59 pages • 1 hour read
Swami Prabhavananda, Transl. Christopher IsherwoodBhagavad Gita
Nonfiction | Scripture | Adult | Published in 1972A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Field and Its Knower”
Arjuna returns to his questions. He asks Krishna about the objects of wisdom such as the body and the spirit. Krishna explains the concept of the Field. The Field is many things. It includes an awareness of the self, insight, the human senses, the body, thoughts, desires, pleasures, hatred, and pain. The Field is a metaphor for the body and the body is composed of more than just the physical feelings and senses. A free person can understand the Field and comprehend how the body and the spirit are both separate and different.
The body also includes the spirit and the mind. The Field also contains patience; an absence of deceit, harm, and arrogance; purity; restraint; an indifference to the senses and the self; the ability not to rely on earthly desires and the results of one’s actions; and the use of yoga as an expression of devotion to Krishna. All of these qualities are contained in the wisdom of the self.
A person can become immortal if they can understand the divine force that links everything together. This force is named Brahman and it is not a being and it is not a non-being.
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