त्रैगुण्यविषया वेदा निस्त्रैगुण्यो भवार्जुन।निर्द्वन्द्वो नित्यसत्त्वस्थो निर्योगक्षेम आत्मवान्॥
trai-guṇya-viṣayā vedā nistrai-guṇyo bhavārjunanirdvandvo nitya-sattva-stho niryoga-kṣema ātmavān
Word by word
The verse says
The scriptures deal with the three strands of nature. Get free of those three, Arjuna. Let go of the opposites, stay in what is true, stop managing what you get and what you keep, and be your own.
In plain words
The most radical instruction so far, and it is aimed at the tradition itself.
The scriptures operate inside nature's three strands. Krishna tells Arjuna to get past them.
Then four quick directions: drop the opposites, stay in what is real, stop managing gain and safety, possess yourself.
Where you've felt this · with money
You spend years arranging the conditions for a good life — the savings, the cover, the backup plan. All of it is sensible. None of it has made you any less afraid, because the arranging was never what the fear was about.
Going deeper
This verse contains the Gita's first mention of the guṇas — the three strands that Chapter 14 will describe in full — and it uses them to say something startling.
Traiguṇya-viṣayā vedāḥ — the Vedas have the three strands as their subject matter. Scripture operates within nature; therefore it cannot by itself take you past nature. Krishna is placing a limit on the authority he is speaking with.
Nirdvandvaḥ — free of the pairs. Hot and cold, praise and blame, gain and loss. Not free of experiencing them. Free of being organised by them.
Niryoga-kṣemaḥ is the most practical and the least quoted. Yoga here means acquiring what you do not have, kṣema protecting what you do. Between them they describe most of adult life. Krishna is saying: stop running that program.
And ātmavān — be possessed of yourself. It is the positive instruction the other three clear space for. Everything else in the verse is subtraction, and this is what is left.