यदक्षरं वेदविदो वदन्ति विशन्ति यद्यतयो वीतरागाः।यदिच्छन्तो ब्रह्मचर्यं चरन्ति तत्ते पदं संग्रहेण प्रवक्ष्ये॥
yad akṣaraṃ veda-vido vadantiviśanti yad yatayo vīta-rāgāḥyad icchanto brahmacaryaṃ carantitat te padaṃ saṅgraheṇa pravakṣye
Word by word
The verse says
That state which those who know the Vedas call imperishable, which the self-controlled enter once craving has gone, wanting which people live a disciplined life — that goal I will tell you in brief.
In plain words
Three different groups are named, with three different vocabularies.
The scholars call it imperishable. The ascetics enter it. The disciplined want it and order their lives around it.
Krishna does not rank them. He says they are all pointing at the same place.
Where you've felt this · in community
You ask three people in a small town how to reach the same house. One tells you to turn at the temple. One tells you to turn at the bus stop. One says go past the big tamarind tree. All three are right. None of them mentions the other two, and if you had asked only one you would never have known there was a choice.
Going deeper
Different vocabularies for one destination is a claim this book makes often, and it is worth stating what it does and does not mean.
It does not mean that everything anybody believes is equally true. Krishna has spent the previous chapter distinguishing between what lasts and what runs out, and he will do it again before this chapter closes. The claim is narrower and more interesting: these particular routes, described in these three technical languages, are converging.
What follows from it is a certain relaxation about words. A person raised with one vocabulary can hear another and recognise the shape underneath, rather than assuming a rival.
And for a reader who has felt that the language of religion was written for somebody else, the verse quietly says that the language was never the thing.