Chapter 9 · Verse 28·Spoken by Krishna
शुभाशुभफलैरेवं मोक्ष्यसे कर्मबन्धनैः। संन्यासयोगयुक्तात्मा विमुक्तो मामुपैष्यसि
śhubhāśhubha-phalair evaṁ mokṣhyase karma-bandhanaiḥ sannyāsa-yoga-yuktātmā vimukto mām upaiṣhyasi
In this way you will be freed from the bonds of action, which yield good and bad fruits. With your mind set in the yoga of renunciation, and so set free, you will come to me.
Word by Word
Saved for this reading session
Three movements · tap a label to switch
Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse states the fruit of what the previous verse taught: offering every action to Krishna. When you do all your work as an offering to the Lord, you are freed from the bonds of karma, that is, from action that ties you down. The commentators are careful about a key phrase: the bonds are made of fruits both 'good and bad' (shubha-ashubha), the desired and the undesired, the pleasant and the unpleasant. The point is sharp. Most people want to be rid of bad results but keep the good ones. The verse says both kinds bind. A golden chain is still a chain. So liberation is release from the whole machinery of result, not just the painful half of it.
Braided from 16 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama · Vallabhācārya · Sant Jñāneśvar
How does offering break the bond? Because once an action is handed over to the Lord, its fruit no longer attaches to you. The connection between you and the result simply does not hold any longer. Several commentators put this vividly: actions done in Krishna's name are like seed roasted in fire, which can no longer sprout. The deed may still be performed, but it has lost its power to grow into another birth and another round of pleasure and pain. So you are not asked to stop acting. You are asked to stop owning the results. The act continues; the chain is cut at the point where the fruit would have fastened onto you.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīla Baladeva
The verse names the inner posture that does this: sannyasa-yoga-yukta-atma, one whose self is joined to the yoga of renunciation. Nearly every commentator insists this 'renunciation' (sannyasa) is not the giving up of action. It is the giving up of the fruit of action, the consecration of the deed to the Lord. And this same handing-over is also called yoga, because it purifies the mind and joins one to God. So renunciation here is an inner act, not an outer one. You do not throw down your work; you offer it. Tilak ties this directly to the Gita's settled teaching elsewhere, that the one who acts while surrendering the hope of fruit is the true perpetual renouncer, and that the Gita never approves of renunciation in the shape of abandoning action.
Braided from 16 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar
The result is twofold and culminates in reaching the Lord himself. First, you are freed while still living and in the body (jivanmukti): right knowledge removes the covering of ignorance, and you are no longer bound by action even now. Second, when this body finally falls, you come to the Lord. So the verse draws a clean line from practice to destination: offer all action, hold the inner stance of renouncing fruit, be freed here and now, and at last attain Krishna. The closing words, 'you shall come to Me' (mam upaishyasi), are the whole point toward which the discipline runs.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Bhāskara · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
For these commentators, 'coming to Me' is realizing one's identity with Brahman. Madhusudana is explicit: freed while living by right vision and the removal of ignorance's covering, you directly realize 'I am Brahman.' Then, when the body in which the begun karma has burned out finally falls, you attain the Lord as 'disembodied isolation,' beyond all the apparent dealings of difference that maya spins. The reaching is not arrival at a separate place but the dropping of every adjunct so that no difference remains. Nilakantha calls the goal 'the inmost Self of all.' Dhanapati adds a practical note: renunciation is twofold, the inner giving-up of fruit and the formal giving-up of all action, and the Lord intends only the former here, because Arjuna is not qualified for the outer kind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Bhedabheda
This reading gives the yoga of renunciation a specific contemplative content: renunciation is offering one's actions into Brahman, and that very conviction is 'the contemplation of the non-difference of agent, action, and fruit.' So the inner stance is not only handing the deed over but seeing through the apparent separation of doer, deed, and result. One whose self is yoked by these two, the offering and this non-difference vision, comes to the Lord.
Śrī Bhāskara
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here 'coming to Me' is attaining the Lord as a distinct goal, not merging into an identity. The inner stance is dwelling on the self as having a single savour: being subordinate to the Lord and governed by him, and seeing all action, worldly and Vedic alike, as worship of him. The bonds removed are specifically the 'earlier karma,' the accumulated mass of endless good and bad fruit that obstructs the attaining of the Lord. Once that obstruction is cleared, 'you will attain Me alone.' The whole verse is read as drawing a straight line from the practice (offering all action, letting go of fruit-attachment) to the fruit (freedom) to the destination (the Lord himself, reached and not dissolved into).
