54 But through unfailing devotion, Arjuna, you can know me, see me, and attain union with me.
55 Those who make me the supreme goal of all their work and act without selfish attachment, who devote themselves to me completely and are free from ill will for any creature, enter into me.
Chapter Twelve, The Way of Love
This short chapter focuses upon the supreme importance of devotion and faith in spiritual development. Here love, or personal devotion, is the most powerful motivation in spiritual life.
The world’s great religions agree on this point. All religions allow for a way of devotion, and millions of men and women have found spiritual fulfillment in devotion to Christ, the Buddha, or Muhammad. Hinduism has allowed a place for the path of knowledge as well as the path of devotion; here, however, the Gita stresses the efficacy of devotion.
The Upanishads, the final word on mystic experience uttered by the Vedas, stressed the ultimate reality, the eternal truth behind the ephemeral things of this world. The teachers of the Upanishads told their students to seek knowledge of the Atman, their true Self. The consummation of this knowledge was to know that the Self within was one with Brahman, the ultimate reality pervading all things. This was encapsulated in the statement Tat tvam asi, “You are that” – that imperishable being, that immortal Reality. Brahman, the nameless, formless Godhead, could be known only in the superconscious state.
The Gita moves away from such an approach to religion. For as Krishna says, seeking an eternal, indefinable, hidden Godhead is rather a tall order for the average (or even above average) person. In fact, in this chapter it is said to be beyond the reach of practically all “embodied beings” (dehavat, “those who have bodies”). This path of wisdom may be just too “spiritual” for earth’s children, because those who identify to a large degree with their physical nature find the way of knowledge too steep a climb. We can turn to one of the Western followers of this path to see why; this is Dionysius the Areopagite, a Christian monk of the fifth century, sounding remarkably like verses 3–4 of this very chapter:
Then, beyond all distinction between knower and known, the aspirant becomes merged in the nameless, formless Reality, wholly absorbed in That which is beyond all things and in nothing else. . . . Having stilled his intellect and mind, he is united by his highest faculty with That which is beyond all knowing.
Fortunately there is the path of love; for when God is loved in personal aspect, the way is vastly easier. According to the Hindu scriptures, God can be loved as a merciful father, a divine mother, a wise friend, a passionate beloved, or even as a mischievous child.
We might turn to the Christian mystics for help here, for most of them have walked the way of love. The medieval Christian work called The Cloud of Unknowing states that love is the sure, safe path to God: “By love He can be gotten and holden, by thought never.” In a well-known passage in the New Testament, St. Paul puts love above knowledge and even above miraculous powers: “But I shall give you a more excellent way. . . . Love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” And St. John of the Cross tells concisely why the vast majority of human beings find it easier to overcome their weaknesses through love than through knowledge:
In order to overcome our desires and to renounce all those things, our love and inclination for which are wont to inflame the will that it delights therein, we require a more ardent fire and a nobler love – that of the Bridegroom. . . . if our spiritual nature were not on fire with other and nobler passions, we should never cast off the yoke of the senses.
But such love is often not forthcoming in the struggling soul, even in one like Arjuna. So Krishna says that if Arjuna is not able to focus his devotion, he should learn to do so through the regular practice of meditation. Even love and devotion can be cultivated through regular practice; they needn’t be regarded as mysterious forces, divine gifts of the spirit.
If even the attempt at regular practice should fail, Krishna is still not ready to let Arjuna admit defeat. He should, Krishna says, work selflessly without desire for the fruits of his labors. But real peace of mind comes only from renunciation. The word tyaga here seems to mean renunciation or abandonment of self-will more than anything else. Such self-surrender may be a last resort, but if it is genuine it brings immediate peace.
Verses 13–20 describe the characteristics of the genuine lover of God. Such a saintly person, Krishna points out, is greatly loved and dear to Krishna himself. –D.M.
12: The Way of Love
ARJUNA
1 Of those steadfast devotees who love you and those who seek you as the eternal formless Reality, who are the more established in yoga?
KRISHNA
2 Those who set their hearts on me and worship me with unfailingdevotion and faith are more established in yoga.
3 As for those who seek the transcendental Reality, without name,without form, contemplating the Unmanifested, beyond the reach of thought and of feeling,
4 with their senses subdued and mind serene and striving for the good of all beings, they too will verily come unto me.
5 Yet hazardous and slow is the path to the Unrevealed, difficult for physical creatures to tread.
6 But they for whom I am the supreme goal, who do all work renouncing self for me and meditate on me with single-hearted devotion,
7 these I will swiftly rescue from the fragment’s cycle of birth and death, for their consciousness has entered into me.
8 Still your mind in me, still your intellect in me, and without doubt you will be united with me forever.
9 If you cannot still your mind in me, learn to do so through the regular practice of meditation.
10 If you lack the will for such self-discipline, engage yourself in my work, for selfless service can lead you at last to complete fulfillment.
11 If you are unable to do even this, surrender yourself to me, disciplining yourself and renouncing the results of all your actions.
12 Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better thanknowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.
13 That one I love who is incapable of ill will, who is friendly andcompassionate. Living beyond the reach of “I” and “mine” and of pleasure and pain,
14 patient, contented, self-controlled, firm in faith, with all their heart and all their mind given to me – with such as these I am in love.
15 Not agitating the world or by it agitated, they stand above thesway of elation, competition, and fear: that one is my beloved.
16 They are detached, pure, efficient, impartial, never anxious,selfless in all their undertakings; they are my devotees, very dear to me.
17 That one is dear to me who runs not after the pleasant or awayfrom the painful, grieves not, lusts not, but lets things come and go as they happen.
18 That devotee who looks upon friend and foe with equal regard,who is not buoyed up by praise nor cast down by blame, alike in heat and cold, pleasure and pain, free from selfish attachments,
19 the same in honor and dishonor, quiet, ever full, in harmony everywhere, firm in faith – such a one is dear to me.
20 Those who meditate upon this immortal dharma as I have declared it, full of faith and seeking me as life’s supreme goal, are truly my devotees, and my love for them is very great.
Chapter Thirteen, The Field & the Knower
This chapter presents us with two sweeping categories: the “field” and the “knower of the field.” To simplify, we may think of the field as the body and the knower of the field as the Self that resides in the body. This chapter, then, is about the duality between “soul and body.” This duality is seen as eternal, a basic division of all things – a fundamental concept elaborated in Sankhya philosophy.
We said that the “field” is the body, but this is not precise enough. The field also includes the mind: in fact, it comprises all the components of prakriti including ahamkara – the awareness each of us has that we are an individual ego, from aham “I” and kara “maker.” Ahamkara is the basic awareness of separateness: that which makes me “I,” a being separate from the rest of creation. In this wide sense the field encompasses everything, except for the elusive consciousness that “knows” the field. The field is the object; the knower is the subject. Krishna is the hidden knower of the field:
that is, the Self.
This term “field” is a surprisingly modern one, for it describes what today we might call an extension of the continuum of mass, energy, time, and space to include the strata of mind as well – in other words, a field of forces both physical and mental. Just as physics no longer regards matter and energy as essentially separate, the Gita would not regard matter and mind as separate; they are different aspects of prakriti, the underlying “stuff” of existence.
Another dimension of Krishna’s use of the word “field” is brought out by a traditional Hindu anecdote. A wandering sadhu or holy man is asked what his work in life is; he replies,
