Chapter 5 · Verse 25·Spoken by Krishna
लभन्ते ब्रह्मनिर्वाणमृषयः क्षीणकल्मषाः। छिन्नद्वैधा यतात्मानः सर्वभूतहिते रताः
labhante brahma-nirvāṇam ṛiṣhayaḥ kṣhīṇa-kalmaṣhāḥ chhinna-dvaidhā yatātmānaḥ sarva-bhūta-hite ratāḥ
The seers attain absorption in Brahman. Their sins are washed away, their doubts cut through, their minds disciplined, and they delight in the welfare of all beings.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
he verse names the people who reach the goal: the rishis, the seers. A rishi here is not just a poet of ancient hymns but one who sees the subtle truth, the right-seer who beholds reality as it actually is. Several commentators stress that this seeing is the heart of the word: the rishis are the samyak-darshins, the ones of true vision, who discern the subtle thing that ordinary sight misses. What they attain is brahma-nirvana, which the commentators read as extinction in Brahman, that is, liberation, the quietude or peace that is Brahman itself, also described as the supreme happiness. So the verse is telling us both who arrives and where they arrive: the true seers reach release in Brahman.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Lokmanya Tilak
Their sins are worn away. Kshina-kalmasha means those whose stain or impurity is exhausted, and many commentators read this as the necessary first step. Sin here is the impurity that blocks knowledge. It is worn down by performing the obligatory works, sacrifice and selfless service, done without craving for their fruit and offered for the Lord. Several quote scripture to ground the sequence: knowledge arises in a person by the exhaustion of past sins. So the order is plain: action done selflessly burns off the impurity, and only then can clear vision arise. The taint that obstructs the attaining of the Self is worn wholly away first.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Madhvācārya
Their doubts are cut. Chinna-dvaidha means those whose 'doubleness' is severed. Most commentators read dvaidha as doubt or wrong cognition, the wavering of a divided mind, and they say it is cut clean off by hearing the teaching and reflecting on it. This is the next rung after purification: once sin is gone, right vision arises, and then the ripening of hearing and reflection removes all remaining doubt. Some commentators add that the cutting is done with the sword of knowledge. The point is that the seer's mind is no longer split or uncertain; it has settled into one clear understanding.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda
Their selves are restrained and they delight in the welfare of all beings. Yatatman means one of subdued senses and controlled mind, the mind held one-pointed on the supreme Self alone; this is the fruit of steady meditation. Sarva-bhuta-hite ratah means devoted to and delighting in the good of every being, doing no harm. Many commentators tie these two together and explain the second by the first: because the seer perceives the one Self in all, or sees no real duality, harming another becomes impossible and the welfare of all becomes natural. They feel all beings as their own Self. Several scriptures are cited to this effect, including the verse about one in whom all beings have become the very self of the knower, for whom there is no more delusion or grief. So inner equality and outward compassion are one movement, not two.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators present the verse as a single ladder of means leading to the one liberating knowledge. They map the words to ascending stages: sin worn away by selfless sacrifice and obligatory works, then the inner organ purified so the seer can discern the subtle, then doubts cut by the ripening of hearing and reflection, then the self restrained and one-pointed by the ripening of meditation, and finally, through the non-seeing of duality, delight in the good of all and the attainment of extinction in Brahman. Liberation comes effortlessly once these means mature. The seeing of no duality is decisive: where all beings have become the very self of the knower, there is neither delusion nor grief, for one who sees oneness.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
For these commentators dvaidha is read primarily as the pairs of opposites, cold and heat and the rest, the dualities of experience that pull the mind; the seer is freed of these. They read the verse as the Lord's assurance that for one of the qualities described, Brahman is exceedingly easy to attain. One commentator further frames the verse against the earlier teaching at 5.20 about ceasing from gladness and agitation: this verse takes the further, positive step, for delight in the welfare of all beings is not a separate discipline added on, but the spontaneous outer mark of an inner sight that has settled into equality. The verse carries the seeker beyond mere not-doing to the positive outward expression of the realized state.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
