Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse as establishing that the karma-yogin can be called a renouncer because, even before the direct knowledge of the Self as non-agent dawns, freedom from attachment and aversion already does the work of renunciation: such works do not bind, and they turn back accumulated impurity and sin. The 'ease' of liberation is understood through the purification of the inner organ (the mind), which removes the obstruction to knowledge through discrimination of the eternal from the non-eternal. One of these voices presses the case further: in the deepest sense, being 'free of the pair' can mean being free of the pair sat and asat, Self and non-Self, by uprooting the ignorance that is the very source of passion, so that one is liberated by knowledge alone without further need of works; the same voice also concedes that the formal renouncer, by the natural sway of the mind, is in some danger of falling if passion rises again, which is part of why the active path is praised as safer.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the renouncer's contentment has a specific object: he is content with the experience of the self that is included within the very act of detached work. Because he already enjoys this taste of the self, he craves nothing further, and for that very reason hates nothing and bears the pairs of opposites. Renunciation is defined precisely as the giving up of dvandva, not the giving up of the enjoined actions of one's station, which continue. The whole weight is placed on the word 'easily': karma-yoga is the distinguished path because it does not carry the prior demand of the discipline of knowledge for an already purified mind, and the two disciplines are presented as independent, self-sufficient means to attaining the self.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators take the verse more narrowly as Krishna recalling and fixing the meaning of the word 'renunciation' itself, in order to substantiate the earlier claim that renunciation is a cause of the highest good. The phrase 'he is to be known' is read as an indicator: it means this is to be known and remembered. Renunciation is defined as the abandoning of aversion and the like, and its being a cause of the highest good is taken as well established from scripture. The point is that, although the meaning of 'sannyasa' is already known to the hearer, calling it to mind here is not pointless, because it grounds the preceding teaching.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators recast the renouncer as the devotee whose every act and rest are tilted toward Bhagavan's command. The doer of action who is free of the pairs, devoid of the conceit of gain and loss and victory and defeat, becomes an eternal sannyasin precisely because his doing rests in the Lord and his work is offered to the Lord; this offering is what frees him. One reads the freedom from dvandva as the absence of any divided knowledge that strays outside the Lord's command, so that the karma-renunciation and karma-yoga become, with full certitude, one. The supreme reach of liberation is understood as this: that in doing the Lord's command, the Lord becomes pleased, and one is to be known as belonging to Him. The true renouncer is not the one who picks the contemplative path over the active, but the one whose whole life leans toward the Lord.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This reading is terse and direct: the perpetual renouncer is simply the one by whom the mind's longing and hatred have been renounced. Because such a person's intelligence has gone forth from the pairs of opposites, named here as anger, delusion and the rest, he is released with ease.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These devotional commentators emphasize that the karma-yogin performs his works for the sake of the Supreme Lord alone, and it is on that basis that he is awarded the title of renouncer even while standing in the midst of action. They stress that liberation, usually thought attainable only through formal renunciation, is in fact reachable by the active person whose mind is pure: freedom from craving and aversion makes the mind pure, and through that purity, by way of knowledge, he is released. One voice draws out a vivid image: just as cold ash, the harmless residue of an extinguished fire, can be held in the hand, so the person free of aversion and inclination, though surrounded by worldly concerns, is never fettered by his actions; such a one need not abandon home and family, because he abides in the realization that he is an attachment-free being. Another notes that this great-armed hero is precisely the one fit to conquer the city of liberation.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern commentators press the ethical and practical edge of the definition. A person does not become a renouncer by merely abandoning action out of laziness, ignorance, a family quarrel, calamity, or unemployment; the ochre robe and physical giving-up of objects are no renunciation at all, and may even hide a hypocrite or a coward. What is wanted is a pure heart with real renunciation of egoism and desire, the inner attitude of evenness toward heat and cold, joy and sorrow, praise and censure, honor and dishonor. One reframes the whole verse as the teaching that it is renunciation of attachment to the pairs, not renunciation of action, that determines true renunciation, so that a man always in action may be a genuine renouncer while an idle man may be a fraud. Another, reading the address 'mighty-armed,' draws out an encouragement personal to Arjuna: you have within you the strength to serve all beings through karma-yoga, so you can follow this path with ease.

Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas