Devoted to the work that is already yours, you reach a success whose manner is still to be told.
Krishna names the rule this chapter has been building toward, that settling into one's own work with relish rather than grudge brings a complete success, and then turns to Arjuna to say: listen, for how this happens comes next.
Devoted to the work that is already his own, a person reaches complete success. Hear now how one intent on his own work attains that success.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The chapter has been tracing, duty by duty, the work that follows from each person's own nature: the brahmana's, the kshatriya's, the vaishya's, the shudra's. Here Krishna lands the rule that all of that tracing was building toward, and then, deliberately, does not finish the thought. He tells Arjuna to listen, because the manner of how devoted work becomes success is the next thing to be shown, not this one.
The teaching
Settle into the work that already belongs to you, the one your own nature and place in the world hand you, rather than a task borrowed from someone else's life because it looks more admirable from outside. Do it not as a grudge to be discharged but with real relish, the way something fits when it suits your own being. Devoted like this, a person reaches samsiddhi, a complete success. What exactly that success is, and how it comes about through work that elsewhere looks like it only binds, the verse does not say here. It says: hear. The explanation is a promise made, not a mechanism given, and the very next lines are where that promise starts to be kept.
The doubt that rises
If success comes from staying with the work my own nature and station already gave me, is this asking me to stop reaching for anything beyond my given place, and how could simply continuing what I already do open onto something genuinely new?
Where the paths divide
Read as fitness for knowledge, not knowledge or liberation itself.
Shankara asks the question directly: does consummation come from the mere performance of one's own action? He answers no. What the deed provides is the wearing down of impurity, the readying of body and senses to stand firm in knowledge; only that subsequent knowledge liberates. The verse's promised success is a promise of readiness, and the manner of what follows is explicitly deferred to the verses ahead.
Read as the supreme abode reached directly, not a mere preparatory stage.
Ramanuja's own surviving comment names consummation as the supreme abode and defers the manner of reaching it to the verses ahead; it is a compact restatement rather than a developed argument. His text does not itself treat this as a halfway readiness, but neither does it argue the point against that reading the way this contrast implies; the sharper distinction from Shankara's fitness-reading is drawn here by this page.
An honest absence, not a thin position recovered from the source.
The source consulted for this page states plainly that Madhvacarya offers no comment on this verse. No fragment, no technical gloss, nothing survives to build a reading from directly. Extended only as a clearly labeled possibility from his wider, well-attested premises elsewhere: the devoted doing of one's own work would likely be read as possible only by the Lord's sanction, with success graded to each soul's own nature and fitness rather than a uniform prize. This is offered as extrapolation only, not as Madhva's word.
No verse-specific comment survives; only a flagged extension is offered.
Abhinavagupta's surviving Gitartha-samgraha treats verses 18.41 through 18.60 as one continuous passage, with his actual comment placed at 18.41 and not repeated here. No words addressed to this verse's own language survive in the source consulted. Extended only as a labeled Kashmir Shaiva possibility: devotion to one's own work might be read as consciousness settling without strain into an expression already native to it, success being less an external reward than a lessening of the effort of self-forgetting. This is a conditional extension, not his recovered words.
Read as work that is itself the cause of the knowledge that frees.
Sridhara reads the work of one's own station, done in the right spirit, as itself the cause of knowledge, not merely its distant precondition. The man well settled in his own duty attains fitness for the knowledge of truth by that very settling, work and knowing joined as tightly as a thread running through the cloth it holds together. The exact manner of that passage is still, on his own reading too, left for the verse and a half that follows.
Read as the precise technical conditions the deed must meet.
Madhusudana lays out the architecture this verse assumes: the celibate student, householder, or forest-dweller who seeks liberation must perform the action scripture and recollection assign to his own class and stage of life, giving up the aim at fruit and holding the attitude of offering to the Lord. Only performed this way does the deed wear away the impurity of body and senses and yield fitness for right knowledge. He names, without resolving here, the standing doubt of how bondage-causing action becomes a cause of liberation at all.
Every reading agrees that devoted, rightly-performed work in one's own station brings the success this verse names, and that the verse itself withholds the mechanism, promising an explanation rather than giving one. Shankara explicitly argues that success is only a readiness, knowledge still to come. Ramanuja's own comment names the goal as the final abode rather than a readiness, though his surviving text is a compact restatement and does not itself argue the point at length; that sharper contrast with Shankara is drawn here by this page. For Sridhara, work and the knowledge that frees are already joined, not staged one after the other. For Madhva and for Abhinavagupta, the honest fact is that no verse-specific reading survives to take a side at all. Whether devoted work prepares, delivers, or already contains the success it promises: that fork stays open, and the next verses are where the Gita itself starts to answer it.
