Sanskrit
तत्रैवं सति कर्तारमात्मानं केवलं तु यः । पश्यत्यकृतबुद्धित्वान्न स पश्यति दुर्मतिः ॥ १६ ॥
tatraivaṃ sati kartāram ātmānaṃ kevalaṃ tu yaḥ paśyaty akṛtabuddhitvān na sa paśyati durmatiḥ
Translation
That being so, he verily who—owing to untrained Reason—looketh on his Self, which is isolated, as the actor, he of perverted intelligence, seeth not.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Given that five factors are always in play, whoever looks at the isolated, unitary Self as the sole actor is, in Krishna’s word, of “perverted intelligence” — he doesn’t actually see clearly. This is the sharpest statement in the chapter of a distinction chapter 13 first drew between the field, where all this causal machinery operates, and the knower of the field, the true Self, which the Samkhya framework here implies never really “acts” at all. To see the Self as kartā, the doer, is the error — the Self is akartā (BG 13.29). The person who thinks he acts has an akṛta-buddhi, an unfinished understanding.
Study deeper
Word by word
- tatraivaṃ satiतत्रैवं सति
- this being so (tatra + evam + sati)
- kartāram ātmānaṃ kevalaṃ tu yaḥकर्तारं आत्मानं केवलं तु यः
- who sees the Self alone as the agent (kartāram + ātmānam + kevalam + tu + yaḥ)
- paśyaty akṛtabuddhitvānपश्यत्य् अकृतबुद्धित्वान्
- through untrained understanding (paśyati + akṛta-buddhitvāt)
- na sa paśyati durmatiḥन स पश्यति दुर्मतिः
- he, the dull-minded, does not [truly] see (na + saḥ + paśyati + durmatiḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The word Krishna uses for this mistake — durmati, perverted or evil intelligence — is strong language for what is, in practice, the single most ordinary sentence a person says all day: “I did this.” The claim being made is not that this habit of speech is a minor imprecision but that it’s a serious misreading of what’s actually happening whenever anyone takes credit or blame for an action.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Notice how automatically you say 'I did this' after something goes well or badly, and pause to name the other factors — timing, circumstance, other people's input — that also produced it. Loosening your grip on sole ownership doesn't mean abandoning responsibility; it means seeing the outcome more accurately.
Professional
- When a project succeeds or fails, resist the reflex to claim full personal credit or full personal blame — name the actual contributing factors, teammates, timing, tooling, that shaped the result. More accurate attribution leads to better decisions than either taking all the credit or absorbing all the blame.
Family & Social
- When a family outcome lands well or badly — a child's grade, a shared plan falling through — resist pinning it entirely on one person's doing. Naming the several factors that actually combined to produce it is fairer, and closer to what really happened.
Ask yourself
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