The true relinquisher meets hard work and easy work with the same steady mind.
A disagreeable duty and an agreeable one arrive at the same even mind here, neither pushed away nor reached for. This poise is not held by effort; it overflows from a person who has already let go of attachment, of craving for the fruit, and of the sense of being the doer.
Such a relinquisher, pervaded by sattva, wise, and free of doubt, does not hate a disagreeable action, nor cling to an agreeable one.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
You have just heard what sattvic relinquishment is. Here you meet the person in whom it has become real, and you can see it by how he holds himself toward whatever there is to do.
The teaching
The relinquisher of the previous verse now shows his face. He has let go of attachment to action, of craving for its fruit, and of the sense that he is the one doing it, and once those three inner grips loosen, his stance toward action itself changes. He does not hate a disagreeable, troublesome task, and he does not cling to an agreeable, pleasant one. He simply does what is to be done, evenly, without being pulled toward the one and away from the other. Four marks belong to him, and they run as one chain: he has relinquished attachment, fruit, and doership; his mind is pervaded by sattva, its clear and luminous quality; he is wise, medhavi; and his doubt is cut. Read it as cause flowing into effect, because the mind is steeped in sattva, discernment grows bright, and because discernment is bright, doubt is sliced through. The evenness toward pleasant and unpleasant work is not willpower. It is the natural overflow of a mind that has already become clear. Hold the distinction inward, not in the deeds themselves: this does not mean he approves of forbidden acts and dislikes holy ones, only that no action, however it feels to do, can any longer stir attraction or aversion in him. Think of the cold early-morning bath in winter that no one enjoys, against the cool noon bath in summer that feels good. He is even toward both, and as long as a thing is his to do, he does it with the same steady mind. This is the ripe fruit of the discipline the previous verses have been describing, and the even poise is its visible sign. Where the record itself runs thin, this page says so rather than smoothing it over: Madhva's surviving work offers no comment on 18.10 at all, and Abhinavagupta's remark covers this verse only as part of the longer passage running from 18.4 to 18.11, not as a note written for 18.10 alone.
The doubt that rises
If being a true relinquisher means feeling no aversion to hard duties and no pleasure in easy ones, is that just cold indifference, or is it something else?
Where the paths divide
Read as the ripening of karma-yoga into knowledge of the actionless Self.
For Shankara this evenness is the visible sign that the discipline of action has done its work. Filled with sattva, you are wise and free of doubt, settled in the conviction that resting in the Self's own nature, and nothing else, is the supreme means to the highest good. Refined by degrees, you come to know the Self as unborn, unchanging, and never truly an agent, and you renounce all action with the mind, reaching the standing in knowledge marked by freedom from action. Another person, equally qualified but still holding the body for the self, is fit only for required duty done with fruit surrendered, not yet for laying the deed down.
For one who keeps acting, surrendering only agency, attachment, and fruit.
For Ramanuja the discipline of action continues; this verse is not its renunciation. You have relinquished attachment, fruit, and the sense that the act is yours, and so you feel neither delight nor hatred while the very same actions go on. He glosses the disagreeable act here as the sinful deed done through oversight, and cites scripture that one who has not ceased from ill conduct, whose mind is restless or unstilled, cannot reach the Self by insight, so ceasing from such conduct is itself bound up with the knowledge this verse describes.
Read honestly, as an acknowledged gap in the record.
No comment from Madhva survives on this verse. Rather than invent a confident Dvaita voice where none exists, the honest step is to note only a flagged extension of his wider system: any evenness of mind toward hard and easy duty would, on his general teaching, be traced to a soul's own graded fitness under Hari's sanction, never to an independent power of sattva alone. This is offered as a labeled bridge, not as Madhva's stated word on 18.10.
Read through a passage shared with several surrounding verses.
Abhinavagupta's Gitartha-samgraha treats 18.4 through 18.11 as one continuous discussion, so what applies to 18.10 is drawn from that shared passage rather than a note aimed at this verse alone. There, true giving-up is an even mind, level toward success and failure, releasing attachment, aversion, and longing for fruit; the sattvic person's relinquishment yields the fruit of holding fast to scripture's true meaning. Extending that account here, your evenness toward agreeable and disagreeable action would be the visible face of that same freedom from the sway of any one quality, though this remains an extension of his stated words, not a sentence he wrote for 18.10 itself.
