Not every strength and every desire is God; only the pure strength and the lawful desire are his.
It is easy to hear "I am the strength of the strong" and imagine that all force and all wanting are holy. Krishna narrows it at once: he is the strength that needs nothing and clings to nothing, and the desire that stays within dharma.
I am the strength of the strong, free of desire and attachment. And in all beings I am the desire that does not go against dharma.
Krishna is still naming where he may be found in the world, and here he turns to human strength and human desire, but only after stripping away the craving and clinging that usually drive them.
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.
When Krishna says he is the strength of the strong, hear how at once he narrows it: not the force that grasps and greeds, but the clean strength that keeps your life going and carries out your duty.
Across Advaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, Bhedābheda, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Vallabha · Śrīdhara · Baladeva · Sivananda · Ramsukhdas · BhāskaraIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 9 others’ words
In this verse Krishna continues naming where he is to be found in the world. He says he is the strength of the strong. But he immediately narrows what kind of strength he means. He is the strength that is free of kama (desire, here the craving for something not yet possessed) and raga (passion or attachment, the clinging relish for something already gained). So Krishna is not claiming every kind of force. He is the pure strength that simply keeps the body and life going, the capacity to do one's own duty, not the strength that becomes a tool for grasping and greed.
Look closely at what is being purified out: the longing for what is not yet yours, and the clinging relish for what you already hold. Strength becomes his only when neither of these is driving it.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Dhanapati · Śrīdhara · Baladeva · NīlakaṇṭhaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 4 others’ words
Several commentators define the two excluded terms carefully so the reader sees exactly what is being purified out of strength. Kama is the longing for an object not yet attained, the wish that what is absent should come. Raga (also called trishna, thirst, or asakti) is the further coloring of the mind that clings even after the object is gained, the relish that says what I have should never be lost. Strength becomes spiritually clean only when neither of these drives it. The strong person whose force serves merely to sustain the body and to carry out duty is the one in whom Krishna's strength is present.
And the same word, desire, now returns in an approved shape; wanting is not the enemy. The desire that stays within dharma, for the food your body needs, for children within your own marriage, is the Lord himself in you.
Across Advaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Dhanapati · Vallabha · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Sivananda · Ramsukhdas · ĀnandagiriIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 8 others’ words
Krishna then says he is also the desire (kama) in beings that is dharma-aviruddha, not opposed to dharma. The same word kama that was just stripped out of strength now returns in an approved form. So desire as such is not condemned. What is condemned is desire in its grasping, self-seeking shape. Desire that stays within dharma, that does not break the moral order, is itself a divine presence. Many commentators give concrete examples: the desire for the food and drink needed to keep the body alive, and the procreative desire toward one's own spouse for the begetting of children. These lawful, measured desires are Krishna himself in the world.
So the verse quietly shows you what in yourself is divine and worth keeping, and what is the mark of bondage and is to be set down; meditation and love can rest on the pure strength and the lawful desire alone.
Across Advaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Vallabha · Śrīdhara · Ramsukhdas · NīlakaṇṭhaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 4 others’ words
The deeper teaching most commentators draw out is that the Lord owns only the sattvic, dharma-ordered portion of human power and human longing, not their rajasic and tamasic distortions. The strength that breeds craving and the desire that runs against scripture belong to maya and to bondage, and Krishna does not claim them as his form. The verse therefore quietly tells the seeker what in himself is divine and worth keeping, and what is the mark of worldliness and bondage and is to be set aside. Krishna names himself in pure strength and lawful desire so that meditation and devotion can rest on those, and not on their corrupted versions.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Advaita Vedānta, in their fuller words
These commentators read the verse as a discipline of meditation: only the pure strength and lawful desire are to be meditated on as the Lord's form, while the strength and desire that cause craving belong to those bound in transmigration and are rooted in nescience, and so are not his. One source notes that the small word 'and' (cha) is really doing the work of 'but' in a displaced order, so the sense is 'I am strength, but only the strength free of desire and attachment.' Some allow that raga here may instead be read as anger. Dharma-aviruddha is glossed as not opposed to the meaning of scripture, so the approved desire is the longing for scripturally sanctioned objects such as food, drink, wife, son and wealth.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
These commentators give the same practical examples but keep the focus tight on lawful livelihood and procreation. Desire is the longing for one's own livelihood and the like; the approved kama is the procreative impulse directed only to begetting offspring within one's own marriage. One source is emphatic that desire as such is never condemned in this chapter; only kama in its rajasic and tamasic forms is condemned, while the sattvic desire ordered to dharma is itself the Lord's vibhuti, his glory made manifest.
Śuddhādvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators read the verse in a devotional and even amorous key. The strong are those who bring the Lord under their sway by love, and the strength Krishna claims is the very mark of that loving mastery; it is stripped of self-seeking craving because in true lovers it is not their own gratification but only the longing for the Lord's delight. The approved 'desire not opposed to dharma' is reread as supra-worldly desire that is purely of the form of rasa (spiritual relish), which is itself the very form of dharma, in contrast with worldly desire that, fixed on an illicit object, cuts across every dharma. Whatever is of maya's make is not owned by the Lord as his.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
This commentator does not gloss the strength and desire of this verse directly. Instead his discussion treats the whole 'I am the taste, I am the strength' passage as belonging to the section on the Lord's supernatural greatness rather than mere knowledge, arguing that the qualifiers such as 'not opposed to dharma' are placed there to show that the Lord is to be worshipped only in pure and dharma-aligned things, such as desires that are distinguished as lawful, and never in things impure or opposed to dharma.
Bhedābheda, in their fuller words
This commentator gives only a brief gloss in line with the common reading: the Lord is the strength of the strong, qualified as free from desire and passion, and not the strength that arises from those. The remark is terse and adds no further system.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
These commentators stress self-examination and practical conduct. One reads the approved desire as desire for moderate eating and drinking and what is needed to sustain the body and support the practice of yoga. The other shows that the Gita itself uses the word bala (strength) in many places: where strength is yoked to craving and attachment it is asuric, stubbornness and force to be cast off, but the sattvic enthusiasm (utsaha) that remains pure even in the hardest work, and the quiet satisfaction of having acted in keeping with scripture and the good opinion of holy people, is the strength that is the Lord. The lawful desire is for progeny in accordance with scripture and social custom, which a person keeps under control; desire pursued only for pleasure, including by artificial frustration of procreation, enslaves the person and leads to ruin, so one should either confine kama to begetting children within dharma or follow celibacy.
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
Notice how the verse hands you a quiet test you can run on your own strength and your own wants. When you are doing even the hardest work, look inward: is there a clean, untroubled enthusiasm that needs nothing to come to it and clings to nothing it has gained? That pure utsaha is the strength that is God in you, and it is to be welcomed. And when a task is finished, the calm satisfaction of having acted in keeping with what is right and worthy of the respect of good people, that too is the Lord's strength. But where your strength has hardened into stubbornness and force driven by craving, that is not your true self and is to be set down. The same test applies to desire: a desire that stays within dharma and keeps you its master is sacred, but a desire pursued only for pleasure that makes you its slave will drive you into actions that should not be done. So the practice is not to crush all wanting, but to keep desire lawful and measured, under your control rather than in control of you.
So in even your hardest work, welcome the clean enthusiasm that needs nothing and clings to nothing, and keep your wanting lawful and measured, your master nowhere and yourself its master, for that is where the Lord is in you.
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Convergence
n this verse Krishna continues naming where he is to be found in the world. He says he is the strength of the strong. But he immediately narrows what kind of strength he means. He is the strength that is free of kama (desire, here the craving for something not yet possessed) and raga (passion or attachment, the clinging relish for something already gained). So Krishna is not claiming every kind of force. He is the pure strength that simply keeps the body and life going, the capacity to do one's own duty, not the strength that becomes a tool for grasping and greed.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Bhāskara
Several commentators define the two excluded terms carefully so the reader sees exactly what is being purified out of strength. Kama is the longing for an object not yet attained, the wish that what is absent should come. Raga (also called trishna, thirst, or asakti) is the further coloring of the mind that clings even after the object is gained, the relish that says what I have should never be lost. Strength becomes spiritually clean only when neither of these drives it. The strong person whose force serves merely to sustain the body and to carry out duty is the one in whom Krishna's strength is present.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Krishna then says he is also the desire (kama) in beings that is dharma-aviruddha, not opposed to dharma. The same word kama that was just stripped out of strength now returns in an approved form. So desire as such is not condemned. What is condemned is desire in its grasping, self-seeking shape. Desire that stays within dharma, that does not break the moral order, is itself a divine presence. Many commentators give concrete examples: the desire for the food and drink needed to keep the body alive, and the procreative desire toward one's own spouse for the begetting of children. These lawful, measured desires are Krishna himself in the world.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Ānandagiri
The deeper teaching most commentators draw out is that the Lord owns only the sattvic, dharma-ordered portion of human power and human longing, not their rajasic and tamasic distortions. The strength that breeds craving and the desire that runs against scripture belong to maya and to bondage, and Krishna does not claim them as his form. The verse therefore quietly tells the seeker what in himself is divine and worth keeping, and what is the mark of worldliness and bondage and is to be set aside. Krishna names himself in pure strength and lawful desire so that meditation and devotion can rest on those, and not on their corrupted versions.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse as a discipline of meditation: only the pure strength and lawful desire are to be meditated on as the Lord's form, while the strength and desire that cause craving belong to those bound in transmigration and are rooted in nescience, and so are not his. One source notes that the small word 'and' (cha) is really doing the work of 'but' in a displaced order, so the sense is 'I am strength, but only the strength free of desire and attachment.' Some allow that raga here may instead be read as anger. Dharma-aviruddha is glossed as not opposed to the meaning of scripture, so the approved desire is the longing for scripturally sanctioned objects such as food, drink, wife, son and wealth.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Bhakti
