Knowing his glory and his power truly, as one, is what makes a seeker unshakable.
Before the catalogue of glories begins, Krishna names what it is for. Whoever knows this display and this power as they really are, and not merely as words agreed to, is joined to a yoga that no longer trembles.
Whoever truly knows this glory of mine and this power of mine becomes joined to a yoga that does not waver. There is no doubt about this.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just begun to unfold his vibhuti, the great seers and the many forms in which his lordship reaches the world. Before the catalogue grows any longer, he pauses here to say what all of this is for.
The teaching
Two things are to be known, and known as one, not two. There is the glory, the manifold display through which the Lord appears as the great seers, the forms of nature, and everything besides. And there is the yoga, the power by which that display is fashioned and held together. Knowing the display without the power behind it, or affirming the power while the display in front of you stays unexamined, both fall short of what this verse asks. What is asked is the single recognition that everything you meet depends, in just this way, on him. And it must be known truly, tattvatah, not merely agreed to as a form of words you have grown used to repeating. Words held at arm's length still leave a person wavering; what steadies is knowledge that has stopped being a sentence and become, for you, simply how things are. When that happens, Krishna says, you are joined to a yoga that does not tremble. And of this there is no doubt whatsoever, he adds, in his own voice, closing off every reservation a hearer might still be carrying.
The doubt that rises
If I already accept, in principle, that everything depends on God, why does that acceptance so often leave me exactly as unsteady as before, and what, short of another idea to agree with, would actually close that gap?
Where the paths divide
Read as the steadiness of right vision ripening toward non-dual seeing.
The unwavering yoga you reach here is the firmness of true seeing, settling at last into the one non-dual reality. The Lord's glory, shown through his many powers, becomes a door rather than a resting place: knowing him truly as he appears carries you on toward knowing the single reality his appearances disclose. What remains, at the end of this road, is not a bond kept up between two parties but a settled, doubt-free seeing that there was only ever one.
Read as devotion ripening toward a Lord who remains distinct from you.
The unwavering yoga here is devotion that has stopped trembling. His glory is his lordship, the ground of everything's coming to be, standing, and acting; his yoga is his own host of beautiful, auspicious qualities. Knowing his greatness and his loveliness together is exactly what makes devotion grow firm. What you are left with is not dissolution into him but steady, unshaken love for a Lord who stays, throughout, someone other than you.
Read honestly: the source is silent here, and only a labeled extension can be offered.
No comment from Madhva survives on this particular verse, and nothing should be presented here as his own confident word. What can honestly be offered is an extension of principles attested elsewhere in his tradition: total dependence, in existence, action, knowledge, and power, on the Lord alone. On that conditional reading, truly knowing the glory would mean recognizing your own complete reliance on him, not an equal's admiration, but this stays a plausible extension, not Madhva's attested reading of 10.7 itself.
Read as an extension of the 10.6 passage, flagged clearly as extension.
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment treats 10.6 through 10.11 together at 10.6, not verse by verse. What that passage says is that the great seers pass an expanding awareness among themselves and, through that exchange, recognize themselves as one with the Lord, each reaching with ease the all-pervading nature already his own. Extended to this verse, and marked plainly as extension rather than his recorded word, true knowing here would be an act of recognition, pratyabhijna, of a power the knower already carries, and the unwavering yoga would be consciousness settling once that recognition stops flickering.
Read as the hinge where doctrine opens into devotion.
The glory named since verse five and the Lord's power taught across the chapters before this one are, on this reading, one composite object of knowledge, not two. Knowing both together, and not either alone, is what yields the unshaken vision. This verse is read architecturally as well as devotionally: it is the hinge between the doctrinal teaching just given and the intimate declarations of love Krishna is about to speak in the verses immediately following.
Read as a settled cognitive change, testable rather than merely asserted.
Read for today, the insistence that this is an absorption of firm, right knowledge, not a passing mood, suggests the steadiness promised here is a real change in how a person knows, one that no longer needs circumstance to hold it up. The closing assurance of no doubt becomes, on this reading, less a demand for blind faith and more an invitation to notice, honestly, whether your own knowing has actually gone that deep yet.
All six readings agree that true knowing, not mere agreement, is what steadies. They part on what that steadiness finally is, and two of the six, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, leave this verse with only thin or borrowed ground to stand on rather than a full reading in their own voice. This page does not force those two into a confidence the sources do not support, and it does not resolve whether the final steadiness is non-dual seeing, standing devotion, or self-recognition.
