Verse 18.16

तत्रैवं सति कर्तारमात्मानं केवलं तु यः ।

पश्यत्यकृतबुद्धित्वान्न स पश्यति दुर्मतिः ॥

18.16

Transliteration

tatraivaṃ sati kartāramātmānaṃ kevalaṃ tu yaḥ |

paśyatyakṛtabuddhitvānna sa paśyati durmatiḥ ||

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · @indic-transliteration/sanscript 1.3.3

Translation

Now, such being the case, verily he who owing to untrained understanding looks upon his Self, which is isolated, as the agent, he of perverted intelligence, sees not.

From the owner's sheet · +1 more

Word by word

there
thus
being
as the doer
the self
alone
but
who

sees
from untrained understanding
not
he
sees
the dull-minded

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · claude-opus-5-5 · 2026-11-08

Explanation

Given these five causes, anyone who sees the self as the sole doer, because his understanding is not refined, does not see truly. Krishna calls such a person durmati, of poor judgement. The verse corrects a basic illusion of agency: the sense that I alone make things happen. Many traditions read this as pointing to the self (ātman) as a witness distinct from the activity of body and mind. The insight frees one from both pride in success and despair in failure.

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · claude-opus-5-5 · 2026-11-08