The great soul shelters in Krishna's own nature and worships him, knowing him, with an undivided mind.
Against the deluded who mock the human form stands the great soul, whose greatness is a settled inward character. That soul's worship is single because its knowledge is real: Krishna known as the imperishable source of all beings.
But the great souls, Arjuna, take shelter in my divine nature and worship me with an undivided mind, knowing me as the imperishable source of all beings.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
You have just seen the deluded ones who mock Krishna in his human form, unable to see past appearances. Now Krishna names their opposite, the one who actually worships him, and shows what that worship is actually made of.
The teaching
Greatness of soul, here, is not an outward mark. It is a mind no longer small, no longer overpowered by craving and the lesser drives that ruled the deluded of the lines just before. Such a soul has taken shelter in the divine nature, and the commentators are consistent that this nature is not an abstract status but a settled, lived character: calm, self-restraint, compassion, and faith. More than one reading adds that this character itself is a refinement, won across time by good conduct, not a gift handed over at birth. From that settled character, the worship that follows is single-minded, a mind on no other. This is not devotion performed from habit or for show. It flows from real conviction, and in the most vivid readings it becomes so complete that the mind, the sense of self, and the senses cannot even hold themselves up apart from worshipping Krishna. Worship stops being one activity among others and becomes the entire aim. And crucially, this worship rests on knowledge. The great soul worships 'having known' Krishna as the source of all beings and as the imperishable, the unchanging, the undecaying. Several commentators insist that you cannot truly serve what you have not first come to know, so the knowing and the worshipping arrive together, as one movement, not as two separate stages assigned to two different kinds of seeker. Sridhara goes further still: he is glad to say that the single-hearted devotee and the knower of Brahman are, in the end, the very same person.
The doubt that rises
If real worship depends on first knowing Krishna as the imperishable source of all beings, what happens to the seeker who feels devotion stirring but does not yet have that knowledge? Is love allowed to come first?
Where the paths divide
Read as the meeting point of devotion and knowledge.
Sridhara is glad to identify the single-hearted devotee with the knower of Brahman, since Vasudeva is both the cause of the world and the truth that never decays; to worship him, having known him thus, already is to have arrived at what the knower seeks. Shankara's own extant comment affirms the same settled virtues and the same knowledge of the imperishable source, but his surviving text breaks off at an unanswered 'how,' leaving its fuller mechanics unstated in what has come down to us.
For the soul whose merit has ripened into surrender.
Ramanuja reads these souls as arriving at refuge through the great store of merit they themselves have built; once there, every bond of sin in them is shattered, and the divine nature is entered through that surrender. Their love runs so high that mind, self, and senses cannot stand at all apart from worshipping Krishna, which becomes their one and only aim. Knowledge here includes knowing why he came: out of supreme compassion, to protect the good.
A brief, honestly limited note, not a developed teaching.
What survives from Madhva on this verse is a single terse line: naming the great souls here shows that, unlike the demonic natures just described, they do not hate the Lord. That is the whole of the extant comment. On a Dvaita reading more broadly, one might extend this by placing the great souls within a fixed, graded order of being, but that extension is not Madhva's own stated word on this line, only a plausible inference from his wider system.
Read as naming two equally real modes of worship.
Abhinavagupta's surviving remark is compact: the divine nature is the calm, pure, sattvic disposition, and worship is read as covering two modes, worship through outer offerings and worship through the sacrifice of knowledge alone. Neither is treated as lesser, since both alike have Krishna as their one goal. A fuller Trika reading, that both modes are equally full expressions of one recognizing consciousness, would extend beyond what this fragment itself states.
For the heart whose devotion has become total.
Sridhara's reading doubles here as a bhakti reading: the great souls are those no longer overpowered by craving, leaning on the godly nature the Gita will soon describe, resting their mind on Krishna alone. His striking claim is that devotion carried to its fullest does not fall short of knowledge; it coincides with it, so the true devotee simply is the knower of the changeless ground.
Set against the distracted mind of those turned away.
Madhusudana reads the verse against the pitiable state of those who lack the Lord as refuge, their minds too distracted to discern anything clearly. The great souls are the answer: refined by good deeds across many births, their inner organ no longer overcome by petty desire, and it is precisely because they know Krishna as the unchanging cause of the whole world that their worship becomes this undivided.
The readings converge on what the great soul's worship looks like: single-minded, and resting on real knowledge. They do not agree on how tightly devotion and knowledge are bound together, whether the devotee simply is the knower of Brahman, as Sridhara holds, or whether refuge and grace do a different kind of work, as Ramanuja holds. And on two of the sources here, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, the plain fact is that only a brief remark survives; this page keeps that thinness visible rather than papering over it with invented elaboration.
