Sanskrit
मनुष्याणां सहस्रेषु कश्चिद्यतति सिद्धये । यततामपि सिद्धानां कश्चिन्मां वेत्ति तत्त्वतः ॥ ३ ॥
manuṣyāṇāṃ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye yatatām api siddhānāṃ kaścin māṃ vetti tattvataḥ
Translation
Among thousands of men scarce one striveth for perfection; of the successful strivers scarce one knoweth Me in essence.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A sobering corrective placed right after verse 2’s promise of total knowledge: striving is common, success is rare, and even among the successful, knowing Krishna “in essence” (tattvataḥ) is rarer still. That’s three narrowing filters in one verse — strivers, successful strivers, true knowers — a structure the chapter echoes again in verse 19’s “very difficult to find” and in the four-types taxonomy of verses 16-18, where even the best category is explicitly a minority within a minority.