A declaration · expansive in mood · builds on earlier teachings
“What passes away was never ultimate; what is real cannot vanish.”
The unreal has no being; the real has no nonbeing. Seers have understood the boundary of both.
The verse in reading order — each Sanskrit word with its meaning beneath. Tap a word to focus on it.
Read literallyof the unreal · exists · being · not · nonbeing · exists · of the real · of both · also · seen · limit · indeed · of these · by seers of reality
What is temporary does not truly exist, and what is real cannot be destroyed. Those who see clearly understand the difference between the two.
Krishna speaks this verse, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the chapter titled "Sankhya Yoga" (The Yoga of Knowledge).
Verse 16 sits in Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita — Sankhya Yoga, "The Yoga of Knowledge". The chapter has 72 verses in total.
Months into a long illness, a patient may notice that the pain changes from week to week while the one feeling it stays. Krishna asks Arjuna to tell those two apart: what passes, and what is.
Did you like this verse?
Krishna draws a hard line: the unreal never comes to be, and the real never stops being.
What this verse means
What is temporary does not truly exist, and what is real cannot be destroyed. Those who see clearly understand the difference between the two.
Context & commentary
Krishna has already told him to endure changing sensations; now he goes further, showing that the wise see through appearance itself. This verse defines what can be lost and what cannot.
What it looks like today
Months into a long illness, a patient may notice that the pain changes from week to week while the one feeling it stays. Krishna asks Arjuna to tell those two apart: what passes, and what is.
“You can stop treating every passing fear or loss as ultimate. Some things vanish; what is real stays.”