Chapter 3 · Verse 18·Spoken by Krishna
नैव तस्य कृतेनार्थो नाकृतेनेह कश्चन। न चास्य सर्वभूतेषु कश्िचदर्थव्यपाश्रयः
naiva tasya kṛitenārtho nākṛiteneha kaśhchana na chāsya sarva-bhūteṣhu kaśhchid artha-vyapāśhrayaḥ
For such a person, there is nothing to gain by acting here, and nothing to lose by not acting. They depend on no being for any purpose.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
he verse describes the person who delights in the Self, and says plainly that such a one gains nothing by any action performed (kṛta, 'what is done'). For this person there is no purpose, no profit, no fruit left to win by doing the deed. The commentators ground this in what such a one already is. He does not crave heaven, which is seen as trivial and passing; he has already won knowledge; and liberation, by its very nature, cannot be the product of action, because, as the scripture they cite repeatedly says, 'the uncreated is not reached by the created' (the unmade cannot be made by what is made). Liberation is the eternal Self, ever-attained, only seemingly missing through ignorance; once true knowledge removes the ignorance, nothing further can be added by any deed. So for the one settled in the Self, the whole machinery of action has run out of any purpose it could serve.
Braided from 16 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Bhāskara · Madhvācārya
The verse then closes the obvious back door. If no good is won by acting, will harm or sin come from not acting? The commentators answer firmly: no. For this person there is here in the world no harm whatever, no transgression, no fault (the word several of them use is pratyavāya, the demerit that ordinarily attaches to omitting a required rite). The reasoning is twofold. First, the one who delights in the Self is no longer even qualified for the daily obligatory acts, so their omission cannot stain him; and at the same time he is not engaged in any forbidden act that would produce demerit. Second, and more deeply, a positive fault cannot arise out of mere non-doing; non-action is not a thing that generates a result. Standing free of ego, he stands beyond the whole field of injunction and prohibition (vidhi and niṣedha), so that for him doing and not-doing have become equal.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Madhvācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
The verse's last line widens the point: among all beings, from Brahmā the creator down to the unmoving things, this person has no resort, no dependence, no leaning on any being to serve as a means to some end. The Sanskrit phrase is artha-vyapāśraya, where vyapāśraya means simply 'resort' or 'reliance,' and artha means the purpose one would be reaching for. Because he wants nothing, he needs no one as an instrument for getting it. He need not court anyone's favor, need not exert himself to win a particular object through another. Being complete in himself, every link by which an ordinary person hangs on the world for results is, for him, cut.
Braided from 16 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Bhāskara · Madhvācārya · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Puruṣottama
Several commentators draw out a specific worry hidden in that last line and answer it. There is a scriptural hint that the gods (devas) do not like men to attain this knowledge and may try to obstruct the seeker on the way to liberation. So should the knower placate the gods with rites to ward off their obstruction? The answer is no: once delight in the Self has dawned, the gods have no power to obstruct him, because he has become their very Self. They quote the śruti that 'neither the gods nor non-being have power over him, for the Self indeed becomes theirs.' Obstruction by the gods belongs only to the period before full knowledge; after it, there is nothing in any being he must appease.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse as describing the one already established in knowledge of the Self, for whom liberation is not a future result but the ever-present reality merely uncovered by knowledge. The 'purpose' that action cannot serve is, above all, liberation itself, which is 'the unmade' and so unreachable by any 'made' deed; only truth-knowledge dispels the ignorance that made it seem absent. Madhusūdana adds a long map of the seven stages of knowledge (from the first wish for the good up to the highest turya state of one whose bodily life is carried on by others while he abides in unbroken bliss), arguing that even a beginner risen to the early stages is no longer qualified for action, much less the fully liberated-in-life. On the question of how to read 'akṛta' (the undone), Nīlakaṇṭha defends taking 'done' and 'undone' as a contrary pair standing for merit and demerit (puṇya and pāpa), and rejects reading 'undone' as the specific fault of omitting a daily rite, since no positive demerit can spring from mere non-doing; allowing that would lead to absurd consequences where any unenjoined act done at the time of a rite would itself become a transgression. One of these voices (Dhanapati) explicitly waves off importing Vasiṣṭha's stages of knowledge here as not needed for this verse, marking an internal disagreement within the school over how much apparatus the verse calls for.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Ānandagiri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
For these commentators the whole verse is read in terms of 'the beholding of the Self' (ātma-darśana). The 'purpose' that no action serves, and the 'harm' that no omission causes, are both defined against this beholding: there is no harm in leaving a means undone because his beholding of the Self does not depend on any means. The artha is the beholding, present and settled; the anartha (harm) is its absence, which for him is permanently removed. Because he is, of himself, already turned away from all insentient things other than the Self, he has no recourse to any of the transformations of matter (the elements such as space and their effects) for which a discipline would have to be undertaken to turn him away from them; he is the liberated man indeed. Vedānta Deśika's careful glossing reinforces that no prerequisite or precondition is needed for such a one. Notably, Rāmānuja then draws a conclusion the other schools do not draw from this verse: precisely because only the one whose beholding needs no means sets out on no means, and because for everyone short of that the discipline of action (karma-yoga) is easier, safer from heedlessness, and itself includes dwelling on the truth of the Self, the discipline of action remains the better path for actually accomplishing the beholding of the Self.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhedabheda
Bhāskara reads the verse along the same broad lines: by deeds such as sacrifice he has no purpose, and by the undone no end of avoiding some evil consequence; among all beings from Brahmā down he has no object of dependence, no expectation, for 'he indeed becomes That' (the scripture he cites). What sets his comment apart is a sharp practical addendum: he insists that one who is still governed by the properties of the body and senses, who sleeps and acts under their sway, cannot claim to be 'one whose delight is in the Self,' and so cannot claim this exemption. He then warns that each person must reflect for himself whether action is to be given up or performed, and that the 'misguided instruction' of present-day teachers who counsel abandonment of action out of confusion and sloth is not to be heeded or treated as authoritative.
