At the end of chapter 12 the Lord gives a long list. Eight verses carry more than thirty marks, and every few lines the same sentence returns: such a one is dear to Me (Gita 12.13–20). A careful reader stops in three places. The list sounds like an entrance test that nobody could pass. The word "dear" seems to contradict the Lord's own statement that He is equal to all beings, with none hateful to Him and none dear (Gita 9.29). And some marks seem to pull against each other: friendly to all yet equal toward friend and foe, compassionate yet free from grief, giving up every undertaking yet skilful in action.
The short answer is that the list is a portrait of one person, and it has one centre: mind and intellect offered to the Lord (Gita 12.14). The other marks are what that centre looks like in dealing with people, with feelings, with events and with work. "Dear" is not favouritism; it is the Lord's answer to a person who has turned toward Him. And the marks that seem to collide sit at different levels, so they can stand together. Here we take the verses closely first. Then we see where the Gita draws this person again and how commentators read the passage. Five objections follow. Last come the questions the verses raise, with the answers the Gita and its tradition give.
The eight verses, group by group
No hatred, friendliness and compassion (12.13-14)
One sentence runs across two verses. The marks are listed in the first, and "such a devotee of Mine is dear to Me" comes at the end of the second. They have to be read together.
निर्ममो निरहङ्कारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी ॥ १२.१३ ॥
nirmamo nirahankāraḥ sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ kṣhamī || 12.13 ||
One who bears hatred toward no being, who is friendly and compassionate toward all, who is free from possessiveness and ego, who remains balanced in pain and pleasure, and who is forgiving... (the sentence is completed in the next verse, where Krishna says such a devotee is dear to Him). Here Krishna begins his portrait of the ideal devotee, starting with the qualities that shape one's attitude toward others and toward oneself.
मय्यर्पितमनोबुद्धिर्यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः ॥ १२.१४ ॥
mayy arpita-mano-buddhir yo mad-bhaktaḥ sa me priyaḥ || 12.14 ||
One who is always content, ever united with the Divine, self-controlled, firm in conviction, and who has offered both mind and intellect to Me, such a devotee of Mine is dear to Me. This verse completes the sentence begun in the previous one and gives the central idea: inner contentment, discipline, firm resolve, and total offering of one's thoughts and decisions are the marks of one who is dear to the Lord.
The first mark is freedom from hatred toward any being. It is the root of the list, since friendliness and compassion cannot stand where hatred stays. Two positive marks grow from it: friendliness, which is for all, and compassion, which wakes at the sight of trouble. The tradition of the Yoga Sutra also keeps the pair together, friendliness toward the happy and compassion toward the suffering. In the Gita itself the pair shows up as being intent on the good of all beings, which is how those who reach the Lord are described (Gita 12.4, Gita 5.25).
Then come two knots that the verse asks to be loosened together: "mine" and "I am the doer". Peace comes when both are gone (Gita 2.71), and believing "I am the doer" is named as the mark of a mind bewildered by ego (Gita 3.27). When possessiveness and ego loosen, the other marks get easier, because hatred so often comes from a blow to something we had taken as ours. Evenness in pain and pleasure follows, since both come and go and can be borne (Gita 2.14).
The last mark of the verse is forgiveness. When hatred has dissolved, what remains in front of a wrong is forgiveness. It does not call the wrong right. It is the mind letting go of the grip that a wrong keeps for years.
The second verse gives the centre. Four things are named: always content, mind and senses under control, firm in resolve, and mind and intellect offered to the Lord. The contentment is not the kind that depends on what comes from outside; it is the kind that rests within and needs no outer support (Gita 2.55, Gita 4.20). The firm resolve is the single resolute intellect of the path of action, set against the many branching thoughts of the unresolved (Gita 2.41). It is also the resolve that makes even a person of very bad conduct count as a saint, once he turns to the Lord with an undivided mind (Gita 9.30). That turning is the subject of Even the Worst Offender.
