Taking refuge in this knowledge, you come to share the Lord's own nature, untouched by the making and unmaking of worlds.
Krishna names the fruit before he has even begun to teach it. Reached by living the knowledge through, not merely hearing it, this sameness with the Lord is described the same way by every source that speaks with confidence: freedom from rebirth, and freedom from the world's turning, however far the schools go on to differ about how deep that sameness runs.
Those who take refuge in this knowledge and carry it through come to share my own nature. They are not born when a new creation begins, and they are not shaken when it dissolves.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just called this the highest knowledge, the one every sage before Arjuna has already crossed over by. Before he opens the long teaching on the three gunas that will fill this chapter, he stops here to say what it is all for: this is the fruit, held out at the very threshold.
The teaching
This knowledge is not held by hearing it once. It is taken up by actually carrying out its means, studied, turned over, lived until it becomes direct. What such a person reaches is called sadharmya with the Lord, a sameness of nature, and every source that addresses the verse with confidence treats this as a genuine attainment, not a faint or partial echo of the Lord's own state. Two promises follow from it. Such a person is not born even at a fresh creation, when an entire new cosmos, with Brahma and its fourteen worlds, comes forth; and if so vast a birth cannot reach them, no lesser, ordinary birth can either. And such a person is not disturbed even at the dissolution, when everything else that exists suffers and comes apart, because the very identification with nature that makes suffering possible no longer holds for them. Not every acharya has left an equally full reading of this verse. Where the source is absent, as with Madhva, or where it survives only as a passing grammatical note, as with Abhinavagupta, this page says so plainly rather than filling the silence with invented confidence.
The doubt that rises
If the sameness reached here is real, does it reach all the way down, so that no distinction remains between the knower and the Lord, or does it stop at freedom from the cosmic cycle while leaving the two, at bottom, still two? And does becoming 'the same' as the Lord mean sharing in his power to make and unmake worlds, or something narrower than that?
Where the paths divide
Read as non-difference between the knower and the Lord.
Shankara reads sadharmya as non-difference itself, not the likeness of two things that remain distinct, since nothing in the Gita's account finally separates the knower of the field from the Lord who is that same knowing universally. The verse's language of a reward granted is, on this reading, a form of praise, glorifying the knowledge by naming its fruit, not evidence that two similar-but-separate beings have come to match. What survives from Madhusudana is a brief line in evident agreement with this reading, identity rather than resemblance, though it does not itself argue the case at length.
Read as real likeness that keeps the soul distinct.
Ramanuja holds that the freed soul becomes like the Lord specifically in being no longer bound by samsara, no longer laid hold of by the acts of creating or withdrawing that govern every other being. What does not change is the soul's own distinct being: it remains other than the Lord even while sharing, fully, his freedom from the turning of the cosmic wheel. The sameness is measured by freedom, not by an erasure of difference.
Honest gap: no comment from Madhva survives for this verse.
Nothing of Madhva's own reading of this verse has come down. What can honestly be offered is a clearly-labeled extension from his wider, well-attested Dvaita commitments elsewhere: on such an extrapolation, sadharmya would likely be read as a bounded, dependent likeness, the freed self resting secure in a status Hari grants and sustains, remaining eternally other than him even in freedom. This must be held as inference, not as Madhva's recorded word on 14.2.
Honest gap: the surviving remark is a grammar note, not a doctrine.
The one thing that survives from Abhinavagupta on this verse is a note on an irregular verb ending, offered to settle a point of Sanskrit grammar, not a statement about sadharmya or the fruit of knowledge. A flagged extension from his broader Pratyabhijna framework would take the sameness as awareness resting fully in its own nature as Shiva-consciousness, so that neither the arising nor the withdrawal of universes, both themselves pulsations of that same consciousness, can disturb one who no longer mistakes the pulsation for something happening to a bounded self. This extension is offered as a plausible reading only, not as what the extant commentary on 14.2 itself says.
Read as having the Lord's own form, not bare isolation.
Sridhara reads sadharmya as the having of the Lord's own very form, a real and positive sharing rather than a merely impersonal kaivalya, isolation emptied of content. He marks this verse as the hinge toward which the whole chapter's teaching on guna-bondage and the state beyond the gunas will be drawn, and reads the two closing promises simply: such knowers do not return, neither drawn back by a new creation nor shaken by dissolution.
A terse confirming line, not an elaborated argument.
What survives from Madhusudana here functions as a plain restatement: identity with the Lord as the fruit of this knowledge, freedom from birth at a new creation, freedom from disturbance at dissolution. It confirms an Advaita reading in brief without itself elaborating the reasoning. Read alongside Shankara's fuller treatment, which argues the same claims at length, it stands as agreement rather than as an independent modern gloss.
