Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 18, Verse 71
Verse 71
The Yoga of Liberation through Renunciation
And even the person who simply hears this with faith and without envy becomes free, and attains the radiant realms of those whose actions are pure.
Context & Meaning
The Lord's compassion reaches even those who can only listen. Two qualities suffice: faith (śraddhā) and the absence of envy (anasūyā). No great learning, no long practice, no exceptional tapas — just an open, trusting, non-hostile reception of this sacred teaching. Such a listener is liberated (muktaḥ) and attains the auspicious worlds of the righteous. This is the Gita's most accessible promise: even to simply hear it with a receptive heart is already a transformative act of devotion.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainAdi Shankaracharya
AdvaitaŚraddhāvān anasūyaḥ — faithful and free from envy. These two qualities together describe the ideal state of reception: the mind that opens to the teaching (śraddhā) and does not contract against it (anasūyā). The Advaita tradition sees śraddhā not as blind belief but as the natural trust of a mind that has glimpsed the truth and recognised it. Such a mind hears the Gita not as doctrine imposed from outside but as a confirmation of what it has always, in its depths, known.