Chapter 4 · Verse 41·Spoken by Krishna
योगसंन्यस्तकर्माणं ज्ञानसंछिन्नसंशयम्। आत्मवन्तं न कर्माणि निबध्नन्ति धनञ्जय
yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇaṁ jñāna-sañchhinna-sanśhayam ātmavantaṁ na karmāṇi nibadhnanti dhanañjaya
Arjuna, actions do not bind the one who has renounced actions through yoga, whose doubts have been cut away by knowledge, and who is settled in the Self.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
he verse names three things that, taken together, free a person, and then declares the result: actions no longer bind such a person. The three are that his actions have been renounced by yoga (yoga-sannyasta-karmanam), that his doubt has been cut by knowledge (jnana-sanchhinna-sanshayam), and that he is atmavan, possessed of the Self. The commentators read these not as three separate achievements but as one ripening described from different angles. Krishna addresses Arjuna as Dhananjaya, and several note that the verse is Krishna winding up the whole discipline taught across these chapters into a single concluding picture of the freed person.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Bhāskara
'Renounced by yoga' does not mean abandoning the doing of work outwardly. The commentators explain that the person may stay engaged in activity, yet by yoga his inner attachment to action is gone. Yoga here is read variously as the practice already taught (desireless action, seeing akarma in karma), as evenness of mind in success and failure, and as worship offered to the Lord; in each case the action loses its grip from inside rather than being physically dropped. So the verse describes someone still active in the world whose relationship to his own action has been severed.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Bhāskara
Knowledge cuts the doubt. The commentators stress that doubt is the root of all misfortune, and that it cannot be wished away on its own; it needs a remover, and that remover is true knowledge. Several specify what the doubt is about and what the knowledge sees: doubt about the nature of the Self (whether it is in the body or other, agent or non-agent, one or many), or doubt rooted in identifying with the body, cut by the knowledge that the Self is non-doer, or by the knowledge of the oneness of the Self and the Lord. Once that decisive knowledge is established, the doubt is severed cleanly and does not return.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Such a person is atmavan, possessed of the Self, and the commentators add that he is watchful, free of heedlessness, devoted to calm and self-restraint. This is the third mark: not merely doubt-free in theory but actually grounded in the Self, mindful and vigilant. Because of this his actions, though they go on, bring no binding fruit. Several say the actions are seen as mere motion of the qualities among themselves, or as done only for the holding-together of the world; they begin no new body and no wished, unwished, or mixed result. The actions are, as some put it, burnt up in the fire of knowledge.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The knowledge that cuts doubt is the seeing of the oneness of the Self and the Lord, the non-difference of the individual Self and Brahman. Yoga, the yoga of action whose effect is the wearing-away of impurity, ripens into this knowledge, and once impurity is gone the doubt is severed. The freed person's actions are no more than the play of the qualities among the qualities; they cannot bind because his actions have been burnt up by the fire of knowledge. These sources add that doubt cannot remove itself, so the knowledge of unity, prompted by scripture and reasoning, is its only remover, and that one who keeps doubt in the matter of knowledge and action perishes. Some note that this renunciation can be read two ways: indirect on the view that renunciation is enjoined, direct on the view that it is the renouncing of fruit.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Action itself takes on the form of knowledge; the discipline as taught does not mean dropping the doing of work but transforms the action into a knowledge-shaped act. The doubt that is cut is doubt about the self, removed by the knowledge of the self as taught. These sources are careful to say that the abandoning of the very nature of action is not what is meant; what is meant is a mode of knowledge pregnant with the giving-up of the sense of oneself as agent. The freed person is thoughtful, his mind firmly fixed on what has been taught, and the earlier endless past actions, the causes of bondage, no longer bind him.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhedabheda
By yoga, on the principle of offering to Brahman, action is renounced in the supreme Self, that is, rightly laid down and made one. Doubt is rightly cut off through that knowledge of the Self, and the self-possessed, heedfulness-free person is not bound by actions. This source then carries the section to its close: having cut with the sword of knowledge the doubt born of ignorance and seated in the heart, one should take to yoga and arise.