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhakti
These devotional commentators read 'coming to Me' as drawing near to serve the Lord directly. Sridhara stresses that renunciation here is the consecration of action, not its rejection: karmas are not abandoned but 'handed across,' and the mind so handed-across is itself the yoga that brings the devotee home. Vishvanatha and Baladeva go further on the goal: you are not merely liberated but set free as one distinguished even among the liberated, coming near the Lord to serve him directly. Vishvanatha cites scripture that one devoted to Narayana is exceedingly rare even among the liberated and perfected, and that the Lord 'sometimes gives liberation, but never the yoga of devotion,' concluding that direct loving service is more excellent even than liberation itself. Jnaneshwar adds the image of roasted seed that cannot sprout, and calls this the path of 'true and easy renunciation' by which one merges in the Lord's blissful eternal being.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse within the 'pushti' path of divine grace placed upon the devotee. Renunciation is the inward letting-go for the sake of loving service, not the outward casting-off of action; the yoga that follows is the very evenness of a mind that has nothing left to hold back. Purushottama adds a distinctive turn: the good and bad fruits are not merely cancelled but transformed, becoming 'only of use to my service.' The goal is the gain of the Lord himself: Vallabha describes the servant-yogin, though still standing in the world and untouched by the ways of samsara, drawing close to the Lord, the Purushottama, in the all-pervading Vaikuntha, in a form fit for service, standing near him.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
Sivananda and Tilak stay close to the classical Advaitic and karma-yoga reading: renunciation is renouncing the fruits of all works, this is still 'yoga' because it remains action, and one is freed from good and evil results while living and reaches the Lord when the body falls. Tilak marshals many cross-references to argue the Gita's firm position that even the Lord's devotee must perform all actions, dedicating them to Krishna, and can never give up action itself. Ramsukhdas develops a distinctive devotional psychology: the 'good and bad karmas' are the accumulated (sanchita) deeds of countless births, since a devotee's present actions, done by the Lord's command, are only good; the real bondage is the habit of fusing one's sense of connection with favourable and unfavourable circumstances and so swinging between happy and miserable. The devotee, seeing circumstance as the Lord's arrangement rather than as karma's payout, and depositing his very self and all his stored karmas with the Lord 'as a trustee places a pledge somewhere safe,' is therefore freed.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If I am simply told to keep doing all my work and only stop wanting the results, how is that any different from ordinary life, and how can a mere shift of attitude actually free me from lifetimes of accumulated consequence?
The change is not cosmetic, because it cuts the bond at its actual root. The commentators are clear that bondage is not the activity itself but the fastening of the fruit onto you. Once an action is genuinely offered to the Lord, the connection between you and its result no longer holds; the deed is done but it cannot grow into a future birth, like seed roasted in fire that can no longer sprout. So you do exactly the same outward work, yet it has lost its grip on you.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrī Puruṣottama
It is also not a thin attitude but a whole inner discipline the verse calls sannyasa-yoga: handing the deed over, releasing the hope of its fruit, and in doing so purifying the mind and joining it to God. This is why the same act counts as both renunciation and yoga. The shift reaches the accumulated weight of the past too: the bonds being dissolved are described as the 'earlier' or stored-up karma of countless lifetimes, the very mass of good and bad fruit that otherwise keeps you cycling, and that is what offering clears away.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Bhāskara
And it differs from ordinary life precisely in where it leads. Ordinary fruit-bearing action keeps you inside the swing of pleasure and pain and inside the round of birth and death. This consecrated action frees you while you are still living and, when the body finally falls, brings you to the Lord himself, whether understood as realizing your identity with Brahman or as drawing near to serve him directly. The endpoint, not just the mood, is what makes it a different road.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Dhanapati Sūri
Contemplation
Ramsukhdas offers a way to live this verse that any seeker can begin today. Notice that what actually binds you is not your work but the habit of fusing your sense of self with circumstances: when things go your way you feel happy, when they do not you feel miserable, and this seesaw is itself the bondage that carries you from birth to birth. So practice meeting each situation, favourable and unfavourable alike, not as the payout of your past deeds but as the Lord's own arrangement for you. Let your attention rest on his grace rather than on the circumstance. And make the deeper offering: as a trustee deposits a precious pledge somewhere safe, hand over your very self, along with all the stored karmas of countless lifetimes and all their results and attachments, into the Lord's keeping. Do your work as his command, and trust that even if some unwanted deed slips in by old habit, the Lord seated in your heart undoes it. This is sannyasa-yoga: not throwing down your life, but depositing it with the One who can hold it safely.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.