Give up every ground you have leaned on, and take the Lord alone as your refuge.
This is the most secret word of the whole teaching, and it is easy to mishear as permission to stop caring. Read closely, each voice here names something precise that is surrendered, and it is never the deed itself.
Let go of every duty you have leaned on, and come to me alone for shelter. I will free you from all sin; do not grieve.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The teaching is nearly finished. Krishna has walked through action, knowledge, devotion, the three gunas, the varieties of renunciation and of duty; now he offers what tradition has long called his final and most secret word, the single sentence every earlier path seems to have been preparing.
The teaching
The instruction has two halves, and they answer each other. Give up all dharmas: let go of the duties, disciplines, and observances you have been leaning on as the ground of your own deliverance. Take refuge in Me alone: rest your whole weight on the Lord, with nothing standing beside him as a second support. Then his pledge follows, unconditional: I will free you from all sins. Whatever has gathered, however long the account, he takes the burden of freeing you onto himself. And because the ground of release is now his promise and not your own effort, the last word can be simply, do not grieve. He answers in advance a worry that would otherwise rise the moment you let go: that abandoning your own reliance might itself be a fault. It is worth noticing what stays constant across every reading gathered here. None of them treats this as a green light for carelessness. Something exact is surrendered in each case, the fruit of the deed, the sense of being its doer, a private claim to merit, or reliance on works as the very ground of rescue, but the deed itself, in every reading, keeps going.
The doubt that rises
If I am told to give up every dharma and simply take refuge, what is left of the duty I still have to do tomorrow morning, and how would I even recognize the difference between letting go of a burden and letting go of a responsibility?
Where the paths divide
Read as the widest possible giving-up, reaching all action.
Shankara reads dharma here as stretched wide enough to include its own opposite, lawlessness, so that giving up all dharmas means freedom from action altogether. Take refuge in Me alone becomes the certain knowledge of the one Self present the same in every being, undivided, untouched by birth or death. Liberation, being eternal, cannot be produced by any action; it dawns only when the Lord shows the seeker his own nature as that Self, the lamp of knowledge burning away the darkness that mistook itself for a doer.
Read as surrender of fruit and agency, with the disciplines intact.
Ramanuja holds that the disciplines this very chapter has just commanded are never dropped. What is surrendered is attachment to their fruit, to their performance as one's own doing, and to the sense of being their independent source; all three are offered to the Lord as the one doer, the one worshipped, and the one means. In a second reading he offers, the dharmas relinquished are the vast, near-endless expiations a beginningless store of sin would otherwise demand, replaced simply by refuge in a Lord whose compassion has no comparable limit.
Read as fruit-renunciation alone, consistent with the command to fight.
Madhva reads the giving-up strictly as giving up the fruit of action, since this same voice cannot forbid all action while, in the same breath, commanding the very war Arjuna is being asked to wage. He grounds this in the Gita's own earlier definition, that the true relinquisher is one who relinquishes the fruit of action; the deed, and the duty bound to it, remain exactly as they were.
Read narrowly, from a fragmentary but pointed source, as two mental notions to release.
In the surviving portion of Abhinavagupta's treatment, the giving-up narrows to two specific claims in the mind: that Arjuna is the doer of what this war brings, including the deaths of kinsmen, and that refraining from a forbidden act, striking down a teacher, would itself earn him merit. Letting go of both, he takes refuge in the Lord as the one doer of all. A fuller extension toward the self's own recognized freedom is imaginable on Kashmir-Shaiva principles, but the extant text itself stays with this narrower, pointed correction.
Read as devotion's conviction replacing reliance on works.
Sridhara calls this the step beyond the earlier instruction to fix the mind on the Lord. There, the Lord was served alongside the prescribed disciplines; here, the firm conviction, by my devotion alone all of this will come about, is itself the whole act. He is careful that dharma is not dissolved by this, only relocated: right conduct continues, but the seeker no longer leans on it as the ground of his rescue, entering the Lord as that ground instead.
Read as a correction to one specific overreach about duty's power.
Madhusudana reads the verse as answering a particular doubt: that class-and-stage duties, well known to bring worldly prosperity, might also, on their own, be sufficient for liberation. Since Arjuna is not himself qualified for formal renunciation, the instruction cannot mean dropping action outright; it means taking the Lord as sole refuge even while setting aside any competing reliance on duty as a path complete in itself, with the duty of the moment continuing exactly as before.