A question to carry
What is the work that your own nature and station have already handed you, and could you take it up today with real relish, releasing your grip on whatever you hoped it would bring you?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May the work already given to you, by your own nature and your own place, be enough for today. Take it up without reaching past it, hold it without grasping at its fruit, and let whatever success it prepares arrive in its own time, by a way not yet shown.
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.
After tracing the work that follows from each person's nature across this chapter, Krishna lands the rule itself here and points forward to the mechanism the following verses will unfold.
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.
The work to delight in is your own, given by your nature and station, not borrowed from someone else's path.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Krishna names the rule this chapter has been building toward: a person devoted to and delighting in his own work, the duty that follows from his own nature and station rather than someone else's, attains samsiddhi, complete success. The devotion in view is not grudging compliance but genuine relish, the worker finding in the task the fitness of his own being.
For several readings this success is not release itself but the readiness for it, the mind cleansed so that knowledge can later arise.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
For most of the readings gathered here, this success is not liberation itself but the fitness for knowledge that leads to it. Shankara is explicit that mere performance of one's own action does not hand over consummation directly; it wears down impurity and readies body and senses to stand firm in knowledge, which alone then frees.
The verse names its result and then defers the explanation, telling the listener to hear how this happens in what comes next.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
The verse deliberately withholds its own mechanism. Having named the result, it tells the listener to hear how it comes about, pointing forward rather than explaining here. Shankara raises the very question himself, only to defer it; Ramanuja names the goal and defers the road to it; Madhusudana names the doubt directly and defers its resolution.
How the work is done matters as much as which work it is: release the fruit, offer the deed, and let no self-will substitute for one's own station.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
How the work is done matters as much as which work it is. It must be one's own duty, fixed by nature and scriptural station and not chosen by self-will, and it must be carried out with the fruit released and the deed offered to the Lord, exactly as Madhusudana specifies for the seeker who identifies rightly with his own class and stage of life.
Where a source is thin or silent, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta here, that absence is stated honestly rather than dressed up as their words.
Across BhaktiŚrīdharaIn Śrīdhara’s words
Sridhara reads the connection between work and knowledge as tighter than a simple sequence: the work itself is the cause of knowledge, not merely its distant precondition, so that devoted duty and the dawning of truth are two moments of a single movement rather than two separate stages loosely joined.
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's own surviving comment on this verse is a compact restatement: the devoted worker gains consummation, the attaining of the supreme abode, with the manner deferred to what follows. His text names the goal as the supreme abode rather than as a preparatory readiness, but it does not itself argue the point against a reading like Shankara's; that contrast is drawn here by this page, not stated by him.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
No comment from Madhva survives on this verse in the source consulted. Extended only as a labeled, conditional reading from his broader premises elsewhere: even the devoted performance of one's own work would be read as possible only by the Lord's sanction, and the success attained as strictly graded to each soul's own nature and fitness, not a uniform prize.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta's surviving commentary treats 18.41 through 18.60 as one block, with the actual comment placed at 18.41; no words addressed specifically to this verse survive. Extended only as a labeled, conditional Kashmir Shaiva reading: devotion to one's own work would be read as consciousness settling without strain into its own natural expression, success being a lessening of the effort of self-forgetting rather than an external reward.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the work of one's station as itself the cause of knowledge, not merely its distant preparation. The man well settled in his own duty attains fitness for the knowledge of truth by that very settling, the two joined as tightly as a thread running through the cloth it holds, with the exact manner of that passage still to be told in the verse and a half that follows.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read against the architecture of duty Madhusudana has just laid out, a modern-facing gloss stresses the precision of what is required: renunciation of the fruit and the attitude of offering to the Lord, performed by one who rightly identifies with the duties of his own class and stage of life, wearing away the impurity that stands between the aggregate of body and senses and the arising of right knowledge.
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
Notice, without forcing anything, the work that is already yours to do today, the one your circumstance and capacity have handed you rather than one you imagined for yourself. Take it up the way you would settle into a seat that fits you, with relish rather than grudge, and let go of any fruit riding on it. Let the doing be enough for now; whatever it prepares you for, or brings you to, is not yours to rush.
