Chapter 15

Krishna spoke:

People call the Aswattha—the banyan tree—with its branches reaching down and its roots above, the eternal sacred tree. Truly, its leaves are like green, rustling hymns whispering truth. Whoever understands the Aswattha understands the Vedas and everything besides.

Its branches stretch up toward heaven and sink down toward earth, just as human deeds take their birth from the qualities of nature. Its silvery shoots and blossoms, all the vigorous green encircling it, spring quickly to life at the touch of sun and air—just as human lives are quickened by the alluring temptations of the senses. Its hanging rootlets reach down into the soil to anchor it there, just as the actions performed in this human world bind people again with ever-tightening cords.

If you truly understood the lesson of this tree—what its shape reveals, where it springs from, and how it must end, along with all its troubles—you would sharpen the axe of detachment, cut through its clinging, snake-like roots, and lay this Aswattha of sense-life low. In its place, new growth would rise toward a happier sky. Those who reach that sky will know no day of dying, no fading, no falling—they go to Him, I mean, the Father and First, who fashioned the mystery of creation long ago. To Him come those who break free from passion and illusion, who sever the bonds that tie them to flesh, and who worship Him, the Highest, always. They are no longer left to the mercy of whatever summer breeze of pleasure stirs the sleeping trees, or whatever storm wind tears them, branch and trunk. Such souls pass on to the eternal world.

A different sun shines there, a different moon, another light—neither dusk nor dawn nor noon. Those who once behold it never return; they have reached My rest, the highest gift of life.

When, in this world of manifest life, the undying Spirit sets out from Me and takes on a form, it draws to itself from the storehouse of Being—which contains everything—the senses and the intellect. The Sovereign Soul, entering the flesh or leaving it, gathers these up the way the wind gathers fragrances as it blows across flower beds. Ear and eye, touch, taste, and smell—it takes them all up, along with a thinking mind, and so links itself to the world of sense.

The unenlightened do not notice this Spirit when it goes or comes, nor when it takes pleasure in the form, joined with the qualities. But those with eyes to see perceive it clearly. Holy souls who strive for it, once awakened, perceive the Spirit within themselves; but the foolish, even when they try, do not discern it, because their hearts are unkindled and their understanding is poor.

Know this too: from Me streams the gathered radiance of the suns that light the world. From Me the moons draw their silvery beams, and fire its fierce beauty. I enter the earth and lend all forms their living force. I flow into the plant—root, leaf, and bloom—making the woodlands green with rising sap. Becoming vital warmth, I glow in breathing bodies, and pass with inward and outward breath to nourish every body through all the foods it takes.

In this world, Being is of two kinds: the Divided and the Undivided. All living things are “the Divided.” That which sits apart is “the Undivided.”

Higher still is He, the Highest, holding all, whose name is LORD—the Eternal, Sovereign, First—who fills and sustains all worlds. Dwelling beyond both Divided and Undivided Being, I am called by people and by the Vedas the Supreme Life, the PURUSHOTTAMA.

Whoever knows Me thus, with a clear mind, knows everything, dear Prince, and worships Me with his whole soul forever.

Now I have declared to you the sacred, secret mystery. Whoever understands this has wisdom; he is freed from works and rests in bliss.

Here ends Chapter XV of the Bhagavad-Gita, called “Purushottamapraptiyog,” or “The Book of Religion by Attaining the Supreme.”