ज्ञानविज्ञानयोगः
jñānavijñānayogaḥ
All that is here is strung on Him like pearls upon a thread; know the thread, and every pearl becomes a word of the Beloved.
- śraddhāvān bhajate — the inmost self given to the Divine in love and faith
- vāsudevaḥ sarvam — the knowledge that the Divine is all that is
The soul that has given its inmost self in love and faith now needs to know whom it loves; and with the seventh chapter the Gita enters upon a new stage of its ascent. The first six chapters, Sri Aurobindo observes, form a single block of practice and knowledge in which works and knowledge were reconciled; the chapters that now follow lay down a large statement of the nature of the Divine Being and on that foundation unite knowledge with devotion. Krishna’s opening words hold both movements at once. With a mind attached to Me, with Me as thy whole resort, practising Yoga, hear how thou shalt know Me integrally, without any remainder of doubt (7·1): the essential knowledge together with all the comprehensive knowledge, by knowing which nothing else here remains to be known (7·2). And he adds, soberly, that among thousands one strives, and of those who strive one here and there knows him in all the principles of his existence (7·3).
The foundation of this integral knowledge is the distinction of the two Natures. The five elements, mind, reason and ego make up the eightfold lower Nature; but know my other Nature, the supreme, which becomes the Jiva and by which this world is upheld (7·5). The Sankhya of the earlier chapters had set the silent Purusha over against a mechanical Prakriti, and a spirituality that stopped there could only escape from Nature into the Self. Here the gulf is closed from above. Behind the lower Nature, the divided play of the gunas and the ego, there is a spiritual Nature which is the Divine’s own conscious power; the individual soul is a manifestation of it, and the world hangs upon it. There is nothing supreme beyond Me; on Me all that is here is strung like pearls upon a thread (7·7).
Then, to start with and in order to found this integral knowledge, the Gita makes that deep and momentous distinction which is the practical basis of all its Yoga, the distinction between the two Natures, the phenomenal and the spiritual Nature.
Then the Divine discloses himself in the essence of things, with a simplicity that is itself a kind of delight: I am the taste in the waters, the light of sun and moon, the syllable OM in all the Vedas, sound in ether and manhood in men (7·8); the eternal seed of all existences, the intelligence of the intelligent (7·10); the strength of the strong devoid of desire and liking (7·11). The becomings of the three modes are from him, but he is not in them; they are in him (7·12). Yet the world does not see him, bewildered by this divine Maya of the gunas which is hard to overcome; only those who turn to him cross beyond it (7·14).
This illusive Maya hides from us the Divine that we are, the infinite and imperishable spirit.
Four kinds of men turn to him: the suffering, the seeker for good in the world, the seeker for knowledge, and those who adore him with knowledge (7·16); and of these the knower, ever in union and whose bhakti is all concentrated on him, is the best, for he loves the Divine perfectly and is his beloved (7·17). In The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge Sri Aurobindo lets the verse open into its full sweetness, for the love it speaks of is not one-sided:
He loves perfectly the Divine and is his beloved; for as he takes joy in the Divine, so too the Divine takes joy in him.
At the end of many births the man of knowledge comes to him, knowing that Vasudeva is all; very rare is that great soul (7·19). And even the partial worshippers are not rejected: whatever form any devotee desires to worship with faith, the Divine makes that faith firm and undeviating (7·21), and meets each soul where it stands.
The chapter closes by naming, without yet explaining, the great terms of the integral knowledge: Brahman, adhyātma, karma, adhibhūta, adhidaiva, adhiyajña; those who take refuge in him know them all, and knowing him so, know him even at the hour of departure (7·29–30). The soul now stands before the Divine as the One who is all, the higher Nature behind the lower, the Lover who rejoices in the one who loves. It has only to ask what these names mean, and how such a knowledge can be held through life and death, to pass into the next chapter.
Essays on the Gita
Key verses