The offering names both mind and intellect. The mind wants and feels; the intellect decides. The Lord asks Arjuna for the same thing elsewhere: remember Me at all times, do your duty, and with mind and intellect offered to Me you will come to Me (Gita 8.7). It is also the first step of The Ladder of Devotion (Gita 12.8). The verse calls the devotee a yogi, and that is not accidental: the one who worships with faith, with the inner self absorbed in the Lord, is counted the best of all yogis (Gita 6.47). Devotion and yoga are not two ranks.
Steady among people, skilful in work, free of four moods (12.15-17)
हर्षामर्षभयोद्वेगैर्मुक्तो यः स च मे प्रियः ॥ १२.१५ ॥
harṣhāmarṣha-bhayodvegair mukto yaḥ sa cha me priyaḥ || 12.15 ||
One by whom no one is agitated, who is not agitated by anyone, and who is free from elation, resentment, fear, and anxiety, is dear to Me. The devotee lives in such harmony with the world that neither causes disturbance to others nor is thrown off balance by them.
सर्वारम्भपरित्यागी यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः ॥ १२.१६ ॥
sarvārambha-parityāgī yo mad-bhaktaḥ sa me priyaḥ || 12.16 ||
One who is free from dependence on worldly gain, who is pure, skilful, impartial, and untroubled, and who has given up all self-centred undertakings, such a devotee of Mine is dear to Me. These qualities describe a person who works efficiently and cleanly but is not driven by personal ambition or anxiety.
शुभाशुभपरित्यागी भक्तिमान्यः स मे प्रियः ॥ १२.१७ ॥
śhubhāśhubha-parityāgī bhaktimān yaḥ sa me priyaḥ || 12.17 ||
One who neither becomes elated nor feels aversion, who neither grieves nor craves, who has renounced attachment to both good and bad outcomes, and who is full of devotion, is dear to Me. Krishna describes a heart that is no longer driven by attraction and aversion, loss and gain, because it rests in devotion.
The first verse here names disturbance in both directions: nobody is shaken by this person, and this person is shaken by nobody. The first direction gets less notice, yet it is real. A person who is shaken inside hands that shaking on: a sharp tone, a rush, a jibe. The Gita's own rule for speech says the same thing, that words should not agitate anyone (Gita 17.15). Inner steadiness is therefore also a kindness to others.
Four moods are named: overjoy, intolerance, fear and agitation. It surprises some readers that joy is on the list. The joy meant here is the kind that surges, and with it come pride and the dread of losing what has been gained. Intolerance is the inability to bear another's rise or one's own insult. Freedom from the four does not mean having no feelings; it means not being swept away by them.
The next verse puts the devotee in the world of work. He needs nothing from outside to complete what he does. He is clean, and skilful, since yoga is skill in action (Gita 2.50). He is impartial, sitting like an onlooker who is not pulled to one side (Gita 14.23). This impartiality is not gloom or carelessness; it is the stance of one who does not let his own pull twist a decision. He is untroubled, and he has given up every self-driven undertaking.
That last phrase needs care. Chapter 4 says the same thing: one whose every undertaking is free of desire and of the plan to gain from it is called wise (Gita 4.19). What is given up is the beginning that starts from self-interest, not duty. A person in a body cannot give up action altogether, and the true renouncer is the one who gives up attachment to the fruit (Gita 18.11).
The seventeenth verse names four things the mind does not do: it neither rejoices, nor hates, nor grieves, nor craves. Attachment to both the pleasant and the unpleasant is given up. It reads like the mark of steady wisdom in chapter 2, one who neither delights in the pleasant nor hates the unpleasant (Gita 2.57). Chapter 18 uses almost the same words and adds that such a person, equal toward all beings, gains supreme devotion (Gita 18.54). There the state is the doorway to supreme devotion; here it is a mark of the devotee. The two go together.
