13.1 Krishna, the messenger, conveyed the word of God: O son of Kunti, this body is called the field; and the one who knows it, the soul within, is called by the wise the knower of the field.

13.2 Know, O Bharata, that I am the Knower above every field and every knower; the knowledge of the field and of its knower, as I reveal it, is true knowledge.

13.3 Hear from Me in brief what the field is, what it is like, what changes it undergoes, from what it arises, and who the knower is and what his powers are.

13.4 This has been sung by the sages in many ways, in distinct verses, and in the well-reasoned words of the Brahma-sutras that point to the One.

13.5 The great elements, the sense of self, the intellect, the unmanifest matter, the ten senses and the mind, and the five fields of the senses;

13.6 desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the bodily frame, awareness and endurance – this, in brief, is the field with its changes, all of it created.

13.7 Humility, freedom from pretence, harmlessness, patience, uprightness, service of the teacher, purity, steadfastness and self-control;

13.8 detachment from the objects of sense, absence of pride, and awareness of the pain and evil of birth, death, old age and sickness;

13.9 non-attachment, freedom from clinging to son, wife and home, and constant evenness of mind in what is wished for and what is not;

13.10 unwavering devotion to Me alone with no partner beside Me, resort to solitary places, and distaste for the crowd of worldly men;

13.11 constancy in knowledge of the soul, and insight into the purpose of true knowledge – this is called knowledge; what is contrary to it is ignorance.

13.12 I will declare that which is to be known, knowing which one attains life everlasting: the Supreme, without beginning, who is beyond all that is and all that is not.

13.13 His hands and feet reach everywhere, His eyes, heads and faces are everywhere, His hearing is everywhere; He encompasses all things in the world.

13.14 He is aware through every sense yet is free of all senses; unattached, yet sustaining all; beyond the qualities of matter, yet the Master of them.

13.15 He is near to every being, within and without, encompassing the moving and the unmoving; too subtle to be grasped, He is far, and yet He is near.

13.16 He is One, undivided, though beings are many and divided; He is the Sustainer of beings, who brings them forth and causes them to die.

13.17 He is the Light of all lights, beyond darkness; He is knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the goal of knowledge, and He is present to every heart.

13.18 Thus the field, knowledge and the object of knowledge have been declared in brief; My devotee who understands this becomes fit for My nearness.

13.19 Know that matter and the soul are both created by Me, and that the changes and the qualities arise from matter.

13.20 Matter is said to be the ground of cause and effect in the body; the soul is said to be the one who experiences pleasure and pain.

13.21 The soul, dwelling in matter, tastes the qualities born of matter; its attachment to the qualities leads it to good or evil wombs of fortune and to its reward hereafter.

13.22 Yet the Supreme, the Witness, the Approver, the Sustainer, the Protector, the Great Lord, the Highest Self, is beyond this body and beyond all creatures.

13.23 He who knows the soul and matter with its qualities, whatever his condition in life, will not be lost again on the Day of Return.

13.24 Some see the Supreme within themselves by meditation, others by the path of knowledge, others by the path of works.

13.25 Others, not knowing this, worship by hearing from others; they too, devoted to what they have heard, cross beyond death.

13.26 Whatever being is born, moving or unmoving, know, O best of Bharatas, that it comes from the union of the field and the knower of the field, by My command.

13.27 He who sees the Supreme Lord standing equally over all beings, the Imperishable amid the perishing, he truly sees.

13.28 Seeing the Lord present equally everywhere, he does not harm himself by himself, and so he goes to the highest goal.

13.29 He who sees that all actions are performed by matter alone, and that the soul is not the true doer, he truly sees.

13.30 When he perceives that the diversity of beings rests in the One and goes out from Him alone, then he attains the Supreme.

13.31 This Supreme Lord, without beginning and beyond the qualities, imperishable, O son of Kunti, though near to the body, neither acts nor is touched by it.

13.32 As the all-pervading sky is not stained, because of its subtlety, so the Lord, though near to every body, is never stained by it.

13.33 As the one sun illumines this whole world, so the Lord of the field illumines the whole field, O Bharata.

13.34 Those who with the eye of knowledge see the difference between the field and its knower, and the freedom of beings from the bondage of matter, go to the Supreme.