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 7
Verse 7
Hard VerseThe Yoga of the Field and the Knower of the Field
Desire, hatred, pleasure, pain, the aggregate, consciousness, and steadfastness — this, in summary, is the field with its modifications.
Context & Meaning
The enumeration of the field concludes with the psychological and experiential dimensions: desire (icchā), aversion (dveṣa), pleasure (sukha), pain (duḥkha), the aggregate (saṅghāta — the composite whole of body and mind), consciousness as it appears through the field (cetanā), and steadfastness or holding together (dhṛti). These are the experiential modifications of the field — the felt life of a person. Crucially, even consciousness as experienced through the field is listed as part of the field, not as the pure knower. This is one of the most sophisticated moves in the Gita's philosophy.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainAdi Shankaracharya
AdvaitaCetanā — experiential consciousness — is listed here as part of the field. This does not mean consciousness itself is material. It means that consciousness as it appears conditioned by matter — as the felt sense of being a person with desires and aversions — is itself a modification of the field. The pure witness-consciousness that knows even this experiential consciousness is the true kṣetrajña.