A question to carry
When you feel devotion stirring in you before you have any settled knowledge of what you are turning toward, do you wait for the knowing, or does the turning itself begin to teach you what you are worshipping?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May the character that makes this worship possible settle quietly into you: calm, self-restraint, compassion, faith. And may knowing him and turning toward him, in time, become for you what the great souls already know them to be: a single act, not two.
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.
It answers the verses just before, where the deluded scorn Krishna in the human form he has taken; the chapter turns here from the failed seeker to the true one.
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.
Against the deluded stands the great soul, whose greatness is a mind no longer small, no longer ruled by craving and the lesser drives.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · Madhusūdana · RāmānujaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 2 others’ words
The verse turns sharply from the deluded souls of the lines just before, who mock Krishna's human form, to their opposite: the great soul, mahatma. Several readings locate the greatness inwardly rather than outwardly, as a mind no longer small, no longer overpowered by craving and the lesser drives. The turn itself, marked by the word 'but,' is treated as doing real work: it names a whole different kind of person, not merely a milder version of the deluded one.
Shelter in the divine nature means a settled, sattvic character: calm, self-restraint, compassion, faith, refined over time rather than granted as a status.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Śrīdhara · RāmānujaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 2 others’ words
What makes these souls great is that they have taken shelter in the divine nature, daivi prakriti, and this is consistently read as a settled, sattvic character rather than an abstract status. On the ground it shows up as concrete virtues: calmness, self-restraint, compassion, and faith. More than one reading adds that this character is itself a refinement won over time, an inner instrument purified by good deeds done across many lifetimes.
Their worship is single, a mind on no other, so complete that some readings find it cannot even hold itself up apart from worshipping Krishna.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Their worship is single-minded, ananya-manas, a mind turned to no other. This is read not as worship performed from habit or for show but as worship flowing from genuine conviction, so total that, on one reading, the mind, the sense of self, and the senses cannot hold themselves up at all apart from worshipping Krishna. Worship becomes not one activity among others but the singular aim.
This worship rests on knowledge, not blind feeling: they worship having known Krishna as the source of all beings and as the imperishable.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 2 others’ words
Crucially, this worship rests on knowledge rather than blind feeling. The great souls worship 'having known' Krishna as the source of all beings and as the imperishable, the unchanging, the undecaying. More than one reading insists that the two belong together: you cannot truly serve what you have not first known, so knowing and worshipping arrive as a single movement rather than two separate stages.
Where the surviving word of a master is brief, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta here, the honest teaching is to say only what the source itself gives.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
Even where the surviving comment is brief, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta, it still treats the verse as doing specific, delimited work rather than as a general hymn to devotion: for one it marks these souls as free of hatred toward the Lord, for the other it opens a unit distinguishing worship through outer offering from worship through knowledge. The verse is read, across sources, as precise rather than merely devotional in a loose sense.
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
Here the weight falls on grace, merit, and a personal Lord whose being lies beyond speech and mind. These souls become great through heaps of merit they themselves have built, and coming to Krishna for refuge, every bond of sin in them is shattered; the divine nature is entered through that surrender. Their love is so total that mind, self, and senses cannot stand at all apart from worshipping him, which becomes their one and only aim.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The surviving comment is a single terse line: naming the great souls here shows that, unlike the demonic natures just described, they do not hate the Lord. This is the whole of what the extant source states about this verse; nothing more elaborate can honestly be attributed to Madhva here, though his broader graded scheme of souls would, if extended, read these great souls as the highest rank of being.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's reading doubles as a bhakti reading: the great souls are those no longer overpowered by craving, who lean on the godly nature and rest their mind on Krishna alone, knowing him as the first of all beings and the cause of the world. His signature move is to read this single-hearted devotee as identical with the knower of Brahman, since devotion carried to its fullest does not fall short of knowledge but coincides with it.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read against the pitiable state of those turned away from the Lord in the surrounding verses, the great souls stand as the answer to who shares in every human good. They are refined by good deeds across many births, their inner organ no longer overcome by petty desires, and it is precisely because they know Krishna as the unchanging cause of the whole world that their worship can become this undivided.
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, without straining, what still pulls your attention away when you try to turn toward what you hold highest. The verse does not ask you to manufacture single-mindedness by force. It points instead to a settled character, calm, self-restraint, compassion, faith, that quietly makes such attention possible. Let the practice be building that character, not forcing the mind.
May the character that makes this worship possible grow quietly in you: calm, restraint, compassion, faith, until knowing him and turning toward him become, for you too, a single act.