Evenness, a light hold and living it as taught (12.18-20)
शीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु समः सङ्गविवर्जितः ॥ १२.१८ ॥
śhītoṣhṇa-sukha-duḥkheṣhu samaḥ saṅga-vivarjitaḥ || 12.18 ||
One who is equal toward enemy and friend, balanced in honour and dishonour, even-minded in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, and free from attachment... (the sentence is completed in the next verse, where such a person is declared dear to the Lord). The devotee's evenness is rooted not in coldness but in freedom from attachment.
अनिकेतः स्थिरमतिर्भक्तिमान्मे प्रियो नरः ॥ १२.१९ ॥
aniketaḥ sthira-matir bhaktimān me priyo naraḥ || 12.19 ||
One who is alike in censure and praise, who is restrained in speech and contemplative, who is content with whatever comes, who feels no attachment to any dwelling, who is steady in mind and full of devotion, is a person dear to Me. This completes the sentence of the previous verse, and the qualities shown here are open to any person, not to any particular class or station.
श्रद्दधाना मत्परमा भक्तास्तेऽतीव मे प्रियाः ॥ १२.२० ॥
śhraddadhānā mat-paramā bhaktās te 'tīva me priyāḥ || 12.20 ||
Those who follow this immortal teaching of righteousness, exactly as it has been declared, with faith and with Me as their supreme goal, such devotees are exceedingly dear to Me. This concluding verse of the chapter turns the whole portrait of the ideal devotee into a call to action: the teaching must be lived, not merely admired.
The two verses at the start form one sentence that ends in "dear to Me" in the second. Five pairs are listed: foe and friend, honour and dishonour, cold and heat, pleasure and pain, blame and praise. Right in the middle one phrase gives the ground of all the pairs: free from attachment. The site's verse notes make the same point, that this evenness comes from non-attachment and not from coldness. The reason is plain. Attachment breeds desire, and desire, when blocked, breeds anger (Gita 2.62). So evenness holds when the grip is light.
The next verse has several more marks. Silence is not only quiet speech; the Gita counts it among the austerities of the mind too (Gita 17.16). Contentment with whatever comes does not mean wanting nothing; it means the mind does not keep a grievance against what has simply arrived (Gita 4.22). "No attachment to any dwelling" is often heard as an order to leave home. But the Gita says the same thing elsewhere as freedom from attachment and clinging to children, spouse and home (Gita 13.10), and Janaka and others reached perfection through action (Gita 3.20). The issue is the clinging, not the house. Nothing here is advice to keep a home or to leave one.
Then a steady mind and devotion are joined in one sentence. The picture of the steady mind that chapter 2 drew now meets devotion. The sentence ends with "person", and the site's notes remark that these qualities are open to anyone, not to a particular class or station.
The twentieth verse opens with "but". It separates those who admire the portrait from those who live it. Those who follow this nectar of dharma as it has been declared, with faith and holding the Lord as the highest aim, are exceedingly dear. Earlier verses said "dear"; this one says "exceedingly". The nearer a person comes to living it fully, the nearer he stands. The whole portrait is therefore meant to be walked, not only looked at.