These commentators give the same practical examples but keep the focus tight on lawful livelihood and procreation. Desire is the longing for one's own livelihood and the like; the approved kama is the procreative impulse directed only to begetting offspring within one's own marriage. One source is emphatic that desire as such is never condemned in this chapter; only kama in its rajasic and tamasic forms is condemned, while the sattvic desire ordered to dharma is itself the Lord's vibhuti, his glory made manifest.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse in a devotional and even amorous key. The strong are those who bring the Lord under their sway by love, and the strength Krishna claims is the very mark of that loving mastery; it is stripped of self-seeking craving because in true lovers it is not their own gratification but only the longing for the Lord's delight. The approved 'desire not opposed to dharma' is reread as supra-worldly desire that is purely of the form of rasa (spiritual relish), which is itself the very form of dharma, in contrast with worldly desire that, fixed on an illicit object, cuts across every dharma. Whatever is of maya's make is not owned by the Lord as his.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
These commentators stress self-examination and practical conduct. One reads the approved desire as desire for moderate eating and drinking and what is needed to sustain the body and support the practice of yoga. The other shows that the Gita itself uses the word bala (strength) in many places: where strength is yoked to craving and attachment it is asuric, stubbornness and force to be cast off, but the sattvic enthusiasm (utsaha) that remains pure even in the hardest work, and the quiet satisfaction of having acted in keeping with scripture and the good opinion of holy people, is the strength that is the Lord. The lawful desire is for progeny in accordance with scripture and social custom, which a person keeps under control; desire pursued only for pleasure, including by artificial frustration of procreation, enslaves the person and leads to ruin, so one should either confine kama to begetting children within dharma or follow celibacy.
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Dvaita
This commentator does not gloss the strength and desire of this verse directly. Instead his discussion treats the whole 'I am the taste, I am the strength' passage as belonging to the section on the Lord's supernatural greatness rather than mere knowledge, arguing that the qualifiers such as 'not opposed to dharma' are placed there to show that the Lord is to be worshipped only in pure and dharma-aligned things, such as desires that are distinguished as lawful, and never in things impure or opposed to dharma.
Śrī Jayatīrtha
Bhedabheda
This commentator gives only a brief gloss in line with the common reading: the Lord is the strength of the strong, qualified as free from desire and passion, and not the strength that arises from those. The remark is terse and adds no further system.
Śrī Bhāskara
A Seeker Asks
If the very same word kama is both the enemy the Gita warns against and a form of God, how do I tell which of my desires and drives are divine and which are the bondage I must give up?
The dividing line is not whether you desire at all, but what the desire is made of and where it is aimed. The commentators separate two things that share the one name kama. One is craving for what is not yet yours and clinging relish for what you already hold; this is the rajasic and tamasic desire that drives grasping, and Krishna does not claim it as his. The other is desire that stays within dharma, the moral and scriptural order, and serves a genuine need; this sattvic, lawful desire is Krishna himself present in you.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya
The same test sorts your strength. Strength that becomes a tool for craving and attachment belongs to bondage and to the bound condition of worldly people, while the pure strength that simply sustains the body and carries out your own duty is the divine portion. So the practical question to ask of any drive in you is not 'should I have wanted this?' but 'does this desire keep me its master and stay within what is right, or has it made me its slave and pushed me past what dharma allows?'
Śaṅkarācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Ramsukhdas
The commentators give down-to-earth markers so the test is usable: the desire for the food and drink the body needs, the procreative desire within one's own marriage for children, the moderate intake that supports a disciplined life, the longing for what scripture sanctions. These are the lawful shapes of wanting that are Krishna's glory in the world. Whatever in your wanting and your power overflows those bounds into self-seeking and excess is the part of maya's make that is to be released.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya
Contemplation
Notice how the verse hands you a quiet test you can run on your own strength and your own wants. When you are doing even the hardest work, look inward: is there a clean, untroubled enthusiasm that needs nothing to come to it and clings to nothing it has gained? That pure utsaha is the strength that is God in you, and it is to be welcomed. And when a task is finished, the calm satisfaction of having acted in keeping with what is right and worthy of the respect of good people, that too is the Lord's strength. But where your strength has hardened into stubbornness and force driven by craving, that is not your true self and is to be set down. The same test applies to desire: a desire that stays within dharma and keeps you its master is sacred, but a desire pursued only for pleasure that makes you its slave will drive you into actions that should not be done. So the practice is not to crush all wanting, but to keep desire lawful and measured, under your control rather than in control of you.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
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