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
he verse turns sharply from the deluded souls of the lines just before, who mock Krishna's human form, to their opposite: the great soul, mahatma. Several readings locate the greatness inwardly rather than outwardly, as a mind no longer small, no longer overpowered by craving and the lesser drives. The turn itself, marked by the word 'but,' is treated as doing real work: it names a whole different kind of person, not merely a milder version of the deluded one.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya
What makes these souls great is that they have taken shelter in the divine nature, daivi prakriti, and this is consistently read as a settled, sattvic character rather than an abstract status. On the ground it shows up as concrete virtues: calmness, self-restraint, compassion, and faith. More than one reading adds that this character is itself a refinement won over time, an inner instrument purified by good deeds done across many lifetimes.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Rāmānujācārya
Their worship is single-minded, ananya-manas, a mind turned to no other. This is read not as worship performed from habit or for show but as worship flowing from genuine conviction, so total that, on one reading, the mind, the sense of self, and the senses cannot hold themselves up at all apart from worshipping Krishna. Worship becomes not one activity among others but the singular aim.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Crucially, this worship rests on knowledge rather than blind feeling. The great souls worship 'having known' Krishna as the source of all beings and as the imperishable, the unchanging, the undecaying. More than one reading insists that the two belong together: you cannot truly serve what you have not first known, so knowing and worshipping arrive as a single movement rather than two separate stages.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Even where the surviving comment is brief, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta, it still treats the verse as doing specific, delimited work rather than as a general hymn to devotion: for one it marks these souls as free of hatred toward the Lord, for the other it opens a unit distinguishing worship through outer offering from worship through knowledge. The verse is read, across sources, as precise rather than merely devotional in a loose sense.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Read as the meeting point of the path of knowledge and the path of devotion. Sridhara is explicit and glad to identify the single-hearted devotee with the knower of Brahman, since the one Krishna, Vasudeva, is both the cause of the world and the truth that never decays; to worship him, having known him thus, already is to have arrived at what the knower seeks. Shankara supplies the same convergence of calm virtues with the imperishable source, though his own extant text breaks off with an unanswered 'how,' leaving the fuller mechanics of this convergence unstated in what survives.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the weight falls on grace, merit, and a personal Lord whose being lies beyond speech and mind. These souls become great through heaps of merit they themselves have built, and coming to Krishna for refuge, every bond of sin in them is shattered; the divine nature is entered through that surrender. Their love is so total that mind, self, and senses cannot stand at all apart from worshipping him, which becomes their one and only aim.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The surviving comment is a single terse line: naming the great souls here shows that, unlike the demonic natures just described, they do not hate the Lord. This is the whole of what the extant source states about this verse; nothing more elaborate can honestly be attributed to Madhva here, though his broader graded scheme of souls would, if extended, read these great souls as the highest rank of being.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The extant Gitarthasamgraha remark is compact but precise: the divine nature named here is simply the calm, pure, sattvic disposition, and worship is read as covering two distinct and equally valid modes, worship through outer sacrificial offering and worship through the sacrifice of knowledge alone. Neither mode is treated as lesser, since all who practice either alike have Krishna as their one goal.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's reading doubles as a bhakti reading: the great souls are those no longer overpowered by craving, who lean on the godly nature and rest their mind on Krishna alone, knowing him as the first of all beings and the cause of the world. His signature move is to read this single-hearted devotee as identical with the knower of Brahman, since devotion carried to its fullest does not fall short of knowledge but coincides with it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read against the pitiable state of those turned away from the Lord in the surrounding verses, the great souls stand as the answer to who shares in every human good. They are refined by good deeds across many births, their inner organ no longer overcome by petty desires, and it is precisely because they know Krishna as the unchanging cause of the whole world that their worship can become this undivided.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If undivided worship depends on first knowing Krishna as the imperishable source of all beings, and I do not yet have that knowledge, where do I even begin?
Begin with the character, not the doctrine. The commentators locate greatness of soul in calmness, self-restraint, compassion, and faith, virtues you can practice today without first settling every metaphysical question.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Knowledge and devotion are described as arriving together, not as a toll paid before worship is allowed. Ramanuja's great souls come to refuge through the merit their own good conduct has built; the deeper knowing ripens inside that turning, not before it.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Even a brief, honest reading of a verse like this one, taken from wherever your tradition happens to hand it to you, is itself a form of the knowing the verse describes. You do not need every commentator's full system; you need only to keep turning toward what you already sense is real.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Madhvācārya
Contemplation
Notice, without straining, what still pulls your attention away when you try to turn toward what you hold highest. The verse does not ask you to manufacture single-mindedness by force. It points instead to a settled character, calm, self-restraint, compassion, faith, that quietly makes such attention possible. Let the practice be building that character, not forcing the mind.
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.