Read as the cutting, at the root, of pleasure and pain's supposed worth.
Sridhara grounds your evenness in what you have already released elsewhere: if you can bear deep wrong from another's contempt, and let go even of pleasures that lead to heaven, what is the passing pleasure or pain of an ordinary chore, that you should rejoice at the one or shrink from the other? Your doubt is cut in a specific sense: the false notion that bodily pleasure is truly attractive and bodily pain truly repulsive is severed at its root, so an easy or hard task, winter bath or summer one, has nothing left to catch hold of.
Read as the fruit of a mind already purified by the discipline just taught.
Madhusudana reads this verse as naming the fruit of the pure relinquishment described just before. Your inner organ, refined by offering obligatory action to the Lord, becomes clear enough to know the self apart from the not-self, and you are freed of the taint of restlessness and dullness. From that point your actions dwindle, in the sense that you no longer hate the unwholesome deed or cling to the wholesome one, because the conceit of being their doer is gone and the task, in a real sense, is already accomplished.
All six threads agree that the deed continues while doership, attachment, and craving fall away. They part on what that evenness finally means: for Advaita it is the ripening of karma-yoga toward the standing in knowledge where action is renounced with the mind; for Vishishtadvaita it is a settled inner certainty within an unbroken discipline of worship; for the Shaiva reading, drawn only by extension from a passage shared across several verses, it is freedom from the sway of any one quality; for Bhakti it is the root-level severing of pleasure and pain's supposed worth; and for the Modern reading it is the visible fruit of an already-purified mind. And for one voice, Madhva, there is honestly nothing recorded on this particular verse to set beside the rest. This page keeps that gap visible rather than smoothing it over.
A question to carry
When some duty is plainly yours, do you carry the same steady will through it whether it feels easy or hard, or does the feeling quietly decide what you do?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Your day is a quiet mirror. Where the mind grows clear, the pull of the pleasant and the slow drift of the hard down the list both loosen on their own, and the same steady will to do what is yours carries you through either one.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
It completes the portrait begun in the verse just before, showing what the sattvic relinquisher actually looks like once the deed itself comes to him.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Having released attachment, fruit, and doership, he does not hate the disagreeable action nor cling to the agreeable one; he simply does what is his to do.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This verse paints the person who has actually reached the sattvic relinquishment named just before: he has let go of attachment to action, of craving for its fruit, and of the sense that he is the doer. Once those three inner grips loosen, his stance toward action itself changes. He does not hate a disagreeable action and does not cling to an agreeable one; he simply does what is his to do, evenly, without being pulled toward the one and away from the other.
Four marks run as one chain: he is the relinquisher, his mind is pervaded by sattva, his discernment is bright, and so his doubt is sliced through.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Four marks are read as one connected chain: he is the relinquisher who has dropped attachment, fruit, and doership; his mind is pervaded by sattva; he is wise, medhavi; and his doubt is cut. The chain runs cause to effect, because the mind is steeped in sattva, discernment grows bright, and because discernment is bright, doubt is sliced through. The evenness is not willpower, it is the overflow of a mind that has become clear.
Agreeable and disagreeable name how a task feels to do, not its moral worth; the hard duty and the easy one find him equally steady.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara and Śrīdhara’s words
What kushala and akushala name is kept resolutely inward, about how an action feels rather than what it is worth. Sridhara's own homely examples, the shivering winter bath against the pleasant summer one, make the point concrete: he neither shrinks from the hard duty nor leans into the easy one, and as long as a thing is his to do, he does it with the same steady mind.
This evenness is the visible fruit of a mind already purified by selfless action, not a discipline forced on a mind still resisting.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
The commentators tie this evenness back to the purpose of the discipline of action itself. Obligatory action done with attachment and fruit surrendered gradually purifies the inner organ, and a purified organ grows fit for knowledge of the Self. So the even poise toward pleasant and unpleasant work is read as the visible sign that an inward purification has already borne fruit.