Where else the Gita draws this person
| Verses | What they say | What they add to the portrait |
|---|---|---|
| The steady-wisdom portrait (Gita 2.54–57) | Content in the self, unshaken in sorrow, free of craving in pleasure, free of attachment, fear and anger | The same steadiness, given there as a mark of wisdom; chapter 12 joins it to "dear to Me" and to offering |
| The one beyond the three qualities (Gita 14.22–25) | Equal in pleasure and pain, blame and praise, honour and dishonour, friend and foe; gives up all undertakings | Many words are the same, and "gives up all undertakings" is the same phrase in 12.16 and 14.25; there the person is seen as risen above the qualities of nature, here as dear to the Lord |
| The range of even-mindedness (Gita 6.9, Gita 6.32) | Equal toward well-wisher, friend, enemy, saint and sinner; sees another's joy and pain as his own | How wide the circle of evenness is, and where compassion comes from: from feeling another's pain as one's own |
| The one without enmity (Gita 11.55) | Works for the Lord, free of attachment, without enmity toward any being, reaches Him | Freedom from enmity is itself a sign of reaching the Lord; it is the first mark of 12.13 seen from the other end |
| Marks of knowledge (Gita 13.8–12) | Forgiveness, non-injury, simplicity, steadiness, detachment from home and family, constant evenness in the wanted and unwanted | The same virtues are named as marks of knowledge, so the marks of knowledge and of devotion meet in one place |
| The divine endowment (Gita 16.1–3) | Non-injury, truth, freedom from anger, compassion for beings, forgiveness, no malice | The seeds of the same qualities, there as part of a person's nature |
| The knower as dear (Gita 7.17) | The knower is very dear to the Lord and the Lord to him | "Dear" runs in both directions; the devotee is dear, and so is the Lord to the devotee |
The steady-wisdom portrait and the one beyond the qualities are complete in their own places. Here they are used for one point only: the three portraits show the same person from three angles.
How the commentators read the passage
Two questions divide the commentators.
The first is whether the marks identify one who has arrived or set out a course for one who is walking. One stream reads them as the signs of the devotee who has reached the goal, so the verses give a way to recognise him. The other stream reads them as a programme for the traveller, so the verses say: grow these in yourself. Both streams agree that the last verse asks for the portrait to be lived.
The second is what "this nectar of dharma" in the last verse refers to. One stream takes it as the portrait in these verses alone (Gita 12.13–19). The other takes everything the chapter has taught since its second verse: the mind placed in the Lord, the four steps, and this portrait. In practice the two come to the same thing: what has been said is to be lived.
Five objections and their replies
If the Lord is equal to all, how is anyone dear?
"Dear" here is an answer, not a preference. The very verse that says the Lord is equal to all goes on to say that those who worship Him with devotion are in Him and He in them (Gita 9.29). The equality is on His side, and the nearness is made by the turning of the devotee. Chapter 4 says the same: as people come to Him, so He answers them (Gita 4.11). Of the knower the Lord says that he is very dear to Him and He to the knower (Gita 7.17), so being dear runs both ways. The Vedanta tradition gives an image for this: rain falls on every field alike, but what grows depends on the seed. The rain is not partial, and the difference between fields is also real.
Are the marks conditions for the Lord's love?
No. Even a person of very bad conduct who turns to the Lord with undivided mind is counted a saint and soon becomes righteous (Gita 9.30–31). For one who cannot take the higher step, the Lord Himself has set out lower ones (Gita 12.6–12). And nobody who walks the way of good ever comes to a bad end (Gita 6.40). Even the last verse asks for living it "as declared", not for having finished. What is asked is to keep walking.
Arjuna himself is the example. In chapter 2 he comes with a mind weak and bewildered (Gita 2.7). Yet the Lord calls him His devotee and friend (Gita 4.3). He says, you are very dear to Me (Gita 18.64), while Arjuna's doubts have not fully gone. They go at the end, and Arjuna says: I will act according to Your word (Gita 18.73). "Dear" was spoken first, and the portrait came afterwards.
Friendly to all, yet equal to friend and foe?
The two sit at different levels. Friendliness is will: a wish for the good of every being. Evenness is the state of the mind: the scales of liking and disliking do not tip. A person who wishes even an enemy no harm, and whose mind does not swing with what the enemy says, has both. In the Gita the circle of even-mindedness runs from the well-wisher to the enemy, from the saint to the sinner (Gita 6.9), and being free of enmity is itself a sign of reaching the Lord (Gita 11.55). Evenness does not mean treating everyone in the same way; it means that no dealing with anyone is settled by hatred or by infatuation.
Compassion feels pain, so how is there no grief?
