Chapter 5 · Verse 12·Spoken by Krishna
युक्तः कर्मफलं त्यक्त्वा शान्तिमाप्नोति नैष्ठिकीम्। अयुक्तः कामकारेण फले सक्तो निबध्यते
yuktaḥ karma-phalaṁ tyaktvā śhāntim āpnoti naiṣhṭhikīm ayuktaḥ kāma-kāreṇa phale sakto nibadhyate
Joined to yoga, having given up the fruits of action, one attains lasting peace. The unsteady one, driven by desire and attached to the fruits, is bound.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
he verse draws a sharp line between two doers and the opposite destinations they reach. The 'yoked' one (yukta, the person settled in yoga, in the right inner stance) lets go of the fruit of action and attains peace; the 'unyoked' one (ayukta, the unsettled person) clings to the fruit, driven by desire, and is bound. The whole verse turns on this single contrast: same activity, two persons, two outcomes.
Braided from 16 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Puruṣottama
What decides between liberation and bondage is not the deed itself but the inner direction behind it. The same outward act binds when the fruit is grasped at and frees when the fruit is given up. Several commentators make this the explicit point of the verse: it is not the action in itself but its accompaniment, the presence or absence of attachment to fruit, that turns one and the same act into either a binding factor or a liberating one. The lever sits inside, in whether the deed is offered up or seized.
Braided from 6 commentators
Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
The 'yoked' state is concretely described as doing action without claiming its fruit for oneself, often phrased as the thought 'these actions are for the Lord, not for my own gain'. The fruit is renounced or offered up rather than withheld from acting; the person keeps working but stops working for personal payoff. The 'unyoked' state is its mirror: acting under the push of desire (kama) with the thought 'I do this for my own fruit', and so staying attached.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Sivananda · Śrī Puruṣottama · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Bhāskara
The peace gained is qualified as 'naishthiki', which the commentators take to mean a final, lasting, unshakable peace rather than a passing calm. Many identify it directly with liberation (moksha): the peace that comes through steadiness in knowledge, or absolute aloneness, or firm Brahman-establishment. One reads the word as 'that from which there is no returning again', and another glosses it as freedom from the mind's tossing by hope and fear that does not depart with the next mood. By contrast the unyoked one is bound 'the more', sinking deeper into transmigration, the endless round of rebirth.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Because the yoked path leads to peace and the unyoked path to bondage, the verse carries an implied instruction back to Arjuna: therefore become yoked and act in that spirit. Several commentators state this supplied conclusion plainly, reading the verse as Krishna pressing the rule home rather than merely describing two cases.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Madhvācārya · Śrī Bhāskara
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the peace as liberation reached by a fixed sequence of stages, and they treat the verse as describing the staircase, not a single step. Acting for the Lord without claiming the fruit first purifies the inner organ (chitta). Purity then yields the discrimination between the eternal and the non-eternal, which yields renunciation of all action, which yields steadfastness in knowledge (jnana-nishtha), and that steadfastness is the peace named liberation. So the offered action does not directly free; it sets in motion a graded ascent in which knowledge is the final liberating cause and the peace is its fruit.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Sivananda
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the peace is not extinction or merger but a firm, abiding bliss that is the very experience of the self (atman). The yoked person is 'bent on the self alone', unwavering toward any fruit other than the self, and performs action only to purify the self and loose its bondage; the unyoked person is turned away from the beholding of the self and so becomes a perpetual transmigrator. The goal is the steady experience of the self, and these sources press that it is the accompaniment of fruit-attachment, not the act, that decides which way one goes.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
These commentators read 'yukta' tightly as 'joined with yoga' and insist the verse repeats the word for a reason: it teaches a rule about means. They take 'yukta' to suggest the pair 'yoga and renunciation together', and the verse to declare that these two conjoined are the sole means to liberation, while abandoning either one, or seeking liberation by something other than the two together, fails. Liberation belongs to the one possessed of both; the expansion of transmigration belongs to the one lacking both. They expressly ward off softer senses of 'yukta' such as merely 'accompanied'.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators tie the yoked state to belonging to and worshipping Bhagavan. For one, the yoked person's sole settledness is in the worship of God, and the action let go of as fruit is performed 'in the form of Bhagavan's command'; the peace gained is the nearness of God, defined as doing His command without the heat that sears, while the unyoked person, not belonging to God, fails to attain that relation. The other keeps the verse plain: done in yoga the act frees, done without it the act binds. Notably one addresses why a seeker should bother renouncing fruit at all, answering that command-shaped action is the higher path even at the seeker's stage.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This source comments only on the single word 'naishthiki', glossing the peace as 'of the nature of a final culmination', that from which there is no returning again. It marks the peace as irreversible and terminal without developing the rest of the verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators locate the deciding factor squarely in the inner direction: non-attachment and attachment are precisely the causes of liberation and bondage. The yoked one is rooted single-mindedly in the Supreme Lord (Paramesvara) or has the mind offered to the Self, and the peace is read as moksha or as the abiding character of beholding the Self. One puts it vividly: such a soul loathes the craving for fruit and is sought after and espoused by Blissful Peace, while others are tied to the stake of fruit-enjoyment by the rope of their own actions.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
The modern voices keep the verse practical. One spells out the four stages by which the harmonious man who works for the Lord without expecting fruit reaches the peace born of steadfast devotion: purity of mind, attainment of knowledge, renunciation of actions, steadiness in wisdom. Another reads 'yukta' simply as 'steeped in yoga', with the unyoked bound by merit or sin alike. A third stresses that the meaning of 'yukta' is fixed by context: in this chapter it names the karma-yogi who renounces the fruit of action, the one whose intellect has become resolute (vyavasayatmika) so that worldly desires have fallen away; anyone whose aim is evenness (samata) is yukta, a yogi.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If the very same action can either bind me or free me, what exactly is the inner shift I have to make, and is 'doing it for the Lord, not for my own fruit' something I manufacture or something I grow into?
Start with what the verse actually pins the difference on: not the deed but its accompaniment. The same outward act binds when you grasp at its fruit and frees when you give the fruit up, so the shift you are looking for is not a new activity but a new inner direction within the activity you are already doing.
Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Concretely, the shift is to stop acting for your own payoff and to keep acting anyway. The commentators phrase the yoked stance as the settled thought 'these actions are for the Lord, not for my own fruit', which means you renounce the claim on the result, not the work itself. The unyoked stance is its mirror: acting under the push of desire with 'I do this for my gain'.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Śrīla Baladeva
As for whether you manufacture it or grow into it, the texts point to the latter. The peace is called 'naishthiki', a final and lasting peace, and several commentators describe reaching it through stages: purity of mind, then knowledge, then the loosening of action's grip, then steadiness in wisdom. One modern voice adds that 'yukta' names the person whose intellect has become resolute so that worldly desires have fallen away, which is a settled orientation, not a mood you summon on demand. You begin by repeatedly letting the fruit go, and the steadiness deepens over time.
Śaṅkarācārya · Swami Sivananda · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Hold the test of this verse against your own day. The same task at your desk, the same chore at home, can either tie you down or set you free, and the difference is only the spirit you bring. Try working with the inward word, I do this for my Lord, not for my own gain. Sivananda lays out where that leads as four unhurried stages: first the mind grows pure, then knowledge comes, then the grip on action loosens, and at last there is steadiness in wisdom, which is the peace that does not leave with the next mood. You do not have to force a feeling. You only have to stop reaching for the payoff and keep doing the work, letting the fruit go each time it tempts you to grasp. The peace is not something you seize; it is what arrives once the grasping quiets.
Sit with this · Swami Sivananda
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