Śrī Bhāskara
Śuddhādvaita
These sources praise the one who stands firmly in the single meaning shared by yoga and by sankhya. By yoga his mind's movement is even in success and failure and his inner organ is freed of attachment though he is outwardly active; by sankhya his doubt is cut, becoming the certitude that distinguishes Self from non-Self, and by that very knowing he is truly possessed of the Self and not merely conceited about the non-Self. One source reads atmavan in a strongly theistic key: the atma is Bhagavan, and the yoga is the yoga that has Bhagavan as its self, that is, the letting-go of the fruit of works; the Self is brought into the open for the sake of service, and works no longer become binders.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This source reads the verse as a brief summary, told in two verses, of the meaning spread out over the whole chapter. Its single point is that the renunciation of actions holds good only by yoga and in no other way, a matter that has been considered and will be considered further.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These sources read yoga as worship of the Supreme Lord, into whom actions are fully offered up, so that the person's own actions do not bind by their fruit. The knowledge that cuts doubt is the awakening to the non-doer Self, severing the doubt that is identification with the body and the like; one source describes this as attaining or beholding the inner Self. Works depart for such a person by means of knowledge. One of these sources dwells at length on doubt itself, calling it the greatest sin in the universe, a snare that grows in the darkness of ignorance, bars the way of faith, swells beyond the heart's capacity, and eclipses the intellect until the whole world seems infected with its poison; therefore doubt rooted in ignorance must be conquered first of all.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These sources present the freed person plainly: one who has attained Self-realization renounces all actions by yoga or the knowledge of Brahman, is established in the identity of the individual soul with the Supreme Soul, has all doubts cut, and is not bound because his actions are burnt in the fire of wisdom and because he is always watchful over himself. One source frames the whole teaching in terms of service: the body, senses, mind, and intellect that look like ours are really for the service of others; when they are put to that service with desireless feeling, the flow of action runs outward to the world while one's own innate evenness is felt within, and that is how the bond with action is cut. This source explains the typical doubts a person carries, such as how the bond with action can break while one still acts, or how one's welfare will happen if one does nothing for oneself, and shows that knowing the truth of action dissolves them: action and its fruit have a beginning and an end, but one's own real nature always stays as it is, so action is connected only with the world, never with the Self, and the person grounded in the Self is beyond action's reach.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If I am still doing my work, what actually changes so that the same actions stop binding me?
What changes is inward, not outward. The commentators are clear that 'renounced by yoga' does not mean dropping the doing of work; the person can remain fully engaged in activity while his inner attachment to action is gone. The renunciation is of the grip action has from inside, achieved through evenness of mind and the offering of work, not through physical withdrawal.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas
What changes is also what you know. Doubt is the real source of misfortune, and it cannot simply be willed away; it needs knowledge to remove it. When knowledge cuts the doubt about who you are, seeing the Self as non-doer, or as one with the Lord, the deep mistake of taking yourself to be the body-bound agent is severed. From that vantage your actions are seen as the qualities moving among themselves, not as deeds that fasten new results onto you.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda
And what changes is where you stand. The freed person is atmavan, grounded in the Self, watchful and free of heedlessness. Because his stand is placed in the Self, which lies beyond action's reach, the very same actions that once bound now begin no new result, wished, unwished, or mixed; they are, as the commentators put it, burnt up in the fire of knowledge. So nothing in the work itself need stop; the doer's footing has moved.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śaṅkarācārya
Contemplation
Begin with how you hold what is yours. The body, the senses, the mind, and the intellect have come to you and look like your own, but treat them as given for the service of others, not as a claim of ownership. When you put them to that service with desireless feeling, taking them as belonging to those you serve, the flow of action runs outward toward the world, and within yourself you taste the evenness that was always there. The change is not in stopping work but in where you place your stand. Watch the familiar doubts as they rise: how can the bond with action break while I keep acting, and how will my own good happen if I do nothing for myself. Meet them with the truth that action and its fruit have a beginning and an end, while your own real nature stays exactly as it is. Action is tied only to the world; with your own being it has no tie at all. So work for others, not for yourself, and let your standing rest in the Self, which is beyond the reach of any action.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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