Where the record for a given voice is honestly thin, as it is for Madhva here and only partly for Abhinavagupta, say so plainly rather than filling the silence with invented certainty.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
Where the source record itself is thin, that thinness is kept visible rather than papered over. Madhva's surviving work offers no comment on this verse at all, and Abhinavagupta's remark covers 18.10 only as part of one continuous passage running from 18.4 to 18.11, not as a note written for this verse by itself. Faithfulness to what each teacher actually left behind matters more here than the appearance of a complete six-voice set.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja keeps the verse inside the discipline of action rather than reading it as action's renunciation. The relinquisher has given up doership, attachment, and fruit, feeling neither delight nor hatred while these very actions continue. He glosses the disagreeable act as the sinful deed done through oversight, citing scripture that one who has not ceased from ill conduct cannot reach the Self by insight, so that ceasing from such conduct is itself a condition for the knowledge this verse describes.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The record here is honestly bare. Madhva offers no surviving comment on 18.10. What can be said is only a flagged extension of his broader system: any evenness of mind would, on his general teaching, be traced to a soul's graded fitness under Hari's sanction rather than to an independent power of sattva, offered as an informed guess and not as his stated word on this verse.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta's remark covers 18.4 through 18.11 as one passage rather than 18.10 alone. In that shared discussion, true giving-up is an even mind that stays level toward success and failure and releases attachment, aversion, and longing for fruit, with the sattvic giving-up yielding the fruit of holding fast to scripture's true meaning. Applied to this verse, the relinquisher's evenness toward agreeable and disagreeable action would be the visible face of that same even-mindedness, though this remains an extension of his stated words rather than a sentence pinned to 18.10 itself.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara grounds the evenness in what has already been surrendered elsewhere: a person who can bear deep contempt and let go even of heaven-bound pleasures finds an ordinary chore's passing pleasure or pain barely worth registering. His doubt is cut in a specific sense, the false notion that bodily pleasure is truly attractive and bodily pain truly repulsive is severed at its very root, so nothing is left for an easy or hard task to catch hold of.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads the verse as naming the fruit of the pure relinquishment taught just before: a person whose inner organ, refined by offering obligatory action to the Lord, becomes clear enough to know the self apart from the not-self, wears away the taint of restlessness and dullness, and finds that from that point, action itself dwindles, since the conceit of being its doer is gone and the task is already accomplished.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Take this verse as a mirror to hold up against your own day. When some task is plainly yours, notice how it feels: pleasant and easy, the kind you reach for, or hard and dull, the kind you keep postponing. The test the verse sets is not whether you feel the difference; everyone does. The test is whether the feeling quietly decides what you do. Watch for the small ways the pleasant pulls you in and the unpleasant slips down the list, and let the same steady sense of duty carry your hands through both alike.
When some duty is plainly yours today, watch how it feels, then let the same steady will to do what is to be done carry you through the pleasant and the hard alike, leaning toward neither.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse paints the person who has actually reached the sattvic relinquishment named just before: he has let go of attachment to action, of craving for its fruit, and of the sense that he is the doer. Once those three inner grips loosen, his stance toward action itself changes. He does not hate a disagreeable action and does not cling to an agreeable one; he simply does what is his to do, evenly, without being pulled toward the one and away from the other.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Four marks are read as one connected chain: he is the relinquisher who has dropped attachment, fruit, and doership; his mind is pervaded by sattva; he is wise, medhavi; and his doubt is cut. The chain runs cause to effect, because the mind is steeped in sattva, discernment grows bright, and because discernment is bright, doubt is sliced through. The evenness is not willpower, it is the overflow of a mind that has become clear.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
