5.25

Sanskrit

लभन्ते ब्रह्मनिर्वाणमृषयः क्षीणकल्मषाः । छिन्नद्वैधा यतात्मानः सर्वभूतहिते रताः ॥

labhante brahmanirvāṇam ṛṣayaḥ kṣīṇakalmaṣāḥ chinnadvaidhā yatātmānaḥ sarvabhūtahite ratāḥ

Translation

Rishis, their sins destroyed, their duality removed, their selves controlled, intent upon the welfare of all beings, obtain the Peace of the Eternal.

Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain

Explanation

Three qualifications precede the attainment, and they read as sequential rather than simultaneous — sins worn away, duality severed (meaning the habit of perceiving in opposites: pleasant and unpleasant, mine and not mine), and the self restrained — before landing on delight in the welfare of all beings. That last phrase is worth pausing on: liberation here isn’t a private, self-enclosed state but comes bundled with an active orientation toward other beings’ good, which quietly sets up the chapter’s closing identification of Krishna himself as friend to all beings.