Chapter 9
The Royal Secret
The most confidential teaching: the divine accepts even a leaf, a flower or a little water offered with love.
Verses in this chapter(34)
- 9.1The Blessed Lord said: I shall now declare to thee who does not cavil, the greatest secret, the knowledge combined with experience (Self-realisation). Having known this thou shalt...
- 9.2This is the kingl science, the kingly secret, the supreme purifier, realisable by direct intuitional knowledge, according to righteousness, very easy to perform and imperishable.
- 9.3Those who have no faith in this Dharma (knowledge of the Self), O Parantapa (Arjuna), return to the path of this world of death without attaining Me.
- 9.4All this world is pervaded by Me in My unmanifest aspect; all beings exist in Me, but I do not dwell in them.
- 9.5Nor do beings exist in Me (in reality); behold My divine Yoga, supporting all beings, but not dwelling in them, is My Self, the efficient cause of beings.
- 9.6As the mighty wind, moving everywhere, rests always in the ether, even so, know thou that all beings rest in Me.
- 9.7All beings, O Arjuna, go into My Nature at the end of a Kalpa; I send them forth again at the beginning of (the next) Kalpa.
- 9.8Animating My Nature, I again and again send forth all this multitude of beings, helpless by the force of the Nature.
- 9.9These acts do not bind Me, O Arjuna, sitting like one indifferent, unattached to those acts.
- 9.10Under Me as supervisor, Nature produces the moving and the unmoving; because of this, O Arjuna, the world revolves.
- 9.11Fools disregard Me, clad in human form, not knowing My higher Being as the great Lord of (all) beings.
- 9.12Of vain hopes, of vain actions, of vain knowledge and senseless, they verily are possessed of the deceitful nature of demons and undivine beings.
- 9.13But the great souls, O Arjuna, partaking of My divine nature, worship Me with a single mind (with the mind devoted to nothing else), knowing Me as the imperishable source of...
- 9.14Always glorifying Me, striving,firm in vows, prostrating themselves before Me, they worship Me with devotion always steadfast.
- 9.15Others also sacrificing with the wisdom-sacrifice worship Me, the All-faced, as one, as distinct, and as manifold.
- 9.16I am the Kratu; I am the Yajna; I am the offering (food) to the manes; I am the medicinal herbs and all the plants; I am the Mantra; I am also the Ghee or the melted butter; I am...
- 9.17I am the father of this world, the mother, the dispenser of the fruits of actions and the grandfather; the (one) thing to be known, the purifier, the sacred monosyllable (Om), and...
- 9.18I am the goal, the supporter, the Lord, the witness, the abode, the shelter, the friend, the origin, the dissolution, the foundation, the treasure-house and the seed which is...
- 9.19(As the sun) I give heat; I withhold and send forth the rain; I am immortality and also death, existence and non-existence, O Arjuna.
- 9.20The knowers of the three Vedas, the drinkers of Soma, purified of all sins, worshipping Me by sacrifices, pray for the way to heaven; they reach the holy world of the Lord of the...
- 9.21They, having enjoyed the vast heaven, enter the world of mortals when their merit is exhausted; thus abiding by the injunctions of the ï1threeï1 (Vedas) and desiring (objects of)...
- 9.22For those men who worship Me alone, thinking of no other, for those ever-united, I secure what is not already possessed and preserve what they already possess.
- 9.23Even those devotees who, endowed with faith, worship other gods, worship Me alone, O Arjuna, b the wrong method.
- 9.24(For) I alone am the enjoyer and also the Lord of all sacrifices; but they do not know Me in essence (in reality), and hence they fall (return to this mortal world).
- 9.25The worshippers of the gods go to them; to the manes go the ancestor-worshippers; to the deities who preside over the elements go their worshippers; but My devotees come to Me.
- 9.26Whoever offers Me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a little water that, so offered devotedly by the pure-minded, I accept.
- 9.27Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou offerest in sacrifice, whatever thou givest, whatever thou practisest as austerity, O Arjuna, do it as an offering unto Me.
- 9.28Thus shalt thou be freed from the bonds of actions yielding good and evil fruits; with the mind steadfast in the Yoga of renunciation, and liberated, thou shalt come unto Me.
- 9.29The same am I to all beings; to Me there is none hateful or dear; but those who worship Me with devotion are in Me and I am also in them.
- 9.30Even if the most sinful worships Me, with devotion to none else, he too should indeed by regarded as righteous for he has rightly resolved.
- 9.31Soon he becomes righteous and attains to eternal peace; O Arjuna, proclaim thou for certain that My devotee never perishes.
- 9.32For, taking refuge in Me, they also who, O Arjuna, may be of a sinful birth women, Vaisyas as well as Sudras attain the Supreme Goal.
- 9.33How much more (easily) then the hold Brahmins and devoted royal saints (attain the goal); having come to this impermanent and unhappy world, do thou worship Me.
- 9.34Fix thy mind on Me; by devoted to Me; sacrifice unto Me; bow down to Me; having thus united thy whole self to Me, taking Me as the supreme goal, thou shalt come unto Me.
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