Vyasa · a new plain-English translation from the Sanskrit
13.1 The Blessed Lord said: This body, son of Kunti, is called the field; the one who knows it is called by those who know these things the knower of the field.
13.2 Know also that I am the knower of the field in all fields, Bharata. The knowledge of the field and the knower of the field is, in my view, true knowledge.
13.3 What that field is, of what kind, what changes it undergoes, from what it arises, and who that knower is and what his power is — hear this from me in brief.
13.4 It has been sung in many ways by seers, in various separate hymns, and in the aphorisms on Brahman, with reasoning and certainty.
13.5 The great elements, the sense of self, the intellect, the unmanifest, the ten senses and the one, and the five objects of the senses;
13.6 desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the aggregate body, consciousness, steadiness — this, in brief, is the field together with its modifications.
13.7 Freedom from false pride, freedom from deceit, non-violence, patience, uprightness, service to a teacher, purity, steadfastness, mastery over oneself;
13.8 dispassion toward the objects of the senses, and also absence of self-importance; seeing clearly the flaw and pain in birth, death, old age, and sickness;
13.9 non-attachment, freedom from clinging to son, wife, home and the like, and constant evenness of mind in the face of desired and undesired events;
13.10 unwavering devotion to me through undivided discipline, resorting to solitary places, no delight in the company of crowds;
13.11 constancy in knowledge of the self, and seeing the purpose in the knowledge of truth — this is declared to be knowledge, and whatever is other than this is ignorance.
13.12 I will now explain the object of knowledge, knowing which one attains the deathless. It is the beginningless supreme Brahman, said to be neither being nor non-being.
13.13 With hands and feet everywhere, eyes, heads, and faces everywhere, with hearing everywhere in the world, it stands pervading all things.
13.14 Appearing as if endowed with the qualities of all the senses, yet free of all the senses; unattached, yet sustaining all; without qualities, yet the enjoyer of qualities.
13.15 Outside and inside all beings, unmoving and also moving; because of its subtlety it is unknowable; it is far away and also near.
13.16 Undivided, yet standing as if divided among beings, it is to be known as the sustainer of beings, and also as their devourer and their producer.
13.17 It is said to be the light of lights, beyond darkness; it is knowledge, the object of knowledge, and what is reached by knowledge, seated in the heart of all.
13.18 Thus the field, and knowledge, and the object of knowledge have been stated in brief. My devotee, understanding this, becomes fit for my state of being.
13.19 Know that primal nature and the person are both without beginning; and know that the modifications and the qualities all arise from primal nature.
13.20 Primal nature is said to be the cause of the agency of the body and its instruments; the person is said to be the cause of the experience of pleasure and pain.
13.21 For the person, situated in primal nature, experiences the qualities born of primal nature; attachment to these qualities is the cause of his birth in good and evil wombs.
13.22 The witness, the permitter, the sustainer, the experiencer, the great lord, and also the supreme self — thus is the supreme person in this body described.
13.23 One who thus knows the person and primal nature together with its qualities, however he may be living, is not born again.
13.24 Some perceive the self within the self by meditation, through the self; others by the discipline of knowledge, and others by the discipline of action.
13.25 But others, not knowing this, worship having heard it from others; they too cross beyond death, devoted to what they have heard.
13.26 Whatever being comes into existence, whether fixed or moving, know it, bull of the Bharatas, to arise from the union of the field and the knower of the field.
13.27 He who sees the supreme lord standing equally in all beings, not perishing even as they perish, he truly sees.
13.28 For seeing the lord present equally everywhere, he does not injure the self by the self, and so he goes to the highest path.
13.29 He who sees that actions are performed in every way by primal nature alone, and that the self is not the doer, he truly sees.
13.30 When he perceives the diverse states of beings as resting in one, and their expansion as arising from that one alone, then he attains Brahman.
13.31 Because it is without beginning and without qualities, this supreme self is imperishable; though situated in the body, son of Kunti, it does not act, nor is it tainted.
13.32 As the all-pervading space, because of its subtlety, is not tainted, so the self, situated everywhere in the body, is not tainted.
13.33 As the one sun illumines this whole world, so the knower of the field illumines the whole field, Bharata.
13.34 Those who thus know, with the eye of knowledge, the distinction between the field and the knower of the field, and the liberation of beings from primal nature, go to the supreme.