These commentators take 'cut duality' as cut doubt or wrong cognition, the twofold wavering of an uncultivated, impure understanding, severed with the sword of knowledge. They draw out a distinctive reading of yatatman: the same compound can be analyzed so that 'self' here means a far-reaching, expansive mind, that is, the all-knowing one of great knowledge. On this reading the seer is not merely controlled but vast in cognition, of many objects, having known all that is to be known through hearing and the rest. They are careful about the logic linking the terms: the destruction of obstructing sin is the special cause, and the seer's perception of Brahman is its effect, so 'they attain' is read as 'they perceive.' Worn-away taint, expanded self, and cut duality stand in a real cause-and-effect order. They also allow the simpler alternative reading: those whose doubleness is cut, whose selves are controlled.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse as evidence drawn from the conduct of the good and the perfected: the example of those who have actually reached the goal stands as proof that the goal is reachable, taken as the Lord's own assurance that the path holds. One develops a strongly devotional and lila-centered reading: brahma-nirvana is the lila-status, the rare standing in the Lord's play; kshina-kalmasha are those with no longing for any fruit but the experience of Bhagavan's lila; chinna-dvaidha are those who know no other fruit alongside this one; yatatman are those settled single-mindedly for the Lord's sake; and sarva-bhuta-hite ratah are lovers of Bhagavan, who is himself the welfare of all beings. This commentator even maps each term onto a model class of devotees in Vrindavan, teaching that all alike who are endowed with bhava, loving devotion, attain.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator gives a compact reading focused on two knots that must be destroyed: the knot in the form of difference and the knot in the form of doubt. The goal is reached by those in whom both are undone. This places difference itself, not only doubt, among the bonds to be cut.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators read the verse as the teacher's confirmation that many indeed become perfected through this means, the means just described; the verse shows that those accomplished by the path become many. They give a plain gloss of the terms: the rishis are the right-seers who behold the truth, whose impurity is exhausted, whose doubt is cut clean off, whose mind is well held in, who stand devoted to and compassionate toward the welfare of all beings, and they attain brahma-nirvana, that is, moksha.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Modern
These commentators render the verse for the contemporary practitioner. One explains the loss of duality as realizing that there is only one Supreme Lord present in all places, and stresses that release comes through self-control directed at the welfare of the whole creation. Another spells out the practical chain: sins destroyed by selfless daily ritual and service, duties dissolved by constant meditation on the nondual Brahman, and never hurting any being because one feels all beings as one's own Self. A third reads yatatman against the grain of effortful suppression: precisely because the seeker holds no sense of own-ness in body, senses, mind, and intellect, and never treats them as the real self, these come under control easily and naturally rather than being forced; once the sense of mine-ness is dropped, attraction and aversion fall away on their own and every action that flows through such a person becomes one that does the welfare of others.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
Do I have to force myself to serve all beings, or does that care arise naturally once the inner work is done?
The commentators are nearly unanimous that the welfare of all beings is not a separate task bolted on from outside but the natural outer mark of a settled inner state. Where the equality of inner sight is established, working for the good of all is not a discipline you must drum up; it is the spontaneous expression of that sight. The verse deliberately moves the seeker past mere not-doing to this positive outflow.
Vedānta Deśika · Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The reason it flows on its own is the seer's vision: perceiving the one Self in all beings, or seeing no real duality, the seer simply cannot wish harm, because all beings are felt as the seer's own Self. Harming another would be like harming oneself. So compassion is not added to realization; it is what realization looks like from the outside.
Swami Sivananda · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Lokmanya Tilak
There is also a practical entry point if the realization is not yet ripe. Drop the sense of 'mine' in body, senses, mind, and intellect and stop running them for your own benefit. As that own-ness loosens, attraction and aversion fall away by themselves, and the actions that then flow through you naturally become ones that serve others' welfare. So you do not have to manufacture service; you remove the self-centered grip that was blocking it.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice where the struggle to control yourself actually comes from. The teaching here is that the body, the senses, the mind, and the intellect refuse to come under your sway precisely because you keep treating them as your own and as existing for your sake. As long as you hold them as 'mine' and 'for me,' attraction and aversion, desire and anger stay lodged in them, and you remain under their control rather than the other way around. So the practice is gentle but exact: stop claiming the body and the rest as your real self, and stop running them for your own benefit. When that sense of own-ness ends, their insistence ends too, and they come under your sway easily and naturally, with no white-knuckled suppression. From that quiet, attraction and aversion fade by themselves, and then every action that flows through you turns, on its own, into one that serves the good of others.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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