Indian stream·Bhagavad Gita·Discourse 7: The Yoga of Wisdom and Discrimination

Source context

Theme

direct knowledge of the divine ground through discriminative wisdom (jñāna-vijñāna), the threefold constitution of nature (gunas), and Krishna's self-disclosure as the supreme reality underlying all manifestation

Soul-faculty

Consciousness Soul

Steiner

• GA 146, 1913-06-05Steiner treats the threefold division of nature into sattwa, rajas, and tamas — central to Discourse 7's account of how māyā operates through the gunas — as a living spiritual-scientific schema that Krishna deploys to orient Arjuna toward self-conscious ascent beyond passive absorption into the divine.
• GA 142, 1912-12-28Steiner identifies the Bhagavad Gita as the harmonious interpenetration of three spiritual streams (Vedic, Sankhya, and Yoga currents), the interaction of which underpins Discourse 7's synthesis of wisdom and discrimination as a unified path.

Cross-tradition

• Advaita Vedanta (Shankara)Shankara's commentary on Discourse 7 reads Krishna's declaration of being the ground of all existence as an exposition of nirguna Brahman — a cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's insistence that discriminative knowledge (vijñāna) dissolves the appearance of independent lower and higher natures.
• Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads V)Plotinus's account of the soul's return to the One through intellectual ascent (epistrophē) shows cross-tradition congruence with Krishna's disclosure in Discourse 7 that those who strip away phenomenal multiplicity come to rest in the single divine source.
• Kabbalah (Ein Sof and the Sefirot)The Kabbalistic distinction between the concealed infinite (Ein Sof) and its structured self-disclosure through the sefirot offers cross-tradition congruence with Krishna's two-fold nature — higher (para) and lower (apara) prakrti — set out in Discourse 7.

Discourse 7: The Yoga of Wisdom and Discrimination

7:1With Manas clinging to Me, O Partha performing Yoga, refuged in Me, how thou
shalt without doubt know Me to the uttermost, that hear thou.

7:2I will declare to thee this knowledge and wisdom in its completeness, which,
having known, there is nothing more here remaineth to be known.

7:3Among thousands of men scarce one striveth for perfection; of the successful
strivers scarce one knoweth Me in essence.

7:4Earth, water, fire, air, ether, Manas and Buddhi also and Ahankara-these are the
eightfold division of My Prakriti-

7:5This the inferior. Know My other Prakriti, the higher, the life-element, O mighty-
armed, by which the universe is upheld.

7:6Know this to be the womb of all beings. I am the source of the forthgoing of the
whole universe and likewise the place of its dissolving.

7:7There is naught whatsoever higher than I, O Dhananjaya. All this is threaded on
Me, as rows of pearls on a string.

7:8I the sapidity in waters, O son of Kunti, I the radiance in moon and sun; the Word
of Power in all the Vedas, sound in ether, and virility in men;

7:9The pure fragrance of earths and the brilliance in fire am I; the life in all beings
am I, and the austerity in ascetics.

7:10Know Me, O Partha! as the eternal seed of all beings. I am the Reason of the
Reason-endowed, the splendour of splendid things am I.

7:11And I the strength of the strong, devoid of desire and passion. In beings I am
desire not contrary to duty, O Lord of the Bharatas.

7:12The natures that are harmonious, active, slothful, these know as from Me; not I
in them, but they in Me.

7:13All this world, deluded by these natures made by the three qualities, knoweth
not Me, above these, imperishable.

7:14This divine illusion of Mine, caused by the qualities, is hard to pierce; they who
come to Me, they cross over this illusion.

7:15The evil-doing, the deluded, the vilest men, they come not to Me, they whose
wisdom is destroyed by illusion, who have embraced the nature of demons.

7:16Fourfold in division are the righteous ones who worship me, O Arjuna the
suffering, the seeker for knowledge, the self-interested and the wise, O Lord of the Bharatas.

7:17Of these the wise constantly harmonised, worshipping the One, is the best; I am
supremely dear to the wise, and he is dear to Me.

7:18Noble are all these, but I hold the wise as verily Myself he, SELF-united, is
fixed on Me, the highest Path.

7:19At the close of many births the man full of wisdom cometh unto Me; "Vasudeva
is all," saith he, the Mahatma, very difficult to find.

7:20They whose wisdom hath been rent away by desires go forth to other Shining
Ones, resorting to various external observances, according to their own natures.

7:21Any devotee who seeketh to worship with faith any such aspect, I verily bestow
the unswerving faith of that man.

7:22He endowed with that faith, seeketh the worship of such a one, and from him he
obtaineth his desires, I verily decreeing the benefits;

7:23Finite indeed the fruit, that belongeth to those who are of small intelligence. To
the Shining Ones go the worshippers of the Shining Ones, but my devotees come unto Me.

7:24Those devoid of Reason think of Me, the unmanifest, as having manifestation,
knowing not My supreme nature, imperishable, most excellent.

7:25Nor am I of all discovered, enveloped in My creation-illusion. This deluded
world knoweth Me not, the unborn, the imperishable.

7:26I know the beings that are past, that are present, that are to come, O Arjuna, but
no one knoweth Me.

7:27By the delusion of the pairs of opposites, sprung from attraction and repulsion,
O Bharata, all beings walk this universe wholly deluded, O Parantapa.

7:28But those men of pure deeds, in whom sin is come to an end, they, freed from
the delusive pairs of opposites, worship Me, steadfast in vows.

7:29They who, refuged in Me, strive for liberation from birth and death, they know
the Eternal, the whole SELF-knowledge, and all action.

7:30They who know Me as the knowledge of the elements, as that of the Shining
Ones, and as that of the Sacrifice, they harmonised in mind know Me verily even in the time of forthgoing.

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