तपस्विभ्योऽधिको योगी ज्ञानिभ्योऽपि मतोऽधिकः ।कर्मिभ्यश्चाधिको योगी तस्माद्योगी भवार्जुन ॥
tapasvibhyo’dhiko yogī jñānibhyo’pi mato’dhikaḥkarmibhyaścādhiko yogī tasmādyogī bhavārjuna
The Yogin is greater than the doers of askesis, greater than the men of knowledge, greater than the men of works; become then the Yogin, O Arjuna.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
Essays on the Gita
The Yogin is greater than the doers of askesis, greater than the men of knowledge, greater than the men of works; become then the Yogin, O Arjuna,
His translation
KRISHNA Partha, neither in this world nor in the other is there for that man any perdition; no man who doeth good, can come to an evil end, O beloved. But to the world of the righteous he goeth and there dwelleth for endless seasons and then is born again, the man fallen from Yoga, in a house of pure and fortunate men. Or else he even cometh to being in the house of the wise men, in a family of Yogins, for such a birth as this in this world is one of the hardest to win. There he getteth touch again with the mind he had in his former body and with that to start him he striveth yet harder after perfection, O delight of the Kurus. For he is seized and hurried forward even by that former habit & askesis of his, though it be without his own will. Even if a man’s mind is curious after Yoga, he overpasseth the outer Brahman in the Word. The Yogin earnestly striving is purified of sin; perfected by toil of many births he arriveth at his highest salvation. Greater than the men of askesis is the Yogin and greater I hold him even than the men of Knowledge, and than the men of works he is surely greater, a Yogin therefore shouldst thou be, O Urjoona. And of all that are Yogins I deem to have most Yoga him who with his inner Self taking refuge in Me hath faith in Me & loveth Me & worshippeth.
Essays on the Gita
The Gita brings in here as always bhakti as the climax of the Yoga, sarvabhūtasthitaṁ yo māṁ bhajati ekatvam āsthitaḥ; that may almost be said to sum up the whole final result of the Gita’s6·31 teaching — whoever loves God in all and his soul is founded upon the divine oneness, however he lives and acts, lives and acts in God. And to emphasise it still more, after an intervention of Arjuna and a reply to his doubt as to how so difficult a Yoga can be at all possible for the restless mind of man, the divine Teacher returns to this idea and makes it his culminating utterance.6·46 “The Yogin is greater than the doers of askesis, greater than the men of knowledge, greater than the men of works; become then the Yogin, O Arjuna,” the Yogin, one who seeks for and attains, by works and knowledge and askesis or by whatever other means, not even spiritual knowledge or power or anything else for their own sake, but the union with God alone; for in that all else is contained and in that lifted beyond itself to a divinest significance. But even among Yogins the greatest is the Bhakta. “Of all Yogins he who with all his inner self given up to Me, for6·47 Me has love and faith, śraddhāvān bhajate, him I hold to be the most united with Me in Yoga.” It is this that is the closing word of these first six chapters and contains in itself the seed of the rest, of that which still remains unspoken and is nowhere entirely spoken; for it is always and remains something of a mystery and a secret, rahasyam, the highest spiritual mystery and the divine secret.
