Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 13, Verse 15
Verse 15
Hard VerseThe Yoga of the Field and the Knower of the Field
Shining through the functions of all senses, yet without any senses; unattached, yet the sustainer of all; free from the Gunas, yet the experiencer of the Gunas—
Context & Meaning
A cascade of paradoxes that describe Brahman's unique mode of being: it appears to perceive through all senses yet has no senses of its own; it is completely unattached yet sustains everything in existence; it is beyond the three qualities (nirguṇa) yet is somehow the experiencer of those qualities (guṇabhoktṛ). These paradoxes are not logical failures — they are honest acknowledgments of the limits of ordinary conceptual categories when applied to the infinite. Brahman exceeds every pair of opposites while somehow encompassing both.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainAdi Shankaracharya
AdvaitaThe paradoxes of this verse point to Brahman's transcendence of the subject-object structure of ordinary knowledge. Brahman knows without having sense organs; it sustains without being attached; it is the ground of the guṇas without being modified by them. The consciousness that knows the field is itself untouched by what it knows — like the sun that illuminates all things without being touched by any of them.