Bhagavad Gita Chapter 13: The Yoga of the Field and the Knower

Chapter 13 turns analytical: what exactly is a human being? Krishna's frame is the field and its knower. This body is the field; the one who knows it is the knower of the field — and Krishna himself is the knower in all fields (13.2–3). The field is inventoried like a scientist's list: the elements, ego, intellect, senses, desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, consciousness, will (13.6–7). Real knowledge, strikingly, is defined as character: humility, non-violence, patience, service, self-control, dispassion, absence of clinging, equanimity in the desirable and undesirable (13.8–12).

What is to be known is Brahman — with hands and feet everywhere, outside and inside all beings, too subtle to be grasped, very far and very near (13.14–16), the light of all lights beyond darkness (13.18). Nature (prakriti) does the acting; the conscious being (purusha), seated in nature, experiences — and attachment to nature's qualities drives rebirth (13.21–22). The seeing that liberates is stated twice with precision: one who sees the Supreme dwelling equally in all beings, the imperishable within the perishing, truly sees (13.28); as one sun illuminates the whole world, the knower illuminates the whole field (13.34).