Chapter 9

 Rājavidyārājaguhyayoga

Union through Royal Knowledge and Royal Mystery

(Sanskrit terms and names can be clicked for explanation)

The Holy One said:

But I shall declare to you who doesn’t carp that most secret knowledge together with [its] discernment, by knowing which you shall be freed from evil. (1)

It is the royal science, the royal mystery. It is the best purifier; obvious to the apprehension, in accordance with right, pleasurable to practice, imperishable. (2)

The men, O Harasser of foes! who disbelieve in this truth [dharmasyāya], not attaining to me, return in the way of the death circuit [rebirth: mṛtyusaṁsāravartmani] (3)

By me in my incorporeal [unmanifest: avyaktamūrtinā] form all this universe has been spread forth. All beings subsist from me; but I don’t exist from them. (4)

And yet beings do not subsist from me. See my lordly union [yoga]! Bearing beings and causing beings to be, yet my self is not in beings. (5)

As the great air with goes everywhere constantly abides in the ākāśa, thus consider all beings as subsisting from me. (6)

All beings, O son of Kuntī, enter my nature [prakṛtim] at the end of the kalpa. At the beginning of a kalpa, I pour them forth again. (7)

Relying on innate nature [prakṛtim svām] [or: having recourse to my own nature], from the necessity of nature [prakṛtervaśāt], I pour them forth again. (8)

These acts do not ensnare me, O Dhanañjaya, who remain as one indifferent, and unattached to these acts. (9)

By me exercising supervision, nature [prakṛtiḥ] bringeth forth both the moving and the unmoving [animate and inanimate]. By this cause, O son of Kuntī, the world resolves. (10)

The deluded treat me with contempt [because I have] assumed a human from. They do not know my highest being as the great lore of entities. (11)

[They are] of vain hopes, vain acts, vain knowledge, stupid, stupid, wedded to the illusive nature of the rākṣasas and asuras. (12)

But they of great self [mahātmānas], O son of Pṛthā, who incline to divine nature, choose me, with minds directed nowhere else, knowing me to be the imperishable origin of beings: (13)

Ever celebrating me, self-controlled and firm of will; and making obeisance to me with trust, they serve, constantly devoted. (14)

Others again by making the offering of knowledge [by knowledge] serve me, as pervading all things [viśvatamukham] by unity, by division, in many ways. (15)

I am the kratu, I am the sacrifice, I am the svadhā, I am the aushadha, I am the mantra, I also am the ājya, I am the fire, I am the offering. (16)

I am the father of this universe, the mother, the arranger, the ancestor, the thing to be known, the means to purification, the syllable Oṁ, the Ṛk, the Sāman,, and the Yajus too. (17)

I am the path, the supporter, the ruler, the witness, the dwelling, the refuse, the friend, the production [prabhavaḥ: origin], the dissolution [pralayaḥ], the continuance, the preservation, the undecaying seed. (18)

I cause heat, I restrain and pour forth rain. I am immortality, and death as well; I am being and non-being, O Arjuna! (19)

They who possess the three branches of knowledge, who drink the soma, who are cleaned of their sins, who have strived for the world of the gods [svar-gatiṁ] by sacrifices, desire me: these (indeed) having attained to the holy region of the chief of the gods [surendra lokam], partake of the celestial pleasures of the god in the celestial spheres [divi] (20)

Having enjoyed that widespread celestial region, with the exhaustion of merit they re-enter the mortal sphere. Thus they who follow the rule of the three [branches of the law] [and yet] are [full of] longing, obtain going and coming. (21)

To those men, who, with thought directed solely to me, reverence me, and who are constant in application thereto, I bring security in yoga [yogakṣema]. (22)

They who choosing other divinities venerate them with real trust, even these, O son of Kuntī, venerate me, albeit irregularly. (23)

For I am the enjoyer and also the lord of all sacrifices. But they don’t understand me with truth. Hence they fall. (24)

Those who are devoted to the gods [devavratā], go to the gods; those go to the pitṛs who are devoted to the pitṛs [pitṛvratāḥ], those go to the bhūtas who venerate bhūtas, and those who venerate me go to me. (25)

He who offers me leaf, flower, fruit, water, with trust, such an offering made from one of controlled self, I accept. (26)

Whatever you do, whatever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you give, whatever you do in penance, O son of Kuntī, commit it to me. (27)

Thus you shall be freed from the bonds of action [karmabandhanaiḥ], consisting of good and evil results. With self-intent on renunciation and union [yoga]. And free, you shall attain to me. (28)

I am the same in all beings. I have no foe and no friends. But they who choose with trust are in me, and I too am in them. (29)

If even a man of very evil conduct chooses me, with no other choice in mind, even he is to be considered as good, for he has chosen properly. (30)

He quickly becomes of upright nature [self], and enters into lasting peace, O son of Kuntī! Know that one devoted to me is never lost. (31)

For even they, O son of Pṛthā, who may be in a stake of birth resulting from sin [pāpayonayaḥ], women, vaiśyas, and śūdras, taking refuge, thread the highest path. (32)

How then about holy Brāhmaṇas and devoted royal ṛṣis [rājaṛṣayas]? having, then, obtained this transient world of sorrow, choose me! (33)

Fix your mind on me, be my devotee, my worshiper. Reverence me. Intent on me, and thus concentrating thyself, verily you shall go to me. (34)

Thus in the Holy

Bhagavad-Gītā. The ninth

chapter, by name —

Rājavidyārājaguhyayoga

Union through Royal Knowledge and Royal Mystery