A question to carry
When you set down the idea you already agree with and actually look, today, at one thing you meet, what would it take for that looking to become the kind of knowing this verse is asking for?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So let your looking, today, go one step further than agreement. Rest it a moment longer on whatever is in front of you, until what depends on what stops being a sentence and starts being, for you, simply so.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has been unfolding his vibhuti since the chapter opened; this verse is the hinge that names the fruit of knowing it, before the devotional turn of the verses that follow.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Krishna names the fruit before the glories are even counted: true knowing, not mere agreement, is what steadies a seeker.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This verse names the reward of knowing what the chapter has begun to display. Krishna has been speaking of his vibhuti, his glory or manifold extent, and of his yoga, the power behind that extent. Now he states plainly that whoever knows these two truly, tattvatah, as they really are and not merely as words, gains something real: an unwavering steadiness. The commentators treat the verse as a hinge, a transition stanza that announces a fruit and prepares the reader for the catalogue of glories that follows.
The display and the power behind it must be held as one composite fact, not admired or affirmed separately.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Two things must be known as one, not separately: the vibhuti, the Lord's manifold display through many forms and beings, and the yoga, the power by which that display is fashioned and held together. Half of this knowing steadies no one. Knowing how the whole world depends on the Lord, and knowing the power by which it so depends, is treated across the readings as a single act of knowledge rather than two.
The steadiness is sealed by Krishna's own certainty, leaving no doubt for the one who has truly come to know.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The fruit is called avikampena yogena, an unwavering, untrembling yoga. Krishna seals the promise with his own certainty: there is no doubt in this matter. Several readings stress that since this is the Lord's own word, hesitation has nothing left to stand on; the phrase functions to deepen earnestness rather than to argue a point that could genuinely be doubted.
Where the sources are thin, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta on this verse, honesty about that silence matters more than a confident-sounding invention.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Right knowledge is read as door and ripener together, not as information banked for a separate, later reward. Contemplating the glories in truth is itself what grows into firm union; the knowing and the steadying are one continuous movement rather than a cause followed, sometime later, by its effect.
The knowing is door and ripener together: dwelling on the truth of the glory is itself what grows into firm union.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
The word tattvatah, truly, carries real weight across the readings. It marks the line between merely assenting to an idea and actually knowing it as fact. Agreement that stays at the level of words is exactly what still leaves a person wavering; the promised steadiness belongs only to knowledge that has become, in this stronger sense, true.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the unwavering yoga as bhakti that has stopped trembling. Vibhuti names the Lord's lordship as the ground of all things' origin, continuance, and activity; yoga names his own host of auspicious qualities. Knowing his glory and his beauty of qualities is precisely what grows and ripens devotion, so the fruit is firm love directed at a Lord who remains, throughout, distinct from the devotee.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva is recorded as offering no comment on this verse; nothing in his own voice can honestly be reported here. What the wider Dvaita-adjacent tradition around him stresses, in a later voice, is total dependence: every being's existence, action, knowledge, and power rests on the Lord alone, and knowledge of the Lord in this dependent light is what produces and increases devotion. Extending this to 10.7 as a conditional reading, knowing the glory 'truly' would mean recognizing one's own total reliance on Hari rather than an equal's admiration of him, though this extension is not Madhva's own attested word on the verse.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara holds that the glory named from verse five onward and the Lord's yoga taught across chapters seven through nine form one composite object of knowledge, not two. Knowing both together, and not either alone, yields the unshaken right vision. He marks the verse architecturally as the hinge between the doctrinal first half of the chapter and the devotional interlude of verses eight through eleven that follows directly after it.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a contemporary hearer, Madhusudana's insistence that this is an absorption marked by firm, right knowledge rather than a passing insight suggests that the steadiness promised here is not a mood but a settled cognitive change, one that does not fluctuate with circumstance because it no longer rests on circumstance. The closing assurance of no doubt is, on this reading, less a claim demanding blind faith than an invitation to test the promise by how thoroughly the knowing has actually been made true.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Take a single form you meet today, however ordinary, and hold it a moment longer than usual. Ask, quietly, what it depends on to be here at all. Let the looking go past the words you already know and into something closer to fact. This is not a technique for a special hour; it is the whole practice the verse asks for, applied to whatever is in front of you.
