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Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 9
The Most Confidential Knowledge

Lord Krishna is the Supreme Godhead, and the supreme object of worship. The soul is eternally related to Him through transcendental devotional service [bhakti]. By reviving one's pure devotion, one returns to Krishna in the spiritual realm.

The Supreme Lord said: 

1 My dear Arjuna, because you are never envious of Me, I shall impart to you this most secret wisdom, knowing which you shall be relieved of the miseries of material existence. 2 This knowledge is the King of Education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the Self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed.

3 Those who are not faithful on the path of devotional service cannot attain Me, O conqueror of foes, but return to birth and death in this material world.

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4 By Me - in My unmanifested form - this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them.

5 And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold [aanschouw] My mystic opulence [rijkdom, weelde, overvloed]! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities, and although I am everywhere, still My Self is the very source of creation. 6 As the mighty wind - blowing everywhere - always rests in ethereal space, know that in the same manner all beings rest in Me.

7 O son of Kunti, at the end of the millennium every material manifestation enters into My nature, and at the beginning of another millennium, by My potency I again create. 8 The whole cosmic order is under Me. By My will it is manifested again and again, and by My will it is annihilated at the end.

9 O Dhananjaya [Arjuna], all this work cannot bind Me. I am ever detached, seated as though neutral.

10 This material nature is working under My direction, O son of Kunti, and it is producing all moving and unmoving beings. By its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again.

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11 Fools deride [bespotten] Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be. 12 Those who are thus bewildered [verbijsterd] are attracted by demonic and atheistic views. In that deluded [begoochelde] condition, their hopes for liberation, their fruitive activities, and their culture of knowledge are all defeated.

13 O son of Pritha, those who are not deluded - the great souls - are under the protection of the divine nature. They are fully engaged in devotional service because they knów Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, original and inexhaustible.

14 Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpetually worship Me with devotion.

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15 Others, who are engaged in the cultivation of knowledge, worship the Supreme Lord as the one without a second, diverse in many, and in the universal form. 16 But it is I who am the ritual, I the sacrifice, the offering to the ancestors, the healing herb, the transcendental chant. I am the butter ánd the fire ánd the offering.

17 I am the father of this universe, the mother, the support, and the grandsire. I am the object of knowledge, the purifier and the syllable OM. I am also the Rig, the Sama, and the Yajur [3/4 Vedas]. 18 I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge and the most dear friend. I am the creation and the annihilation, the basis of everything, the resting place and the eternal seed.

19 O Arjuna, I control heat, the rain and the drought. I am immortality, and I am also death personified. Both being and non-being are in Me.