What kushala and akushala name is kept resolutely inward, about how an action feels rather than what it is worth. Sridhara's own homely examples, the shivering winter bath against the pleasant summer one, make the point concrete: he neither shrinks from the hard duty nor leans into the easy one, and as long as a thing is his to do, he does it with the same steady mind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The commentators tie this evenness back to the purpose of the discipline of action itself. Obligatory action done with attachment and fruit surrendered gradually purifies the inner organ, and a purified organ grows fit for knowledge of the Self. So the even poise toward pleasant and unpleasant work is read as the visible sign that an inward purification has already borne fruit.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where the source record itself is thin, that thinness is kept visible rather than papered over. Madhva's surviving work offers no comment on this verse at all, and Abhinavagupta's remark covers 18.10 only as part of one continuous passage running from 18.4 to 18.11, not as a note written for this verse by itself. Faithfulness to what each teacher actually left behind matters more here than the appearance of a complete six-voice set.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads this verse as the very purpose of karma-yoga come to ripeness. The relinquisher, filled with sattva, is wise and free of doubt, settled in the conviction that resting in the Self's own nature, and nothing else, is the supreme means to the highest good. Refined by degrees, such a man comes to know the Self as unborn and never an agent, and renounces all action with the mind, reaching the standing in knowledge marked by freedom from action; another man, still qualified but still holding the body for the self, is fit only for the required duty done with fruit surrendered, not for laying the deed down.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja keeps the verse inside the discipline of action rather than reading it as action's renunciation. The relinquisher has given up doership, attachment, and fruit, feeling neither delight nor hatred while these very actions continue. He glosses the disagreeable act as the sinful deed done through oversight, citing scripture that one who has not ceased from ill conduct cannot reach the Self by insight, so that ceasing from such conduct is itself a condition for the knowledge this verse describes.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The record here is honestly bare. Madhva offers no surviving comment on 18.10. What can be said is only a flagged extension of his broader system: any evenness of mind would, on his general teaching, be traced to a soul's graded fitness under Hari's sanction rather than to an independent power of sattva, offered as an informed guess and not as his stated word on this verse.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's remark covers 18.4 through 18.11 as one passage rather than 18.10 alone. In that shared discussion, true giving-up is an even mind that stays level toward success and failure and releases attachment, aversion, and longing for fruit, with the sattvic giving-up yielding the fruit of holding fast to scripture's true meaning. Applied to this verse, the relinquisher's evenness toward agreeable and disagreeable action would be the visible face of that same even-mindedness, though this remains an extension of his stated words rather than a sentence pinned to 18.10 itself.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara grounds the evenness in what has already been surrendered elsewhere: a person who can bear deep contempt and let go even of heaven-bound pleasures finds an ordinary chore's passing pleasure or pain barely worth registering. His doubt is cut in a specific sense, the false notion that bodily pleasure is truly attractive and bodily pain truly repulsive is severed at its very root, so nothing is left for an easy or hard task to catch hold of.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads the verse as naming the fruit of the pure relinquishment taught just before: a person whose inner organ, refined by offering obligatory action to the Lord, becomes clear enough to know the self apart from the not-self, wears away the taint of restlessness and dullness, and finds that from that point, action itself dwindles, since the conceit of being its doer is gone and the task is already accomplished.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If a true relinquisher feels neither aversion to a hard duty nor pleasure in an easy one, is that just cold indifference?
It is not coldness but the overflow of a mind pervaded by sattva. The evenness does not come from suppressing feeling; it comes because discernment has grown bright enough that doubt is cut, and the poise is the visible sign of that inner ripening rather than a forced or willed detachment.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The deed itself is never abandoned; only doership, attachment, and craving for fruit are released, so what remains is full engagement with the task, minus the anxious grip that used to ride along with it. Feeling neither delight nor hatred toward an action is not the same as feeling nothing at all about how it is done.
Rāmānujācārya
It rests on a real insight rather than numbness: once the false notion that bodily pleasure is truly attractive and bodily pain truly repulsive is cut at its root, an ordinary hard or easy chore has very little left to work with, since it is measured against far weightier things already let go.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Take this verse as a mirror to hold up against your own day. When some task is plainly yours, notice how it feels: pleasant and easy, the kind you reach for, or hard and dull, the kind you keep postponing. The test the verse sets is not whether you feel the difference; everyone does. The test is whether the feeling quietly decides what you do. Watch for the small ways the pleasant pulls you in and the unpleasant slips down the list, and let the same steady sense of duty carry your hands through both alike.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
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, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.