तत्त्ववित्तु महाबाहो गुणकर्मविभागयोः।गुणा गुणेषु वर्तन्त इति मत्वा न सज्जते॥
tattva-vit tu mahā-bāho guṇa-karma-vibhāgayoḥguṇā guṇeṣu vartanta iti matvā na sajjate
Word by word
The verse says
But the one who sees how the strands and their work divide up, Arjuna, thinks: the strands are busy among the strands. And he does not get stuck.
In plain words
This puts verse 27 right, and it does it by shifting where you are watching from.
The one who sees the division - the strands on one side, their work on the other - understands that the strands are simply busy among themselves.
And so he does not stick to any of it.
Where you've felt this · in creative work
You are three hours into repairing something and at some point the deciding stops. Your hands know which tool to pick up before you do. Afterwards you cannot honestly say you chose any of it, and it is the best work you have done.
Going deeper
What gets divided here is the seer from the seen, and once you see that line, verse 27 stops being a puzzle.
On one side sits the whole apparatus: senses, mind, body, and the objects they engage. On the other, whatever is watching that happen. Guṇa-karma-vibhāgayoḥ names the split - the division of the strands and their actions.
The formulation is almost comic in its flatness. The strands are busy among the strands. Chemistry meeting chemistry. Nowhere in the description does a self appear doing any of it.
This is the analytical half of the Gita in a single line, and it pairs with the image at 2.13 - the dweller who is not the house.
The practical payoff is na sajjate. Not detachment as coldness, but non-sticking: things happen through you without gluing themselves to you.
The risk, which the very next verse takes up, is that this is a terrible thing to say to someone who is not ready to hear it.