भूमिरापोऽनलो वायुः खं मनो बुद्धिरेव च ।
अहङ्कार इतीयं मे भिन्ना प्रकृतिकष्टधा ।। ७.४ ।।

अपरेयमितस्त्वन्यां प्रकृतिं विद्धि मे पराम् ।
जीवभूतां महाबाहो ययेदं धार्यते जगत् ।। ७.५ ।।

bhūmir-āpo’nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir-eva ca |
ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir-aṣṭadhā || 7.4 ||

apareyam itas-tv-anyāṁ prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām |
jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat || 7.5 ||

Two-fold nature of the Supreme – para and apara

With this precept Krishna prepares Arjuna’s mind to rise to the level of expansion that true spiritual wisdom aims at. Arjuna begins to wonder: What is this full-fold or comprehensive knowledge? Krishna describes it in his own graphical manner:

Earth, water, fire, air and space; and then mind, intelligence and ego – thus is my eight-fold nature. This is yet my lower nature. My higher nature represents sentience, consciousness, by dint of which this whole universe is sustained.

Krishna, after asking Arjuna to redirect all his attachments to Krishna himself, now declares that he represents the aggregate of all beings. His visible body is only a symbol. What it symbolizes is a grand aggregate. In this aggregate everything in the universe is included. As is the earth so are the other four elements, constituting this aggregate. With these five elements, all external objects of existence, perceptible to the senses, stand covered.

What besides these is there? It can only be whatever is within the body, imperceptible to the senses. Thus Krishna lists three more factors, namely mind, intelligence and ego. These evidently do not come within the range of visible matter. Together with the external five, these constitute the aggregate Nature Krishna refers to. “But, it is my lower nature (apara)”, he adds, alluding to something higher. That higher one he calls as para prakrti. That is the power of sentience animating and activating the body of the living beings and also sustaining the whole creation around, made of panca-bhutas.