Capter XV
All-Pervading Divine Person
The Blessed Lord said:
1. The scriptures speak of the eternal Ashvattha, the World Tree, whose roots are in the
Most High, branches in the lower regions, and leaves in Vedic hymns. He who knows it,
understands the Veda really.
2. Nourished by the Gunas and covered with the budding foliage of sense objects, its
branches spread into regions high and low. Stretching forth on the ground below in the
world of men, are its secondary roots, entangling man in the bondage of action.
3-4. For one involved in worldly life, the form of the World-Tree is not visible, nor its
origin, nor its end, nor its foundation. Cutting asunder the firmly rooted Ashvattha (World-
Tree) with the powerful axe of non-attachment, and saying, "I seek refuge in that Primeval
Person from whom this eternal cosmic activity has streamed forth", man should seek that
Status, attaining to which there is no more return to this life of Samsara.
5. They who are free from pride and delusion, who have no attachments, who are ever
absorbed in spiritual pursuits, who are free from all worldly desires, who are unaffected by
the varying situations of pleasurable and painful nature - such persons, freed from
ignorance, attain to the Eternal State.
6. That the sun does not illumine, nor the moon, nor the fire; (for it is the Light of Pure
Consciousness). Having attained It, the Spirit does not return again to the life of Samsara.
Such is My Supreme Abode.
7. A fragment of Myself, immortal in nature, having become the embodied spirit in the
world of the living, attracts to Himself the mind and the five senses born of Prakriti.
8. When he gets a new body or abandons an old one, the Jiva, the lord of the body, moves,
carrying them (the mind and the senses) with him, as the wind carries smells from their
seats (in flowers and the like).
9. In identification with the senses like hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell, this Jiva
experiences their respective objects.
10. The deluded do not recognise the Spirit (Jiva) when, in identification with the Gunas, he
tenates or leaves a body, or when he experiences objects through it; but those endowed
with the eye of wisdom do.
11. The striving contemplatives perceive the Atman within themselves, but not the impure
and the unregenerate, though they be striving.
12. That light of the sun which illumines the whole universe, which is present in the moon
and in fire likewise - know that splendour to be Mine.
13. Entering the earth by My spiritual energy, I sustain all beings residing in it. As the
watery moon, I nourish all herbs.
14. Based in the body of living beings, I manifest as the digestive Fire, Vaishvanara, and in
combination with the vital energies known as Prana and Apana, digest the four kinds of
food taken by them.
15. I abide in the hearts of all. By My' will both the dawn and effacement of memory (of
past births) and of supersensuous knowledge take place. The original teacher of the
Vedanta I am, as also the knower of all Vedas.
16. It is well known that there are two types of Purushas (spirits or categories) - the Kshara
or the Perishable and Akshara, the Imperishable. The Kshara consists of all the Jivas in
embodiment who are subject to change, while the Akshara consists of the collectivity of
liberated Jivas who remain aloof from changeful matter and are unaffected by it; (or in the
alternative, the Creative Power Maya-shakti, which is the source of all falsity and the cause
of endless Samsara).
17. But there is yet another Purusha, known as the Supreme Being or the Purushottama,
who is the highest of spirits, and who pervades all the three worlds and sustains them.
18. As I transcend the Perishable and am also superior to the Imperishable, I am well-
known as the Purusottama (the Supreme Being) in both the Vedic and secular literature.
19. He who knows Me in this way as the Purushottama, he understands the true nature of
this Totality, and he loves and adores Me with his whole being.
20. O sinless one! This spiritual doctrine, the most profound of all in the sacred lore, has
now been revealed by Me. A true understanding of it makes a man really wise and
established in a sense of total fulfilment.
The Blessed Lord said:
1. The scriptures speak of the eternal Ashvattha, the World Tree, whose roots are in the
Most High, branches in the lower regions, and leaves in Vedic hymns. He who knows it,
understands the Veda really.
2. Nourished by the Gunas and covered with the budding foliage of sense objects, its
branches spread into regions high and low. Stretching forth on the ground below in the
world of men, are its secondary roots, entangling man in the bondage of action.
3-4. For one involved in worldly life, the form of the World-Tree is not visible, nor its
origin, nor its end, nor its foundation. Cutting asunder the firmly rooted Ashvattha (World-
Tree) with the powerful axe of non-attachment, and saying, "I seek refuge in that Primeval
Person from whom this eternal cosmic activity has streamed forth", man should seek that
Status, attaining to which there is no more return to this life of Samsara.
5. They who are free from pride and delusion, who have no attachments, who are ever
absorbed in spiritual pursuits, who are free from all worldly desires, who are unaffected by
the varying situations of pleasurable and painful nature - such persons, freed from
ignorance, attain to the Eternal State.
6. That the sun does not illumine, nor the moon, nor the fire; (for it is the Light of Pure
Consciousness). Having attained It, the Spirit does not return again to the life of Samsara.
Such is My Supreme Abode.
7. A fragment of Myself, immortal in nature, having become the embodied spirit in the
world of the living, attracts to Himself the mind and the five senses born of Prakriti.
8. When he gets a new body or abandons an old one, the Jiva, the lord of the body, moves,
carrying them (the mind and the senses) with him, as the wind carries smells from their
seats (in flowers and the like).
9. In identification with the senses like hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell, this Jiva
experiences their respective objects.
10. The deluded do not recognise the Spirit (Jiva) when, in identification with the Gunas, he
tenates or leaves a body, or when he experiences objects through it; but those endowed
with the eye of wisdom do.
11. The striving contemplatives perceive the Atman within themselves, but not the impure
and the unregenerate, though they be striving.
12. That light of the sun which illumines the whole universe, which is present in the moon
and in fire likewise - know that splendour to be Mine.
13. Entering the earth by My spiritual energy, I sustain all beings residing in it. As the
watery moon, I nourish all herbs.
14. Based in the body of living beings, I manifest as the digestive Fire, Vaishvanara, and in
combination with the vital energies known as Prana and Apana, digest the four kinds of
food taken by them.
15. I abide in the hearts of all. By My' will both the dawn and effacement of memory (of
past births) and of supersensuous knowledge take place. The original teacher of the
Vedanta I am, as also the knower of all Vedas.
16. It is well known that there are two types of Purushas (spirits or categories) - the Kshara
or the Perishable and Akshara, the Imperishable. The Kshara consists of all the Jivas in
embodiment who are subject to change, while the Akshara consists of the collectivity of
liberated Jivas who remain aloof from changeful matter and are unaffected by it; (or in the
alternative, the Creative Power Maya-shakti, which is the source of all falsity and the cause
of endless Samsara).
17. But there is yet another Purusha, known as the Supreme Being or the Purushottama,
who is the highest of spirits, and who pervades all the three worlds and sustains them.
18. As I transcend the Perishable and am also superior to the Imperishable, I am well-
known as the Purusottama (the Supreme Being) in both the Vedic and secular literature.
19. He who knows Me in this way as the Purushottama, he understands the true nature of
this Totality, and he loves and adores Me with his whole being.
20. O sinless one! This spiritual doctrine, the most profound of all in the sacred lore, has
now been revealed by Me. A true understanding of it makes a man really wise and
established in a sense of total fulfilment.