Chapter 9
Raja Vidya Yoga
Yoga through the King of Sciences · 34 verses
This chapter is traditionally called Raja Vidya Yoga, the yoga of the king of sciences. Krishna first praises what he is about to teach: the most secret knowledge, realized firsthand in this very life.
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Faith is what lets it take hold; those without it stay in the round of birth and death. All beings rest in him, yet he does not rest in them; he holds and feeds everything while staying unattached, the way wind moves in open space. He sends beings forth and draws them back over each cosmic cycle, presiding while action does not bind him. The deluded slight him in his human form, but the great souls worship him as the source of all. Ritual aimed at heaven runs out and returns; devotion to him does not. He asks for little: a leaf, a flower, water, given with love, and any action offered to him stops binding. Even a person of bad conduct who turns to him with undivided devotion is set right, and birth bars no one. The chapter closes with one practice: fix the mind on him, love him, worship him, bow to him. The schools differ on what reaching him finally means. Advaita Vedanta reads it as becoming one with him; Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, and Shuddhadvaita keep the devotee close to a personal Lord.
- 1The deepest secret is told to the one who finds no fault.
- 2The king of sciences: purifying at the root, known directly, easy, and imperishable.
- 3Faith is the door to this teaching; the faithless turn back to death and rebirth.
- 4All beings rest in the Lord, and he rests in none of them.
- 5He bears and brings forth all beings, yet they do not rest in him.
- 6As the wind rests in space, all beings rest in him, and he stays untouched.
- 7Beings pass into his own nature at the age's end, and he sends them forth again.
- 8He holds nature, and nature holds the beings he sends forth again and again.
- 9The work of creation does not bind its maker, who sits in it unattached.
- 10Nature gives birth under his watch, and by this one cause the world turns.
- 11The deluded slight him for the human form, not knowing his higher nature.
- 12Hope, work, and knowledge all run empty for those sheltered in a deluding nature.
- 13The great soul shelters in the divine nature and worships with a mind on no other.
- 14How the great souls worship him: constantly, and with the whole of themselves.
- 15Knowing God is itself the sacrifice, whether as one, as separate, or as many.
- 16The Lord claims every part of the sacrifice as himself.
- 17Every root of the world, family and sacred word alike, is the one Lord.
- 18Every support a life can lean on, Krishna names as himself.
- 19Heat and rain, death and the deathless: nothing stands apart from him.
- 20The sacrifice that asks for heaven receives heaven, and nothing more.
- 21Heaven won by merit lasts only as long as the merit lasts.
- 22The Lord carries the getting and the keeping of those who think of him alone.
- 23Even worship of other gods reaches me alone, though not in the right way.
- 24Every sacrifice reaches Krishna, its enjoyer and lord; the fall is in not knowing him.
- 25You go to what you worship, and those who worship Krishna come to him.
- 26Even a leaf or a little water, offered with devotion, He eats.
- 27Whatever you do, from eating to austerity, do it as an offering to the Lord.
- 28The offered work cannot bind; freed of good and bad fruit, you come to the Lord.
- 29The same to all beings, yet his devotees are in him and he in them.
- 30Even one of the worst conduct, worshipping him alone, is to be held good.
- 31The turning is swift, and the Lord pledges that his devotee does not perish.
- 32Even those barred by birth, taking refuge in him, reach the supreme goal.
- 33This fleeting, joyless world is itself the reason to worship now.
- 34Turn the whole of yourself to Him, and you will come to Him.