BG 7.1: The Lord said: With your mind focussed on Me, having Me for your support and practising Yoga—how you can without doubt know Me fully, hear, O Arjuna.

BG 7.2: I will declare to you in full, this knowledge (of God) along with the knowledge which makes it distinguished (Vijñana), knowing which nothing else remains to be known.

BG 7.3: Among thousands of men, some one strives for perfection; even among those who strive for perfection, some one only knows Me; and among those who know Me, some one only knows Me in reality .

BG 7.4: Earth, water, fire, air, ether, Manas, Buddhi and ego-sense—thus My Prakrti is divided eightfold.

BG 7.5: This is My lower Prakrti. But, O mighty-armed One, know that My higher nature is another. It is the life-principle (Jiva-bhuta), by which this universe is sustained.

BG 7.6: Know that all beings have these two for the source of their birth. Therefore, I am the origin and the dissolution of the whole universe.

BG 7.7: There is nothing higher than Myself, O Arjuna. All this is strung on Me, as rows of gems on a thread.

BG 7.8: I am the taste in the waters, O Arjuna! I am the light in the sun and the moon; the sacred syllable Om in all the Vedas; sound in the ether, and manhood in men am I.

BG 7.9: I am the pure smell in the earth; I am the brilliance in the fire; I am the life-principle in all beings, and austerity in ascetics.

BG 7.10: Know Me to be, O Arjuna, the primeval seed of all beings. I am the intelligence of the discerning, and the brilliance of the brilliant.

BG 7.11: In the strong, I am strength, devoid of desire and passion. In all beings, I am the desire which is not forbidden by law (Dharma), O Arjuna.

BG 7.12: Know that all those states of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are from Me alone. But I am not in them; they are in Me.

BG 7.13: The entire universe is deluded by these three states originating from the Gunas (of Prakrti), and fails to recognise Me, who am beyond them and immutable.

BG 7.14: For this divine Maya of Mine consisting of the three Gunas (assumed for purposes of sport) is hard to overcome but those who take refuge in Me (Prapadyante) alone shall pass beyond the Maya.

BG 7.15: The evil-doers, the foolish, the lowest of men, those persons deprived of knowledge by delusion (Maya) and those who are dominated by demoniac nature—they do not seek refuge in Me.

BG 7.16: Four types of men of good deeds worship Me, O Arjuna, These are the distressed, the seekers after knowledge, the wealth-seekers, and the men of knowledge.

BG 7.17: Of these, the man of knowledge, being ever with Me in Yoga and devoted to the One only, is the foremost; for I am very dear to the man of knowledge and he too is dear to Me.

BG 7.18: All these are indeed generous (udarah), but I deem the man of knowledge to be My very self; for he, integrated, is devoted to Me alone as the highest end.

BG 7.19: At the end of many births, the man of knowledge finds refuge in Me, realising that ‘Vasudeva is all.’ It is very hard to find such a great-souled person.

BG 7.20: Controlled by their inherent nature, and deprived of knowledge by various desires, worldly-minded men resort to other gods, observing various disciplines.

BG 7.21: Whichever devotee seeks to worship with faith whatever form, I make that very faith steadfast.

BG 7.22: Endowed with that faith, he worships that form and thence gets the objects of his desire, granted in reality by Me alone.

BG 7.23: But limited is the fruit gained by these men of small understanding. The worshippers of the gods will go to the gods but My devotees will come to Me.

BG 7.24: Not knowing My higher nature, immutable and unsurpassed, the ignorant think of Me as an unmanifest entity who has now become manifest.

BG 7.25: Veiled by My Maya, I am not manifest to all. This deluded world does not recognize Me as the unborn and immutable.

BG 7.26: I know all beings, O Arjuna, past, present and those to come; but no one knows Me.

BG 7.27: By the delusion of the pairs of opposites springing from desire and hate, O Arjuna, all beings are deluded as soon as they are born.

BG 7.28: But the doers of good deeds, whose sins have come to an end, are freed from the delusion of the pairs of opposites. They worship Me, steadfast in their vows.

BG 7.29: Those who take refuge in Me and strive for deliverance from old age and death, know brahman (or the self) all about the nature of that self, and the entire Karma (or activities leading to rebirth).

BG 7.30: And those who know Me with the Adhibhuta, Adhidaiva and the Adhiyajña, they too, with their minds fixed in meditation, know Me even at the hour of death.