Every reading agrees that something precise is handed over here, and that the deed itself is not simply abandoned. They do not agree on what that something is: the fruit of action for one, the doership and false merit for another, reliance on works as such for a third, or the whole of action itself for a fourth whose knowledge already presupposes it given up. Nor do they agree on whether the freedom from sin is the dawning of self-knowledge or the free gift of a Lord's compassion. This page does not choose among them.
A question to carry
What have you been carrying today as proof that your effort deserves a particular outcome, and what would it feel like to keep doing the work while setting that proof down?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So take up what is yours to do, and let it be enough that you do it. Set down the ledger you have been keeping of what it should earn you, and let the rest, the freeing and the peace, rest where this verse says it has always belonged.
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 unfolding the paths of action, knowledge, and devotion across seventeen chapters, Krishna gathers them here into a single instruction, the verse the tradition has long called its most secret word.
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.
This verse is received as the crown of the whole teaching, the point every earlier path is meant to be read again through.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
This verse is received across the tradition as the crown of the whole Gita, its final and most secret word, the carama-shloka toward which the entire dialogue has been moving. Every earlier teaching, the paths of action, of knowledge, and of devotion, is meant to be re-read in the light of this single instruction, take refuge in Me alone.
The verse pairs a giving-up on the seeker's side with a giving on the Lord's side, and the word 'alone' shuts out every rival ground of confidence.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The verse has two movements that fit together: a giving-up on the seeker's side and a giving on the Lord's side. Giving up all dharmas is the seeker's part; I will free you from all sins is the Lord's pledge. The word alone shuts out every second support, so that the Lord, and not the seeker's own works, becomes the cause of release.
The Lord's pledge to free you from all sin is unconditional, meant to remove fear rather than to reward a completed effort.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The Lord's pledge is unconditional and is meant to remove fear. I will free you from all sins is read as the Lord taking the whole burden of liberation onto himself, so that the seeker need not undertake long expiations or wait through many lives to burn off what has already gathered. Do not grieve follows because the ground of release is now his promise, not the seeker's own effort.
Do not grieve answers the fresh worry that letting go of self-reliance might itself be a fault.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 1 others’ words
Nearly all the commentators are careful that this is not a license for moral chaos. Even where the giving-up reaches widest, in Shankara's reading of dharma stretched to include lawlessness, the point is never that ordinary duty is now beneath notice; it is that the ground of one's freedom has shifted entirely off works and onto knowledge or grace.
None of the six readings gathered here treat this as license for neglect; each names something exact that is surrendered, never the deed itself.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Abhinavagupta, and 2 others’ words
Underneath every reading sits the same shift of address: something that was carried as the seeker's own burden, the fruit, the doership, or the deed itself, is handed over, and what remains in the seeker's hands is only the act of turning, the taking of refuge, called by more than one voice here the highest duty in its own right.
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 holds that the disciplines the chapter has just insisted upon are never abandoned; what is given up is attachment to their fruit, their performance, and one's own agency, offering all three to the Lord as the one doer and the one means. This is prapatti, total self-surrender, and in a second reading offered in the same voice, the dharmas relinquished are the crushing, near-endless expiations a beginningless store of sin would otherwise demand, replaced simply by refuge in the Lord's own compassion.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva reads the giving-up of dharmas strictly as the giving up of the fruit of action, since the same verse cannot enjoin abandoning all action while war is being commanded in the same breath. He anchors this in the Gita's own definition, given earlier in the chapter, that the relinquisher of the fruit of action is the true relinquisher; the deed, and the duty of one's station, continue exactly as before.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara calls this the step beyond the earlier fix your mind on Me: there the Lord was served alongside the prescribed disciplines, but here the firm conviction, by my devotion alone all will come about, is itself the whole act. He is careful that this does not dissolve dharma but relocates its center: the seeker gives up reliance on his own works as the ground of his rescue and enters the Lord as that ground instead.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads the verse as warding off one particular doubt, that class-and-stage duties, known to bring worldly prosperity, might also on their own cause liberation; the verse exists to correct exactly that overreach. Since Arjuna is not fit for formal renunciation, the command cannot mean dropping action outright; it means having the Lord as sole refuge even while disregarding renunciation-duties as a competing path, with duty itself continuing as before.
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 what this verse actually removes and what it leaves standing. It does not ask you to stop acting, and none of the six readings here claim that it does, not even Shankara's widest reading, which is a claim about the ground of knowledge, not a claim that duty may now be neglected. Try, today, naming one thing you have been carrying as your own burden, whether it is a fruit you are owed, a merit you are counting, or a judgment only you feel qualified to make, and set it down as an offering rather than a possession. See what remains of the work once the ownership is gone.
