12.5 Harder, not lesser Krishna speaks
क्लेशोऽधिकतरस्तेषामव्यक्तासक्तचेतसाम्
अव्यक्ता हि गतिर्दुःखं देहवद्भिरवाप्यते
kleśho ’dhikataras teṣhām avyaktāsakta-chetasām
avyaktā hi gatir duḥkhaṁ dehavadbhir avāpyate
The trouble is greater for those whose minds are set on the unmanifest, for the unmanifest is hard to reach.
Explanation
The difference is difficulty, and nothing else.
kleśaḥ adhikataraḥ — the trouble is greater. Not the reward smaller, not the understanding poorer. The formless is hard to reach, and that is the whole of the objection.
Which makes the preference of 12.2 a practical judgement about people rather than a metaphysical claim about God — the Gita ranking two roads by what a mind can actually hold onto.
Going further
Word by word
- kleśhaḥ
- tribulations
- adhika-taraḥ
- full of
- teṣhām
- of those
- avyakta
- to the unmanifest
- āsakta
- attached
- chetasām
- whose minds
- avyaktā
- the unmanifest
- hi
- indeed
- gatiḥ
- path
- duḥkham
- exceeding difficulty
- deha-vadbhiḥ
- for the embodied
- avāpyate
- is reached
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The trouble is greater for those whose minds are set on the unmanifest.
Arjuna asked which path is better and got a straight answer, unusually. The formless is not denied or ranked lower in truth — it is called harder. The Gita is being practical about people rather than precise about metaphysics, which is a distinction it makes more often than it is given credit for.