Take up the work already given to you by your own nature and place, hold it without reaching past it for another's, and let whatever success it prepares arrive in its own time.
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
rishna names the rule this chapter has been building toward: a person devoted to and delighting in his own work, the duty that follows from his own nature and station rather than someone else's, attains samsiddhi, complete success. The devotion in view is not grudging compliance but genuine relish, the worker finding in the task the fitness of his own being.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
For most of the readings gathered here, this success is not liberation itself but the fitness for knowledge that leads to it. Shankara is explicit that mere performance of one's own action does not hand over consummation directly; it wears down impurity and readies body and senses to stand firm in knowledge, which alone then frees.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse deliberately withholds its own mechanism. Having named the result, it tells the listener to hear how it comes about, pointing forward rather than explaining here. Shankara raises the very question himself, only to defer it; Ramanuja names the goal and defers the road to it; Madhusudana names the doubt directly and defers its resolution.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
How the work is done matters as much as which work it is. It must be one's own duty, fixed by nature and scriptural station and not chosen by self-will, and it must be carried out with the fruit released and the deed offered to the Lord, exactly as Madhusudana specifies for the seeker who identifies rightly with his own class and stage of life.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Sridhara reads the connection between work and knowledge as tighter than a simple sequence: the work itself is the cause of knowledge, not merely its distant precondition, so that devoted duty and the dawning of truth are two moments of a single movement rather than two separate stages loosely joined.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads success strictly as fitness for knowledge, never as knowledge or liberation itself. He asks the question outright, does consummation come from the mere performance of one's own action, and answers no; the deed cleanses the instrument, and only a subsequent, separate seeing liberates. The verse's promise is therefore a promise of readiness, deferred to what the following verses will explain.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's own surviving comment on this verse is a compact restatement: the devoted worker gains consummation, the attaining of the supreme abode, with the manner deferred to what follows. His text names the goal as the supreme abode rather than as a preparatory readiness, but it does not itself argue the point against a reading like Shankara's; that contrast is drawn here by this page, not stated by him.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
No comment from Madhva survives on this verse in the source consulted. Extended only as a labeled, conditional reading from his broader premises elsewhere: even the devoted performance of one's own work would be read as possible only by the Lord's sanction, and the success attained as strictly graded to each soul's own nature and fitness, not a uniform prize.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving commentary treats 18.41 through 18.60 as one block, with the actual comment placed at 18.41; no words addressed specifically to this verse survive. Extended only as a labeled, conditional Kashmir Shaiva reading: devotion to one's own work would be read as consciousness settling without strain into its own natural expression, success being a lessening of the effort of self-forgetting rather than an external reward.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the work of one's station as itself the cause of knowledge, not merely its distant preparation. The man well settled in his own duty attains fitness for the knowledge of truth by that very settling, the two joined as tightly as a thread running through the cloth it holds, with the exact manner of that passage still to be told in the verse and a half that follows.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read against the architecture of duty Madhusudana has just laid out, a modern-facing gloss stresses the precision of what is required: renunciation of the fruit and the attitude of offering to the Lord, performed by one who rightly identifies with the duties of his own class and stage of life, wearing away the impurity that stands between the aggregate of body and senses and the arising of right knowledge.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If success comes from staying with the work my own nature and station already gave me, am I being told to stop reaching for anything more, and how could simply continuing what I already do lead anywhere new?
Nothing here asks you to stop growing; it asks you to stop switching seats. The work in view is the one that already fits your nature and station, not a ceiling on ambition within it. Staying with it in the right spirit is what wears down the resistance that keeps you from seeing clearly, whatever grows from there.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Ramanuja's own compact comment names consummation as the supreme abode rather than a mere readiness, which suggests the continuing is not a holding pattern at all but itself the road to the highest end; his surviving text does not develop this contrast at length, but the plain sense supports it.
Rāmānujācārya
Sridhara would add that the newness is already hidden inside the sameness: the very same duty, done in the right spirit, is what draws knowledge out, the way a thread already running through cloth is not something added afterward but was there in the weave from the start.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice, without forcing anything, the work that is already yours to do today, the one your circumstance and capacity have handed you rather than one you imagined for yourself. Take it up the way you would settle into a seat that fits you, with relish rather than grudge, and let go of any fruit riding on it. Let the doing be enough for now; whatever it prepares you for, or brings you to, is not yours to rush.
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.