So look again today at whatever is in front of you, and let your looking go past the words you already hold, until what depends on what becomes, for you, simply true.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse names the reward of knowing what the chapter has begun to display. Krishna has been speaking of his vibhuti, his glory or manifold extent, and of his yoga, the power behind that extent. Now he states plainly that whoever knows these two truly, tattvatah, as they really are and not merely as words, gains something real: an unwavering steadiness. The commentators treat the verse as a hinge, a transition stanza that announces a fruit and prepares the reader for the catalogue of glories that follows.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Two things must be known as one, not separately: the vibhuti, the Lord's manifold display through many forms and beings, and the yoga, the power by which that display is fashioned and held together. Half of this knowing steadies no one. Knowing how the whole world depends on the Lord, and knowing the power by which it so depends, is treated across the readings as a single act of knowledge rather than two.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The fruit is called avikampena yogena, an unwavering, untrembling yoga. Krishna seals the promise with his own certainty: there is no doubt in this matter. Several readings stress that since this is the Lord's own word, hesitation has nothing left to stand on; the phrase functions to deepen earnestness rather than to argue a point that could genuinely be doubted.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Right knowledge is read as door and ripener together, not as information banked for a separate, later reward. Contemplating the glories in truth is itself what grows into firm union; the knowing and the steadying are one continuous movement rather than a cause followed, sometime later, by its effect.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The word tattvatah, truly, carries real weight across the readings. It marks the line between merely assenting to an idea and actually knowing it as fact. Agreement that stays at the level of words is exactly what still leaves a person wavering; the promised steadiness belongs only to knowledge that has become, in this stronger sense, true.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the unwavering yoga as samyag-darshana, right seeing that has become steady, the firm realization of the one non-dual reality. The Lord's glory, shown with attributes, functions as a door to knowledge beyond attributes: knowing him truly as he appears in his powers carries the seeker on toward knowing the single reality underlying that appearance. What remains at the end is not a relationship sustained between two parties but a settled, doubt-free seeing.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the unwavering yoga as bhakti that has stopped trembling. Vibhuti names the Lord's lordship as the ground of all things' origin, continuance, and activity; yoga names his own host of auspicious qualities. Knowing his glory and his beauty of qualities is precisely what grows and ripens devotion, so the fruit is firm love directed at a Lord who remains, throughout, distinct from the devotee.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva is recorded as offering no comment on this verse; nothing in his own voice can honestly be reported here. What the wider Dvaita-adjacent tradition around him stresses, in a later voice, is total dependence: every being's existence, action, knowledge, and power rests on the Lord alone, and knowledge of the Lord in this dependent light is what produces and increases devotion. Extending this to 10.7 as a conditional reading, knowing the glory 'truly' would mean recognizing one's own total reliance on Hari rather than an equal's admiration of him, though this extension is not Madhva's own attested word on the verse.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment treats 10.6 through 10.11 as one passage, placed at 10.6, rather than commenting on 10.7 on its own. That passage describes the great seers passing an expanding awareness among themselves and, through that exchange, recognizing themselves as one with the Lord, each reaching with ease the all-pervading nature already his own. Extended to 10.7, and flagged clearly as extension rather than his recorded word, this would make true knowing an act of recognition, pratyabhijna, of a power the knower already carries, and the unwavering yoga the settling of consciousness once that recognition ceases to waver.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara holds that the glory named from verse five onward and the Lord's yoga taught across chapters seven through nine form one composite object of knowledge, not two. Knowing both together, and not either alone, yields the unshaken right vision. He marks the verse architecturally as the hinge between the doctrinal first half of the chapter and the devotional interlude of verses eight through eleven that follows directly after it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a contemporary hearer, Madhusudana's insistence that this is an absorption marked by firm, right knowledge rather than a passing insight suggests that the steadiness promised here is not a mood but a settled cognitive change, one that does not fluctuate with circumstance because it no longer rests on circumstance. The closing assurance of no doubt is, on this reading, less a claim demanding blind faith than an invitation to test the promise by how thoroughly the knowing has actually been made true.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I already believe that everything depends on God. Why does that belief still leave me wavering, and what would it take to actually be steadied by it?
The verse does not promise its fruit to belief alone; the operative word is tattvatah, truly, as the thing actually is. What you are describing, holding an idea you accept but that has not steadied you, is exactly the gap between assenting to words and knowing a fact. The steadiness belongs only on the far side of that gap.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Notice, too, whether you are holding the glory and the power together or only one of them. Admiring the display of the world without holding the power that fashions it, or affirming a distant power without dwelling on how near its display actually is, both fall short of the composite knowing the verse asks for.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The steadiness is also described as something that grows through the knowing rather than something switched on all at once. If you still waver, this is not proof the promise has failed you; it is a sign the knowing has not yet ripened all the way through. The practice is to keep returning your attention to the same dependence, until it stops being a sentence you hold and becomes a thing you see.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Take a single form you meet today, however ordinary, and hold it a moment longer than usual. Ask, quietly, what it depends on to be here at all. Let the looking go past the words you already know and into something closer to fact. This is not a technique for a special hour; it is the whole practice the verse asks for, applied to whatever is in front of you.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.