Every source that speaks with confidence agrees the sameness reached here is real and that it frees the knower from both the making and the unmaking of worlds. They part on how deep that sameness runs, whether it is non-difference itself or a real likeness that leaves the soul distinct, and on how far it reaches, whether it stops at freedom from bondage or extends to something more. Two of the six voices this page draws on, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, have left too little on this particular verse to settle their own position here; that gap is left open rather than closed by invention.
A question to carry
Where in your own life do you still feel like the one who does the action and the one who will collect its outcome, and what would it mean to notice that grip loosen, even briefly, today?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Take this as a description of what already lies beneath your doing and your having, not as a prize reserved for some distant end of the world. When what surrounds you churns and eventually comes apart, as everything made must, let the part of you that already knows itself untouched continue on, unshaken, exactly as it is.
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.
Opening the chapter on the three gunas, Krishna states the destination before describing the road, telling Arjuna in advance what the long teaching on bondage and freedom is finally for.
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.
This knowledge is not held by hearing it once; it is reached by actually carrying it through, and what it yields is named here as the highest, fruit-bearing kind.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Krishna is naming, in advance, the fruit of the knowledge he is about to teach through the rest of this chapter. Taking refuge in it means more than hearing it once; it means carrying it through to direct experience. This is placed as a threshold promise, telling the seeker at the very start what the long account of the gunas is finally for.
Resting in it, you come to share the Lord's own nature, no longer driven by past action to take on a body when a new world is made.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
By this knowledge, the seeker comes to 'sadharmya', a sameness of nature with the Lord. Every source that comments on the verse marks this as its center: a real attainment of the Lord's own state, not a faint or partial resemblance, however differently they go on to weigh what that sameness finally means.
Even the birth of an entire new cosmos cannot draw such a knower back; if the greatest possible birth cannot reach them, no lesser birth can either.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Such a one is 'not born even at a creation.' The word 'even' is read as pointed: if such a knower is not drawn into so vast an event as the birth of an entire new cosmos, with Brahma and the fourteen worlds coming forth, then no lesser, ordinary birth can draw them back either. Their release from rebirth is read as complete.
When the universe is withdrawn and every other being suffers and breaks apart, this knower feels no disturbance, because they have been severed from nature and everything that rides on it.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
And such a one is 'not disturbed at the dissolution.' When the universe is withdrawn and every other being suffers and perishes, this knower feels no pain and does not waver, because the very ground that makes suffering possible, an identity caught inside nature and its cycles, no longer holds.
Where the sources fall silent or offer only a fragment, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta here, the honest teaching flags the gap rather than inventing what was never said.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Where source material survives to found it, the reading holds together as one claim: the freedom promised here places the knower outside both ends of the cosmic process, untouched by its making and untouched by its unmaking, because they have been severed from nature and the strands born of it.
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 holds the likeness is real but never identity: the freed soul remains a self distinct from the Lord in its own being, and what changes is only that it is no longer bound by samsara, no longer laid hold of by the acts of creating or of withdrawing. The sameness is measured entirely by freedom from the cosmic cycle, not by any collapse of the distinction between soul and Lord.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
No comment from Madhva survives for this verse. What can honestly be offered is only a labeled extrapolation from his wider Dvaita commitments: on such a reading, sadharmya would likely be read as a bounded, dependent likeness rather than identity, the freed self resting secure in a status the Lord grants and sustains, still eternally other than Hari even in freedom. This is a conditional inference, not Madhva's word on 14.2 itself.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads sadharmya as the having of the Lord's own very form, a real and positive sharing in what the Lord is, and insists this goal is not a merely impersonal kaivalya, isolation without content. He marks the verse as the hinge toward which the chapter's whole account of guna-bondage and going beyond the gunas will be drawn, and reads both closing promises, no rebirth, no disturbance at dissolution, as meaning simply that such knowers do not return.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
The one line that survives from Madhusudana functions here as a plain, practical restatement rather than an elaborated modern gloss: identity with the Lord as the fruit of this knowledge, freedom from birth at a new creation, and freedom from disturbance at dissolution. Any fuller argument for these claims belongs properly to Shankara's more developed treatment, which this brief line agrees with without itself arguing the case.
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
Set this verse down as a description rather than a distant reward. Notice, in the middle of an ordinary day, where you still feel like the one who does the action and the one who will receive its outcome. Let the noticing itself be the practice: not manufacturing a sameness with anything, only loosening the grip of a doer and an enjoyer that this verse says was never the whole truth of you.
Take this not as a promise for some far-off cycle of the world, but as a description of what stands quietly beneath your own doing and having; when what is around you churns and eventually breaks, as everything made must, let the part of you that already knows itself untouched go on, unshaken, exactly as it is.
