Chapter 15

1. The Blessed One said:
   It is said that there is an eternal banyan tree with its roots above, and its branches below. The leaves are the scriptures. And anyone who knows this tree is a knower of the scriptures.
2. Its branches extend downwards and upwards. They develop from the gunas. Its twigs are the objects of the senses. The tree's roots extend downward, where they are entangled by action in the world.
3. The form of this tree is not visible in this dimension. Never does it end and never does it begin, and never does it have a foundation. This banyan tree with its strong roots must be cut down with the weapon of detachment. This takes great strength.
4. After cutting it one must be watchful to find that place where, once you go, you will never return. One must surrender to the original individuality, from whom all things have come in the beginning, aeons ago.
5. Without false pride and illusion, having conquered faulty associations, eternally in the meditation of the soul, detached from lust, liberated from the duality of joy and sorrow, those who are like this gain eternal clarity.
6. My great abode is not lit by the sun or the moon, nor by any other energy. Those who go there never come back.
7. The part of me that is in the world as a living being is eternal as well. But it must struggle with the mind, and the rest of the senses, that work in the material.
8. As the body acquires various things, the body loses its inner Mastery. In taking all these things one moves away from Mastery, just as the scents will be carried away from a flower by the air.
9. Hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling, and the mind. These are all the senses which one will experience.
10. Foolish people cannot see that anyone who is in a body will lose their body, eventually. They are too busy existing under the spell of the gunas. But those who have the eyes of awareness can see this.
11. Those who work in yoga can also see this, if they are centered in their soul. But those who have not yet realized the soul will not see this yet, as their consciousness is not yet developed.
12. The sunshine, that by its splendour illuminates the entire world, and the splendour of the moon, and fire; understand that all of this comes from me.
13. Entering the planets and all the living beings, I sustain them by my energy. I nourish the vegetables and all drugs, becoming the juices that make these nourishing.
14. I become the ability to eat in all beings. And the inward and outward breath, which together with the digestion of the four kinds of food keeps the body in balance.
15. I am in the heart of all living beings. From me comes memory, awareness, and forgetfulness. And I am the writer of all the known scriptures, and the knower of their teachings.
16. There are two classes of beings in this world: the restricted and the unrestricted. It is said that all living beings in themselves are restricted, but in the oneness they are unrestricted.
17. But it is said that there is also a third class, the greatest individual, the supersoul. He who is inside the threefold worlds, maintains them, and is himself the infinite Master.
18. I am transcendent to both the restricted and the unrestricted, the greatest. Thus I am praised in the world and in the scriptures as the greatest individual.
19. Anyone who views me as such, without doubt, as the greatest individual, he is the knower of all. He will perform service for me in everything he does, scion of Bharata.
20. This is the most secret of the scriptures disclosed by me, sinless one. Being enlightened by this, one becomes enlightenment, and thus all his doings will be right, scion of Bharata.

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