Speaker: Śrī Kṛṣṇa
तत्त्ववित्तु महाबाहो गुणकर्मविभागयोः ।
गुणा गुणेषु वर्तन्त इति मत्वा न सज्जते ॥२८॥
tattva-vit tu mahā-bāho
guṇa-karma-vibhāgayoḥ
guṇā guṇeṣu vartanta
iti matvā na sajjate
Word for word (synonyms)
- tattvavit
- the knower of the Absolute Truth
- tu
- but
- mahā-bāho
- O mighty-armed one
- guṇa-karma
- works under material influence
- vibhāgayoḥ
- differences
- guṇāḥ
- senses
- guṇeṣu
- in sense gratification
- vartante
- being engaged
- iti
- thus
- matvā
- thinking
- na
- never
- sajjate
- becomes attached
Translation
One who is in knowledge of the Absolute Truth, O mighty-armed, does not engage himself in the senses and sense gratification, knowing well the differences between work in devotion and work for fruitive results.
Defined in the Gītā
Knowledge
What is knowledge?
Humility, pridelessness, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, approaching a bona fide spiritual master, cleanliness, steadiness and self-control; renunciation of the objects of sense gratification, absence of false ego, the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease; nonattachment to children, wife, home and the rest, and evenmindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events; constant and unalloyed devotion to Me, resorting to solitary places, detachment from the general mass of people; accepting the importance of self-realization, and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth—all these I thus declare to be knowledge, and what is contrary to these is ignorance.
Purport
Other scriptures cited in this purport: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
The knower of the Absolute Truth is convinced of his awkward position in material association. He knows that he is part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, and that his position should not be in the material creation. He knows his real identity as part and parcel of the Supreme, who is eternal bliss and knowledge, and he realizes that somehow or other he is entrapped in the material conception of life. In his pure state of existence he is meant to dovetail his activities in devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. He therefore engages himself in the activities of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and becomes naturally unattached to the activities of the material senses, which are all circumstantial and temporary. He knows that his material condition of life is under the supreme control of the Lord; consequently he is not disturbed by all kinds of material reactions, which he considers to be the mercy of the Lord. According to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, one who knows the Absolute Truth in three different features—namely Brahman, Paramātmā, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead—is called tattvavit, for he knows also his own factual position in relationship with the Supreme.
What this verse teaches
A karma-yogī works with detachment and doesn’t disturb the ignorant men who think themselves the doers.
Śrīla Prabhupāda lectures 1
- Bhagavad-gītā 3.18-30 1968-12-30 · Los Angeles
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.