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
rishna is naming, in advance, the fruit of the knowledge he is about to teach through the rest of this chapter. Taking refuge in it means more than hearing it once; it means carrying it through to direct experience. This is placed as a threshold promise, telling the seeker at the very start what the long account of the gunas is finally for.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
By this knowledge, the seeker comes to 'sadharmya', a sameness of nature with the Lord. Every source that comments on the verse marks this as its center: a real attainment of the Lord's own state, not a faint or partial resemblance, however differently they go on to weigh what that sameness finally means.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Such a one is 'not born even at a creation.' The word 'even' is read as pointed: if such a knower is not drawn into so vast an event as the birth of an entire new cosmos, with Brahma and the fourteen worlds coming forth, then no lesser, ordinary birth can draw them back either. Their release from rebirth is read as complete.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And such a one is 'not disturbed at the dissolution.' When the universe is withdrawn and every other being suffers and perishes, this knower feels no pain and does not waver, because the very ground that makes suffering possible, an identity caught inside nature and its cycles, no longer holds.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where source material survives to found it, the reading holds together as one claim: the freedom promised here places the knower outside both ends of the cosmic process, untouched by its making and untouched by its unmaking, because they have been severed from nature and the strands born of it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads 'sadharmya' as non-difference, not the resemblance of two distinct things, since the Gita nowhere finally separates the knower of the field from the Lord: the knower of Brahman becomes Brahman. He treats the verse's language of a reward granted as praise of knowledge, naming its fruit, not a claim that two like-but-separate beings have come to match. Madhusudana's single surviving line confirms this reading, identity rather than mere likeness, but does not itself expand the argument.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja holds the likeness is real but never identity: the freed soul remains a self distinct from the Lord in its own being, and what changes is only that it is no longer bound by samsara, no longer laid hold of by the acts of creating or of withdrawing. The sameness is measured entirely by freedom from the cosmic cycle, not by any collapse of the distinction between soul and Lord.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
No comment from Madhva survives for this verse. What can honestly be offered is only a labeled extrapolation from his wider Dvaita commitments: on such a reading, sadharmya would likely be read as a bounded, dependent likeness rather than identity, the freed self resting secure in a status the Lord grants and sustains, still eternally other than Hari even in freedom. This is a conditional inference, not Madhva's word on 14.2 itself.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The only extant remark from Abhinavagupta on this verse is a grammatical note on an irregular verb ending, not a doctrinal reading. A clearly-labeled extension from his wider Pratyabhijna framework would take sadharmya as awareness resting fully in its own nature as Shiva-consciousness, so that the arising and withdrawal of universes, themselves pulsations of that same consciousness, cannot disturb one who no longer mistakes the pulsation for something happening to a bounded self. This must be held as extrapolation, not as what the extant commentary on 14.2 actually argues.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads sadharmya as the having of the Lord's own very form, a real and positive sharing in what the Lord is, and insists this goal is not a merely impersonal kaivalya, isolation without content. He marks the verse as the hinge toward which the chapter's whole account of guna-bondage and going beyond the gunas will be drawn, and reads both closing promises, no rebirth, no disturbance at dissolution, as meaning simply that such knowers do not return.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
The one line that survives from Madhusudana functions here as a plain, practical restatement rather than an elaborated modern gloss: identity with the Lord as the fruit of this knowledge, freedom from birth at a new creation, and freedom from disturbance at dissolution. Any fuller argument for these claims belongs properly to Shankara's more developed treatment, which this brief line agrees with without itself arguing the case.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I truly come to share the Lord's own nature, does that mean I gain his power to make and unmake worlds, or is the sameness something narrower than that?
Every source that speaks with confidence on this verse describes the sameness as freedom from the cosmic cycle, not the acquisition of the Lord's creative power. Shankara reads it as non-difference in being, which is not the same claim as sharing an office or a function; Ramanuja is explicit that the freed soul stays distinct from the Lord even while sharing his freedom from the cycle.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Sridhara's reading points the same way: what is promised is having the Lord's own form and no longer returning to birth and death, not standing alongside him as a second maker of worlds. The emphasis throughout falls on release from suffering and rebirth, not on appointment to cosmic office.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where the sources are thin or absent, honesty is the better answer than invention: nothing survives from Madhva on this verse, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is only a grammatical note. Neither can be honestly stretched into a claim that the freed knower gains the Lord's own creative power; the confident sources we do have all draw the line at freedom from bondage, not at shared authorship of the universe.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Set this verse down as a description rather than a distant reward. Notice, in the middle of an ordinary day, where you still feel like the one who does the action and the one who will receive its outcome. Let the noticing itself be the practice: not manufacturing a sameness with anything, only loosening the grip of a doer and an enjoyer that this verse says was never the whole truth 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.