Grief has two forms. One sinks a person and stops the hand. The Lord told Arjuna that he grieved for those who are not to be grieved for (Gita 2.11), and at the end of the teaching He said, do not grieve (Gita 18.66). The other is care that takes another's pain as its own and goes into action. It is the yogi who sees the pleasure and pain of others as his own (Gita 6.32) and is intent on the good of all beings (Gita 5.25). In the seventeenth verse the first is absent, and the second, compassion, remains. It stays steady, because the one who feels it is not himself shaken.
Does giving up all undertakings mean giving up duty?
It does not. What goes is the beginning that starts from self-interest. Chapter 4 says that one whose every undertaking is free of desire and of the plan to gain is wise (Gita 4.19), and the Lord tells Arjuna to do his duty constantly and without attachment (Gita 3.19). Chapter 18 makes it plainer still. All undertakings are covered by some fault as fire is by smoke, and yet one's natural duty is not to be given up (Gita 18.48). The person who is absorbed in his own work reaches perfection (Gita 18.45). The mention of skill in the very same verse shows that the work goes on.
Where is the joy of devotion in such a restrained portrait?
The list can read as a very composed person with no warmth of love in him. Two things need separating. The fifteenth and seventeenth verses rule out the joy that surges, not joy itself. Joy is in the portrait: the devotee is always content (Gita 12.14). Chapter 10 draws the same devotees. With their minds and lives in the Lord, they are content and delighted as they talk with one another about Him (Gita 10.9). In chapter 18 the same seeker is called serene of mind (Gita 18.54), and chapter 2 says that a mind under control finds clarity and calm (Gita 2.64). The difference is that this joy does not rise and fall with outside events. Its root is in remembering and speaking of the Lord, so it does not swing.
Does staying level in honour and dishonour give up justice?
No. The verse is about the mind: honour or dishonour does not settle what the person decides. It does not say that a wrong has stopped being a wrong. What is to be borne is the coming and going of pleasure and pain from contact with the world (Gita 2.14). Where something needs setting right, skill is asked for (Gita 12.16), and so is acting for the good of the world (Gita 3.25). The devotee sets it right, but not out of wounded pride. Concern for justice stays; the sting of the insult goes.
Questions the verses raise, answered from the Gita and the tradition
How are these marks grown?
The verse says to live the teaching as declared (Gita 12.20), and puts the centre in the offering of mind and intellect (Gita 12.14). The rest of the Gita supplies the way. It begins at the centre (Gita 12.8); for the mind that will not stay, there is practice with detachment (Gita 6.35), and the order of the four steps is in The Ladder of Devotion. The Gita also lists these qualities as practices: forgiveness, non-injury and simplicity (Gita 13.8–12), the austerity of speech (Gita 17.15), and gentleness, silence and self-control as the austerity of mind (Gita 17.16). In the Bhagavata tradition the Lord lists the marks of a holy person, and they match this portrait: merciful, harming no one, forbearing toward all beings, truthful, even-minded and a well-wisher of all. The tradition treats them both as the way and as its fruit.
What about a day when they do not hold?
The Gita's first answer is to raise oneself by oneself and never to let oneself sink (Gita 6.5). After a fall, the one who turns back to the Lord quickly becomes righteous and finds lasting peace (Gita 9.31), and the Lord says, do not grieve (Gita 18.66). Practice means coming back, not never falling. Each time the person returns to the centre, mind and intellect offered again, the other marks are set back on course.
What changes when a person is dear to the Lord?
In the verses, "dear" is a declaration; elsewhere in the Gita its fruit can be seen. In chapter 18 the Lord tells Arjuna, you are dear to Me, so fix your mind on Me and you will come to Me (Gita 18.65). He adds that no one does Him a dearer service than the one who teaches this to others (Gita 18.69). In chapter 10 He gives those who worship Him with love the understanding by which they come to Him, and from within He destroys the darkness of ignorance with the lamp of knowledge (Gita 10.10–11). In chapter 9 He carries what the devotee lacks and keeps what he has (Gita 9.22). In chapter 6 He never goes out of sight of the one who sees Him everywhere (Gita 6.30). The devotional tradition calls this nearness: the Lord is always close to the devotee and the devotee to the Lord.
