Chapter 7, Verses 20-30

The block

Eleven verses closing Chapter 7. 7.20–7.23 address those who worship other gods for limited desires (they get limited results). 7.24–7.25 explain why people misperceive Krishna: he is veiled by his own yoga-maya. 7.26–7.27 assert Krishna’s omniscience (past, present, future). 7.28–7.30 introduce six technical terms (adhyatma, adhibhuta, adhidaiva, adhiyajna, plus brahman and karma) that Ch 8 will develop.

Translation (compressed)

• 20. Those whose knowledge is carried off by various desires approach other deities, observing the relevant practices, compelled by their own nature.
• 21. Whichever form a devotee worships with faith, I confirm their faith in that form.
• 22. Yoked with that faith, they engage in propitiation and obtain their desires — but the fruits are, in truth, granted only by Me.
• 23. These fruits are finite, attained by the small-minded. Worshippers of devas go to the devas; My devotees come to Me.
• 24. The unwise, not knowing My higher, imperishable, unsurpassed nature, regard Me as having merely come into being from an unmanifest state.
• 25. nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ; mūḍho ‘yaṁ nābhijānāti loko mām ajam avyayam. I am not manifest to all, veiled by my yoga-maya; the deluded world does not know Me — unborn, unchanging.
• 26. I know the beings of the past, the present, and the yet-to-come, O Arjuna; but no one knows Me.
• 27. By the delusion of pairs of opposites, O Bharata, born of desire and aversion, all beings are subject to confusion at birth.
• 28. But those whose sin has come to an end, whose action is pure (puṇya-karmāṇām) — they, freed from the dualities, worship Me with firm resolve.
• 29. Those who take refuge in Me, striving for freedom from old age and death — they know Brahman entire, the whole adhyatma, and karma in its entirety.
• 30. Those who know Me along with the adhibhuta, the adhidaiva, and the adhiyajna — even at the hour of death, with yoked mind — they know Me.

Concepts discussed

• yoga-maya — Krishna’s self-veiling power (7.25) (red link)
• avatara — 7.24’s misperception of the avatara as “having come to be”
• dvandva — 7.27’s pairs-of-opposites as the confusion-mechanism
• adhyatma, adhibhuta, adhidaiva, adhiyajna — 7.29–7.30’s six technical terms that Ch 8 will unpack (all red links)
• karma — 7.29 names; with atman, karma, and adhyatma known together
• moksha / jarā-maraṇa-mokṣāya — 7.29’s “freedom from old age and death”

Swami’s commentary

7.20–7.23 — worship of other gods. Krishna does not reject the worship of devas (minor deities); he relativizes it. Kāmais tais tair hṛta-jñānāḥ prapadyante ‘nya-devatāḥ. Those pulled by various desires approach various deities — Lakshmi for wealth, Saraswati for learning, Hanuman for strength, and so on. Their worship is legitimate in its own terms. The results follow:

• 7.21 — whichever form they worship, Krishna confirms that faith (tasya tasya acalām śraddhām tām eva vidadhāmy aham). The devotees’ faith in their chosen form is supported by Krishna himself — so all the devas are ultimately channels for Krishna’s response.
• 7.22 — they get what they ask for. Their desires are fulfilled.
• 7.23 — antavat tu phalaṁ teṣāṁ tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām; devān deva-yajo yānti mad-bhaktā yānti mām api. “Their fruits are finite, for the small-minded. Deva-worshippers go to devas; My devotees come to Me.”

The criterion is aim, not method. If you aim at a finite good (wealth, long life, a particular rebirth), that is what you attain. If you aim at Krishna — moksha — that is what you attain. The devas are finite; moksha is not. The choice is the worshipper’s.

7.24–7.25 — yoga-maya veiling. Avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannam manyante mām abuddhayaḥ; paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mamāvyayam anuttamam. “The unwise, not knowing My higher unchanging unsurpassed nature, regard Me — the unmanifest — as having come into manifestation” (7.24). The typical mistake: Krishna looks like another human being born from a womb; ordinary perception registers him that way; only the perceptive see the divine reality under the apparent ordinariness.

7.25’s explanation: nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ. “I am not manifest to all — veiled by my yoga-maya.”

Yoga-maya — an important technical term. Distinguished from maya in the general sense:

• Maya (general) — the deluding power that makes beings take appearance for reality.
• Yoga-maya — the specific veiling by which the avatara’s divinity is hidden from ordinary perception.

The avatara walks among humans, looks like a human, eats, sleeps, ages; the divine form is present but veiled. Only those with the seeing — devotees, jnanis, the receptive — perceive what is there. Yoga-maya is not deception; it is a filter that lets reality pass through at the viewer’s capacity. The jnani sees the divine through; the ordinary person sees only the human. Same avatara; different perception.

Ch 11’s vishvarupa-darshana will be Arjuna asking Krishna to lift the yoga-maya and show the full divine form. Krishna will oblige — and the intensity of what is seen justifies why yoga-maya covers it in ordinary circumstances. Most beings could not bear the undiluted vision.

7.26 — omniscience. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni vartamānāni cārjuna; bhaviṣyāṇi ca bhūtāni māṁ tu veda na kaścana. “I know the beings of the past, the present, the yet-to-come — but no one knows Me.” Two-fold: Krishna’s omniscience extends to all beings across time; yet Krishna himself remains unknown because knowing Krishna means becoming Krishna (as 7.19’s mahatma knows because they have become).

7.27–7.28 — why beings don’t know. Icchā-dveṣa-samutthena dvandva-mohena bhārata; sarva-bhūtāni sammohaṁ sarge yānti parantapa. “By the delusion of pairs of opposites, born of desire and aversion, all beings fall into confusion at birth.” The raga-dvesha diagnostic from Ch 3 returns: the binary structure of desire-and-aversion is what fabricates samsara from moment to moment.

7.28 gives the release: yeṣāṁ tv anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām. “Those whose sin has come to an end, whose action is pure.” Chitta-shuddhi is the condition. Dharmic life purifies; purification releases the dvandva-grip; freedom from dvandva allows firm devotion.

7.29–7.30 — the six terms. Ch 7 closes by introducing six technical terms without defining them (Chapter 8 will define them):

• Brahman — the absolute
• adhyātma — the self-principle in the embodied
• karma — action in its technical sense
• adhibhūta — the principle governing all created beings
• adhidaiva — the principle of the devas (celestial order)
• adhiyajña — the principle of yajna (who is worshipped in yajna)

The verses end asking: those who know these six, with yoked mind even at death — they know Me. The list foreshadows Chapter 8 (which opens with Arjuna asking Krishna to define each term). Ch 7 closes on a cliffhanger of terminology that Ch 8 will resolve.

Episode 97 [entire]: 7.20–7.23 on worship-of-other-gods and aim-determines-fruit; 7.24–7.25 on yoga-maya veiling the avatara; 7.26’s Krishna-knows-all-but-no-one-knows-Krishna; 7.27–7.28 on the dvandva-confusion and its release; 7.29–7.30 as the bridge to Ch 8, introducing six terms.