Śrī Bhāskara
Dvaita
These commentators take the verse with a particular target in view: it is not a generic statement about every knower, but is calibrated to the teaching situation with Arjuna. Madhva stresses that mere knowledge exempting one from lapse 'holds equally of Arjuna,' so this verse cannot be doing the work of teaching action to Arjuna unless read carefully; and he insists that for a knower a lapse still functions as an indicator, a small one pointing to a slight unwelcome thing beginning to bear fruit, a great lapse (like the slaying of Vṛtra) to a great one. Jayatīrtha works out, at length, that the verse speaks of the one abiding in the trance beyond cognition (the deep absorption that is itself an action), and that the denials of purpose, of fault from omission (even of twilight rites, even of the worship of teachers and deities), and of resort to any being are all aimed at forbidding the excess of rising from that trance to perform such acts when their occasion comes near. He treats 'artha-vyapāśraya' grammatically as a possessive compound: the 'resort' or attaining of purpose happens through some activity such as seeing, the teachers and deities being the objects of sight, which is why the locative ('in all beings') fits. He also draws the striking corollary, citing later teachers of his line, that even for the knower the doing of forbidden action brings 'the unwished' and an immediate distress of mind, and that a corresponding diminution of bliss is to be seen even in liberation, with no increase of bliss from performing the enjoined.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the one of the verse as a devotee whose sole refuge is the Lord (Bhagavān). For him no fruit of pleasure or pain comes by what is done or by what is forbidden, and no being among all beings, gods or others, is a refuge he must take for any purpose, neither for liberation nor even for bhakti. The reason given is positive rather than merely negative: having taken Bhagavān as his one and only resort, he is freed from all secondary dependencies, and he acts, when he acts at all, only on the Lord's call. The accent thus falls not just on the absence of need but on the single living dependence on God that has replaced every lesser one.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These commentators stress freedom from ego and from the gods' obstruction. Śrīdhara explains that, being free of ego-sense (nir-ahaṅkāra), the knower stands beyond injunction and prohibition; he then takes up at length the worry that the gods may obstruct one nearing liberation, and shows from śruti that the gods have no power to obstruct the knower of the Self, since the Self has become their very Self and brahma-knowledge is precisely what is displeasing to them only in the period before it dawns. Baladeva reads 'purpose' and 'harm' against the beholding of the Self, which is natural to such a one, and likewise argues that the obstacles the gods made before knowledge simply do not arise once delight in the Self has risen, by its very power. Jñāneśvar offers a homely image of the whole teaching: all actions come automatically to an end once the bliss of the Self is secured, just as all means fall away once their object is reached; the means, in the form of observing one's own dharma, are to be used only so long as Self-realization has not yet been secured.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators present the verse in direct, practical terms. Sivananda states simply that the sage rejoicing in the Self gains nothing by any action, suffers no evil (pratyavāya doṣa) from inaction, loses nothing by it, and need not depend on anyone or court anyone's favor to gain any object. Ramsukhdas adds a developmental psychology of the verse: every person has some tendency to act, and as long as that tendency is aimed at getting some worldly thing, the 'doing for oneself' remains, and it is by this very wish-to-get-for-oneself that a person is bound; one performs prescribed duty (kartavya-karma) precisely to wear that wish away, and once desireless feeling (niṣkāma-bhāva) matures, even the wish to do anything for oneself drops off. His key formulation is that attachment (āsakti), not activity (kriyā) itself, is the real cause of bondage, so where attachment has fallen away, both doing and not-doing become equally free. Tilak reads it tersely in the same direction: here in the world such a one has nothing to gain by doing or not doing any particular thing, and no purpose of his own that is bound up with created beings.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If the realized person gains nothing by acting and incurs no fault by not acting, what keeps him acting at all, and does the verse permit me to drop my own duties?
The verse is describing a finished state, not handing out a permission slip. It speaks of the one who already delights in the Self, for whom liberation is not a goal still to be reached but a reality already uncovered; for such a one, action has simply run out of anything left to accomplish, since the uncreated cannot be produced by any created deed.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Until that state is actually yours, the means are still needed. As long as Self-realization has not been secured, the practices and the observance of one's own dharma have to be used; they fall away on their own once their object is reached, the way all means end when the goal is attained, not by being dropped prematurely.
Sant Jñāneśvar · Rāmānujācārya
And the claim of exemption is not available to whoever wishes to use it. One who is still governed by body and senses, still acting under their pull, cannot honestly call himself one whose delight is in the Self; instruction that counsels abandoning action while one is still in that condition springs from confusion and sloth and is not to be trusted.
Śrī Bhāskara
What keeps such a one acting, when he acts at all, is not need but freedom: with attachment gone, doing and not-doing have become equal, so action arises without the grasping 'for me' behind it, in some readings simply at the Lord's call, with the supreme Self as the single refuge that has replaced every other dependence.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Contemplation
Take this verse not as a license to stop doing things but as a description of what the doing is hiding. Watch your own activity for a while and notice how much of it carries a quiet 'for me' inside it, the wish to get some thing, some result, some standing in the eyes of others. That wish, says this teaching, is the actual rope of bondage, not the work itself. So the practice is not to abandon your duty but to do it as the very tool that wears the wish away: perform what is yours to do (kartavya-karma) while steadily releasing the grasp on its fruit. As that desireless feeling ripens, you find that both doing and not-doing have grown light, because attachment, and not action, was the weight all along. And the verse points to the one refuge that remains when every lesser dependence has dropped: rest in the supreme Self, from which nothing further needs to be sought.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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