 12:13 The man who has a good will for all, who is. Friendly and has compassion; who has no thoughts of “I” or “mine”, whose peace is the same in pleasures and sorrows, and who is forgiving;

13:13 His hands and feet are everywhere, he has heads and mouths everywhere: he sees all, he hears all. He is in all, and he is.

14:13 Darkness, inertia, negligence, delusion – these appear when Tamas prevails.

15:13 I come into the earth and with life-giving love I support all things on earth. And I become the scent and taste of the sacred plant Soma, which is the wandering moon.

16:13 “I have gained this today, and I shall attain this desire. This wealth is mine, and that shall also be mine”

17:13 And a sacrifice done against the holy law, without faith, and sacred words, and the gifts of food, and the due offering, is a sacrifice of darkness.

18:13 Know now from me, Arjuna, the five causes of all actions as given in the Sankhya wisdom, wherein is found the end of all works.

Chapter 13 in total

Krishna

1 This body, Arjuna, is called the field. He who knows this is called the knower of the field.

2 Know that I am the knower in all the fields of my creation; and that the wisdom which sees the field and the knower of the field is true wisdom.

3 Hear from me briefly what the field is and how it is, what its changes are and whence each one comes; who is the knower and what is his power.

4 This has been sung by seers of the Vedas in many musical measures of verse; and in great words about Brahman, words of faith and full of truth.

5 The five elements, the thought of “I”, consciousness, sub-consciousness, the five powers of feeling, and the five of action, the one mind over them, the five fields of sense perception;

6 Desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the power of mental unification, intelligence, and courage: this is the field and its modifications.

7 Humbleness, sincerity, harmlessness, forgiveness, uprightness, devotion to the spiritual master, purity, steadiness, self-harmony;

8 Freedom from the lust of the senses, absence of the thought of “I”, perception of the sorrows of birth, death, old age, disease and suffering.

9 Freedom from the chains of attachments, even from a selfish attachment to one´s children, wife, or home; an ever-present eveness of mind in pleasant or unpleasant events;

10 A single oneness of pure love, of never-straying love for me; retiring to solitary places, and avoiding the noisy multitudes:

11 A constant yearning to know the Inner Spirit, and a vision of Truth which gives liberation: this is true wisdom leading to vision. All against this is ignorance.

12 Now I shall tell the of the End of wisdom. When a man knows this he goes beyond death. It is Brahman, beginingless, supreme: beyond what is and beyond what is not.

13 His hands and feet are everywhere, he has heads and mouths everywhere: he sees all, he hears all. He is in all, and he is.

14 the Light of consciousness comes to him through infinite powers of perception, and yet he is above all these powers. He is beyond all, and yet he supports all. His beyond the world of matter, and yet he has joy in this world.

15 He is invisible: he cannot be seen. He is far and he is near, he moves and he moves not, he is within all and he is outside all.

16 He is ONE in all, but it seems as if he were many. He supports all beings: from him comes destruction, and from him comes creation.

17 He is the Light of all lights which shines beyond all darkness. It is vision, the end of vision, to be reached by vision, dwelling in the heart of all.

18 I have told thee briefly what is the field, what is wisdom, and what is the End of man´s vision. When a man knows this he enters into my Being.

19 Know that Prakriti, Nature, and Purusha, Spirit are both without beginning, and that temporal changes and Gunas conditions, come all from nature.

20 Nature is the source of all material things: the maker, the means of making, and the thing made. Spirit is the source of all consciousness which feels pleasure and feels pain.

21 The spirit of man when in nature feels the ever-changing conditions of nature. When he binds himself to things ever-changing, a good or evil fate whirls him round through life-in-death.

22 But the Spirit Supreme in man is beyond fate. He watches, gives blessing, bears all, feels all. He is called the Lord Supreme and the Supreme Soul.

23 He who knows in truth this Spirit and knows nature with its changing conditions, wherever this man may be he is no more whirled round by fate.

24 Some by the Yoga of meditation, and by the grace of the Spirit, see the Spirit in themselves; some by the Yoga of the vision of Truth; and others by the Yoga of work.

25 And yet there are others who do not know, but they hear from others and adore. They also cross beyond death, because of their devotion to words of Truth.

26 Whatever is born, Arjuna, whether it moves of it moves not, know that it comes from the union of the field and the knower of the field.

27 He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is, immortal in the field of mortality – he sees the truth.

28 And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others: then he goes indeed to the highest Path.

29 He who sees that all work, everywhere, is only the work of nature; and that the Spirit watches this work – he sees the truth.

30 When a man sees that the infinity of various beings is abiding in the ONE, and is an evolution from the ONE, then he becomes one with Brahman.

31 Beginningless and free from changing conditions, imperishable is the Spirit Supreme. Though he is in the body, not his is the work of the body, and he is pure from the imperfection of all work.

32 Just as the omnipresent ether is pure because intangible, so the Spirit dwelling in matter is pure from the touch of matter.

33 And even as one sun gives light to all things in this world, so the Lord of the field gives light to all his field.

34 Those who with the eye of inner vision see the distinction between the field and the know of the field, and see the liberation of spirit from matter, they go into the supreme.