An eternal portion of Me alone becomes the individual soul in the world of the living. Drawing to itself the six senses including the mind, which abide in Prakriti.

This verse contains one of the Gita's most intimate revelations: the individual soul (jīva) is an eternal portion (sanātana aṃśa) of God Himself. Not a temporary emanation, not an illusion, not a mechanical product of matter — but an eternal fragment of the Divine. Yet in taking embodied form, this fragment draws to itself the six senses — the five senses plus the mind — which belong to Prakriti (nature). The result is the familiar human experience: a divine spark dressed in a natural instrument, pulled in multiple directions, often forgetting its own origin. This verse is a diagnosis of the human condition: divine in nature, but obscured by the machinery of sense and mind that the soul has, in some sense, chosen to operate.