Purushottama Yoga

The world as an upside-down tree, rooted above and branching below. Cut it with the axe of detachment, says Krishna. Find the root.

All 20 verses below.

Wisdom translation, edited by Ankur Shukla. Commentary AI-drafted, human-reviewed. Reviewed June 2026. Methodology →

Verses

• 15.1Understanding the world-tree is the beginning of true understanding.
• 15.2Craving and action keep the world-tree growing in every direction.
• 15.3What traps you has no fixed form; detachment cuts it cleanly.
• 15.4The final refuge is a state where return itself stops.
• 15.5Freedom begins when pride, craving, and inner division fall away.
• 15.6The highest home is beyond every ordinary light and beyond return.
• 15.7What is eternal gets pulled around by what changes.
• 15.8The body changes, but the carried pattern moves on.
• 15.9Experience passes through mind and senses; it does not define the true self.
• 15.10What changes is seen by the wise; the true self is not what moves.
• 15.11Seeing the supreme reality depends on inner purification, not effort alone.
• 15.12Every brightness in the world points back to one source.
• 15.13Life is nourished from within by the same presence that holds it together.
• 15.14The divine is already working inside your body as life itself.
• 15.15The deepest knowing comes from the one already dwelling within every heart.
• 15.16What changes is not the whole of you.
• 15.17Even the imperishable witness is not the final reality.
• 15.18The highest reality lies beyond both change and permanence.
• 15.19Clear seeing of the Supreme Self becomes total devotion.
• 15.20Secret knowledge makes a person complete.