Chapter 4 · Verse 22·Spoken by Krishna
यदृच्छालाभसन्तुष्टो द्वन्द्वातीतो विमत्सरः। समः सिद्धावसिद्धौ च कृत्वापि न निबध्यते
yadṛichchhā-lābha-santuṣhṭo dvandvātīto vimatsaraḥ samaḥ siddhāvasiddhau cha kṛitvāpi na nibadhyate
Content with what comes unsought, beyond the pairs of opposites, free from envy, even-minded in success and failure, such a person acts yet is not bound.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse draws a portrait of the liberated worker through four traits. First, he is content with whatever comes to him unsought. The Sanskrit yadrccha-labha means a gain that arrives by chance, unasked for, not pursued by deliberate effort. Such a person feels he has enough; he does not crave more and does not strain to procure even the food and clothing his body needs. Many commentators read this against the background of the renunciant who, owning nothing, might be tempted to beg or contrive for his sustenance; the verse rules that out and tells him to rest in what simply comes.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhvācārya
Second, he has passed beyond the pairs of opposites (dvandva-atita). The pairs are the unavoidable contraries that strike the body and mind: cold and heat, hunger and thirst, pleasure and pain, attraction and aversion. To be beyond them does not mean they stop arising; it means they no longer agitate or deject him. Though struck by them, his mind stays unmoved, because he can bear them and is steadied in something deeper than the body. Joined to this is the third trait, freedom from envy (vimatsara): he carries no enmity, no inability to bear another's good, no longing to surpass others.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīla Viśvanātha
Fourth, he is the same in success and failure (samah siddhau asiddhau). Whether the unsought gain comes or fails to come, whether the action attains its result or not, he feels neither elation nor dejection. This evenness is the practical heart of the verse: outcomes pass over him without leaving a mark, because his peace does not depend on them.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Because of these four traits, the verse reaches its conclusion: such a person, even having acted, is not bound (krtva api na nibadhyate). Action does not chain him to further birth and consequence. The commentators give two complementary explanations for why. For the knower of the Self, the binding action together with its root cause has been burnt up in the fire of knowledge, so it can no longer fruit, just as a roasted seed cannot sprout; he also sees that he is not really the doer at all. For the worker who acts without craving for the result, the absence of the mental faults that would bind, desire, envy, elation, dejection, leaves the action with no power to bind. Either way, it is not action as such that binds, but the inner attachment behind it; remove that, and one may act freely.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse as describing the renunciant who is established in the knowledge of the actionless Self. Its central claim is non-doership: in the eyes of ordinary people, who superimpose doership upon him, the sage appears to be a doer when he begs or maintains his body; but by his own experience, grounded in scripture and direct knowledge, he is no doer at all, ever aware that 'I do nothing whatever; the qualities move among the qualities.' He performs only action whose sole purpose is the upkeep of the body, and even this binds him not at all, because the action that causes bondage, together with its cause, has been consumed by the fire of knowledge. Several of them add scriptural rules on how such food must come: unsolicited, un-begged, what arrives of itself, the renunciant entering a village for alms but never seeking by omens, astrology, teaching, or debate. One of them entertains and then sets aside a reading that would refer the verse to the household ritualist, and another explicitly rejects the householder reading as forced. The verse is taken as a restatement of the actionlessness already established.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators read the verse as describing the karma-yogi who has not yet attained standing in knowledge (jnana-nishtha). The traits are framed around active engagement in the world: he is even-minded in the success and failure of 'war and the other actions,' bearing the cold, heat, and unavoidable sense-contacts that arise until his discipline is complete. Beyond the pairs means doing what one's own duty prescribes without anger, the way one simply opens an umbrella in the heat rather than resenting it; the inner attachment alone is to be withdrawn, not natural functions like eating, since total quietude is not what is meant. The decisive point is that by action alone, even without a prior standing in knowledge, he is not bound and does not fall into transmigration; the fruit of knowledge-standing is reached through this very karma.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator offers a distinctive grammatical-metaphysical reading of 'even acting, he is not bound.' The construction is one in which the agent is itself the object of the binding act: a person binds himself, by his own self, by taking on the turbidity of the latent impression of the fruit. The point is that insentient action cannot have any independent power to bind a person; it is hard even to take that idea to heart. Bondage is therefore self-imposed through one's own clinging to results, which is precisely why dropping that clinging frees the actor.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Śuddhādvaita
This commentator frames the verse as showing that even for one of advanced knowledge, work done free of longing for fruit does not bind. Distinctively, he reads the unsought gain devotionally: the worker is content with what comes of Bhagavan's wish, the Lord's giving. Freedom from envy he glosses as freedom from the agitation born of evil speech directed at oneself. In success he is free of the joy that comes from being fruit-oriented, and in failure free of the sorrow that comes from being fruit-oriented; thus equable, he is not bound by the work he does.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
These commentators read the verse through the lens of the karma-yogi acting in ordinary life. One stresses that here 'labha,' usually rendered gain, means whatever is obtained, so that gain and loss, the favourable and the unfavourable, praise and blame are all alike 'labha' to be met with equal contentment; in business, profit or loss leaves no impression, for there is no desire for the fruit in the mind, and even a passing impression does not last in such a one. His freedom from envy is rooted in seeing himself as one with all beings, so that all his actions are for the welfare of every being. The other states plainly that the man satisfied with what fortuitous circumstance brings, free of the pairs and of jealousy, even-minded toward success or failure, is not bound by the merit or sin of his actions even while he performs them.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
A Seeker Asks
If even the liberated person still acts, begs, fights, or runs a business, what actually makes his action non-binding when the very same deeds bind everyone else?
What binds is never the outward deed but the inner attachment behind it. The verse names that attachment precisely: craving for more than what comes, agitation under the pairs of opposites, envy, and elation or dejection over success and failure. Remove these, and the same action loses its power to bind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Bhāskara · Swami Ramsukhdas · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
One school explains this through knowledge: for the sage rooted in the Self, the binding action together with its cause has been burnt in the fire of knowledge, so it can no longer bear fruit, just as a roasted seed cannot sprout. He also sees that he is not truly the doer; ordinary onlookers superimpose doership on him, but by his own experience he does nothing at all, the qualities of nature moving among themselves.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Sivananda
Another school explains it without requiring a prior standing in knowledge: the karma-yogi who acts in the world, even in war or business, simply does his duty and withdraws the inner clinging to its result, so that by this action alone he is not bound and does not fall into the round of rebirth. One commentator sharpens the underlying logic: insentient action has no independent power to bind anyone; a person binds himself by his own self when he takes on the latent impression of the fruit, which is exactly why letting that go sets him free.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Lokmanya Tilak
Contemplation
Carry this into your own day. Whatever comes to you as a result of your work, the favourable or the unfavourable, profit or loss, honour or insult, praise or blame, is all simply 'labha,' whatever is obtained; meet it with the same contentment, because in the mind there is no craving for any particular outcome. You still notice clearly whether something is gain or loss, and you still act in accord with what each situation calls for; you simply do not let the result make you happy or miserable. If some impression of the pleasant or the unpleasant does briefly touch your mind, do not be alarmed: in one who is steady, such an impression does not last, it passes quickly. And guard the freedom from envy carefully, letting not even a particle of ill-will toward any being arise, for when you take yourself as one with all, your actions can stand for the good of all.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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