Bhagavad Gītā – Chapter 13 Notes

 

Apart from Chapter 15, the focus now moves away from the nature of God to the nature of the world: how it is constructed, and how a person can disentangle himself/herself from it.

Chapter 13 deals with material nature (prakṛti) and how spirit (puruṣa) interacts with it.  First, Krishnaexplains the difference between the knower (ātman) and the objective field which the knower experiences (13.6).  The yogi can carefully examine each element of the field and systematically detach himself/herself from it.  True knowledge is in fact knowledge of Brahman, and the person who truly knows and understands this will achieve immortality (13.12-13).

Krishna then explains how Brahman interacts with material nature (13.15-18), and explains the interrelationship of prakṛti and puruṣa (13.20-23).  He also speaks about the “Self” in us, which some people come to realise through meditation, some through rationalistic philosophy, and some through karma yoga.  This Self is the same in all of us, as is the way we have become caught up in samsāra – through the union of the field and the knower of the field (i.e. the union of prakṛti and puruṣa (13.25-28).