Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 58: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  By fixing the mind (citta) entirely on Me — the supreme Self — you will cross all formidable obstacles (sarva-durgani), the entire brood of causes that perpetuate samsara, through My grace (mat-prasadat) alone, without any separate effort of your own. Sankara presses the paradox: the grace is not external favour but the fruit of ego-dissolution, for it is ahankara — the claim 'I am the learned one, I know' — that is the sole obstruction. If you refuse to hear My word out of that conceit, you will perish, because imagined autonomy (svatantrya) in the sphere of action is precisely the knot that binds.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  With mind (citta) turned toward Me as the inner ruler of all, perform every action as worship, and through My grace alone you will cross all worldly straits (samsarika durgani). Ramanuja underlines that no being other than Bhagavan is the knower and ordainer of what is fit and unfit for every creature — the ahamkara that says 'I myself know all duty' directly displaces the Lord from his governance-seat. To refuse His word from that pride is not independence but self-destruction, for the jiva's capacity for right action is sustained entirely by His upholding presence.

• Madhvadvaita

  Fix your mind on Me, the supreme Hari, eternally distinct from and sovereign over all jivas, and by My grace alone — never by self-generated power — you will pass through every difficulty that bondage throws up. [NOTE: Madhvacarya's direct commentary on this verse is absent from the supplied bhāṣya; this rendering extrapolates from his established siddhanta of svatantra-Brahman and paratantra-jiva.] The refusal to hear, rooted in the illusion that the jiva is self-sufficient, is the acutest expression of the error Dvaita opposes: the jiva mistaking its dependence for independence, thereby forfeiting the very grace that could liberate it.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Mark well what follows from making Me the home of your mind: every hardship and ordeal (krcchrani sankata-rupani) dissolves through My prasada, which in the Pusti-marga is not earned but purely bestowed. Vallabha's terse warning frames the alternative as a fall into the merely 'natural' (prakrta) condition — the soul that trusts its own opinion instead of Krsna's word does not merely err; it reverts to the unredeemed common state, cut off from the current of divine grace that alone sustains the devotee's crossing.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara opens this verse as the Lord's disclosure of what will follow (tato yad bhavisyati tat srnu): with mind concentrated on Me, even the most impassable sufferings of samsara (dustara-samsarika-duhkhani) will be crossed through My grace alone. The counterfactual is framed as a doctrinal warning: the ahamkara at stake here is specifically the pride of the 'knower' (jnatrtvabhimana), the conceit of one who believes his own discernment sufficient — and the consequence, vinanksyasi, is not mere worldly failure but falling away entirely from the four purusharthas.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana synthesizes: the mind fixed on Me is the condition; My grace the sufficient cause; and the obstacles crossed are specifically kama-krodhadi — desire, anger, and their kin, the instruments of samsara-duhkha. His distinctive note is that My grace operates without the devotee's own exertion (sva-vyaparam antarenai va) — the crossing is effortless (anayasena eva). The ahamkara condemned is named precisely as scholarly vanity (pandito 'ham iti garva): one who acts willfully by ignoring My word (kamakarena) while pretending to renunciation (sannyasadyacaran) will fall from every purusharta.