How is this lived at home and at work?
The Gita offers both examples and a method. Janaka and others reached perfection through action (Gita 3.20), and the wise are told to act with no attachment for the good of the world (Gita 3.25). The sixteenth verse asks for skill. The method of offering work is in chapter 9: whatever you do, eat, give or practise, make it an offering (Gita 9.27), and it is taken up in Offering All Actions. In the Bhagavata tradition the common figure of the devotee is the householder who keeps the Lord at the centre of work and family.
Is the devotee who is dear to the Lord also a knower?
The verses call the devotee a yogi and speak of a steady mind (Gita 12.14, Gita 12.19). The rest of the Gita brings devotion and knowledge to one place. The Lord says that the knower is very dear to Him (Gita 7.17). Through devotion a person comes to know Him in truth, and having known Him enters into Him (Gita 18.55). To those who worship Him with love He Himself gives the understanding by which they reach Him (Gita 10.10–11). And the marks of knowledge in chapter 13 are the marks of this portrait: forgiveness, non-injury, steady evenness in the wanted and the unwanted (Gita 13.8–12). The devotional tradition puts it this way: true devotion gives birth to knowledge, and true knowledge ripens into devotion. So the question "devotee or knower?" does not arise here.
Why does the chapter end with this portrait?
Because the chapter began with a question: who is best? Arjuna asked about two kinds of seekers (Gita 12.1), and the Lord answered that those who fix the mind on Him and worship with faith are best (Gita 12.2). He then spoke about the harder path, gave four steps, and finally put the answer before Arjuna as a person. The answer to "who is best" is given by a life lived, not a definition, and the last word of the chapter is "dear".
Taken together: the verses give the direction, which is that the centre is offering and the portrait is to be lived. The rest of the Gita gives the way, which is steps, practice and return. The tradition gives examples and support.
A four-week round that brings the portrait into a life
Take one relationship each week. Every morning return to the centre by handing the day's mind and decisions to the Lord (Gita 12.14). When the mind slips away, do what the Gita advises and bring it back, again and again (Gita 6.35).
- Week one, with other beings. Each night think of the people toward whom there is bitterness and say one line for each: may they be well (Gita 12.13). By day watch your speech. Does it agitate anyone (Gita 17.15)?
- Week two, with your own moods. The chain of anger begins with attachment: brooding on an object, attachment, desire, then anger, then bewilderment and loss of memory (Gita 2.62–63). This week try to catch anger not at its last link but at an earlier one: "I want this to be so" (Gita 12.17).
- Week three, with events. Each day pick one thing that gave pleasure or pain and see it as the Gita does, as something that comes and goes (Gita 2.14, Gita 12.18–19).
- Week four, with work. Do one task of each day with full skill and hand over its fruit (Gita 12.16, Gita 9.27).
After the four weeks, take up again whichever part of the portrait looked weakest.
Basis and limits
Each verse is read here from the site's verse data. The streams of commentators are left unnamed. The pairing of friendliness and compassion in the Yoga Sutra, the Vedanta image of rain and seed, and the Bhagavata marks of a holy person belong to the tradition and are not verses of the Gita.
To close, the Lord's words in which "dear" is spoken to the devotee directly:
मामेवैष्यसि सत्यं ते प्रतिजाने प्रियोऽसि मे ॥ १८.६५ ॥
mām evaiṣhyasi satyaṁ te pratijāne priyo 'si me || 18.65 ||
Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, worship Me, and bow down to Me. You will come to Me alone; I promise you truly, for you are dear to Me.
Where to read next
The same portrait in plain words with a daily example is in the simple reading, and verse by verse with a seven-day practice in the detailed reading. The step before this one, for those whose mind will not stay, is The Ladder of Devotion.