कैर्लिंगैस्त्रीन्गुणानेतानतीतो भवति प्रभो।किमाचारः कथं चैतांस्त्रीन्गुणानतिवर्तते॥
kair liṅgais trīn guṇān etān atīto bhavati prabhokim ācāraḥ kathaṃ caitāns trīn guṇān ativartate
Word by word
The verse says
Arjuna said: By what signs is a person known who has gone beyond these three strands, lord? How does such a person behave, and how do they get past the three?
In plain words
Three questions, and the second is the practical one.
What are the signs. How do they behave. How is it done.
Arjuna has learned to ask for the visible evidence, and he asks for it before asking for the method.
Where you've felt this · in relationships
A friend tells you her marriage got much better and you do not ask what she realised. You ask what is different now on a Sunday. The answer to the second question is the one that tells you whether anything actually happened.
Going deeper
Asking for signs before asking for a method is the right order and Arjuna has worked it out over fourteen chapters.
He asked a version of this at the end of Chapter 2, about the person of settled wisdom, and the answer there ran for eighteen verses. He is doing it again because descriptions of inner states are unfalsifiable and descriptions of behaviour are not.
It is also a check against self-deception, which this chapter has already raised twice.
If clarity binds through attachment to knowing, and heaviness includes not being able to tell you are in it, then self-report is not a reliable instrument. Visible conduct is. Arjuna's question is the right one for a reader to carry too: not what does this feel like, but what would be different about my week.