Chapter V Sloka 29

-aeKtar< y}tpsa< svRlaekmheñrm!,
suùd< svR-Utana< }aTva ma< zaiNtm&CDit.

` tTsidit ïImdœ -gvÌItasUpin;Tsu
äüiv*aya< yaegzaôe ïIk«:[ajuRns<vade
s<Nyasyaegae nam p<cmae=Xyay>.

bhokt˜raÕ yajñatapas˜Õ 
sarvalokamaheþvaram | 
suh®daÕ sarvabh¨t˜n˜Õ 
jñ˜tv˜ m˜Õ þ˜ntim®cchati 

om tatsaditi þrŸmad bhagavadgŸt˜s¨paniÿatsu
brahmavidy˜y˜Õ yogaþ˜stre þrŸk®ÿõ˜rjunasaÕv˜de
sanny˜sayogo n˜ma pañcamo'dhy˜ya× ( 5|29)||

He who knows Me as the enjoyer of sacrifices and austerities, the great Lord of all the worlds and the friend of all beings, attains to peace.

Thus in the Upanishads of the glorious Bhagavad Geeta, in the Science of the Eternal, in the Scripture of Yoga, in the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, the fifth discourse entitled 'Yoga of True Renunciation'.

COMMENTARY:

Me: Whenever Lord Krishna uses the first person singular, it is to indicate the Self in the individual, the Eternal Principle.

He wants us to know that the Self is the real vitality behind the ego (jiva) which functions in identification with the matter envelopments and feels that it is the doer and enjoyer.

Yagna: is the self-dedicated work which one performs in any field of activity.

Tapas: means all self-denial and practices of self-control which the ego undertakes in order to integrate and revive its own capacities to seek its real identity with the Eternal.

Maheswara: the Lord of all lords, the God of all gods. Iswara is to be understood as the controller of all fields of activities: activities of perception and experience. Each one of them is considered as presided over by various faculties, which are termed as Devas, meaning, 'illuminators'. The faculty of 'seeing', for example, 'illuminates' the fields of the eyes and thus gives the knowledge of forms and colours. The Self is the Lord of all these individual lords governing, controlling, and ruling over the various fields. Therefore, Lord Krishna as the Self confers upon Himself the title of 'sarva-loka-mahesvara'. A king of kings is generally unapproachable to ordinary people; Krishna therefore qualifies His title with the epithet that he is at the same time 'a friend of all living creatures'.

Knowing: It is not objectively knowing Krishna, but 'realising'. Spiritual experience of the sarveswara is the realisation of the Self to be the one great ruler within, who presides over all the activities within the body politic, who is the one at whose altars the perfection-seeking ego surrenders all its spiritual activities, as a tribute to Whom the seeker brings all his self-denial and asceticism.

Knowing Him to be none other than Krishna, the individual reaches the goal of Peace, the etrnal sanctum of Perfection.