So set down what you have been carrying as your own to prove, and let the work continue as an offering rather than a claim.
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 is received across the tradition as the crown of the whole Gita, its final and most secret word, the carama-shloka toward which the entire dialogue has been moving. Every earlier teaching, the paths of action, of knowledge, and of devotion, is meant to be re-read in the light of this single instruction, take refuge in Me alone.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse has two movements that fit together: a giving-up on the seeker's side and a giving on the Lord's side. Giving up all dharmas is the seeker's part; I will free you from all sins is the Lord's pledge. The word alone shuts out every second support, so that the Lord, and not the seeker's own works, becomes the cause of release.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The Lord's pledge is unconditional and is meant to remove fear. I will free you from all sins is read as the Lord taking the whole burden of liberation onto himself, so that the seeker need not undertake long expiations or wait through many lives to burn off what has already gathered. Do not grieve follows because the ground of release is now his promise, not the seeker's own effort.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Nearly all the commentators are careful that this is not a license for moral chaos. Even where the giving-up reaches widest, in Shankara's reading of dharma stretched to include lawlessness, the point is never that ordinary duty is now beneath notice; it is that the ground of one's freedom has shifted entirely off works and onto knowledge or grace.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Underneath every reading sits the same shift of address: something that was carried as the seeker's own burden, the fruit, the doership, or the deed itself, is handed over, and what remains in the seeker's hands is only the act of turning, the taking of refuge, called by more than one voice here the highest duty in its own right.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads giving up all dharmas as renouncing all action whatever, since dharma is here stretched to include its opposite, lawlessness, so that freedom from all action is what is meant. Take refuge in Me alone is the certain knowledge of the one Self of all, undivided and free of birth and death; liberation dawns when the Lord shows the seeker his own nature as that Self, the lamp of knowledge destroying the darkness of ignorance, since an eternal aloneness cannot be produced by any action.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja holds that the disciplines the chapter has just insisted upon are never abandoned; what is given up is attachment to their fruit, their performance, and one's own agency, offering all three to the Lord as the one doer and the one means. This is prapatti, total self-surrender, and in a second reading offered in the same voice, the dharmas relinquished are the crushing, near-endless expiations a beginningless store of sin would otherwise demand, replaced simply by refuge in the Lord's own compassion.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva reads the giving-up of dharmas strictly as the giving up of the fruit of action, since the same verse cannot enjoin abandoning all action while war is being commanded in the same breath. He anchors this in the Gita's own definition, given earlier in the chapter, that the relinquisher of the fruit of action is the true relinquisher; the deed, and the duty of one's station, continue exactly as before.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta, in the surviving fragment of his reading, narrows the giving-up to two specific mental notions Arjuna must drop: that he is the doer of what the war brings, including the slaying of kinsmen, and that refraining from striking down teachers would itself earn merit. Refuge in the Lord as the one doer of all follows from letting go both notions; a fuller Kashmir-Shaiva extension toward the self's own recognized freedom is possible but goes beyond what his extant text itself says.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara calls this the step beyond the earlier fix your mind on Me: there the Lord was served alongside the prescribed disciplines, but here the firm conviction, by my devotion alone all will come about, is itself the whole act. He is careful that this does not dissolve dharma but relocates its center: the seeker gives up reliance on his own works as the ground of his rescue and enters the Lord as that ground instead.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads the verse as warding off one particular doubt, that class-and-stage duties, known to bring worldly prosperity, might also on their own cause liberation; the verse exists to correct exactly that overreach. Since Arjuna is not fit for formal renunciation, the command cannot mean dropping action outright; it means having the Lord as sole refuge even while disregarding renunciation-duties as a competing path, with duty itself continuing as before.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If the Lord tells me to give up all my duties and simply surrender, isn't that a license to walk away from my responsibilities?
No single reading here treats this as permission to neglect duty. Madhva reads the giving-up as fruit-renunciation alone, with the commanded action, the war itself, continuing unchanged. Sridhara is explicit that dharma's center moves rather than dissolves. Even Shankara's widest reading is a claim about what makes knowledge complete, not an invitation to indifference toward one's station.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
What each reading removes is different, the fruit for Madhva, the doership and the sense of merit for Abhinavagupta, reliance on works as the ground of rescue for Ramanuja and Sridhara, but in every case something is handed over to the Lord rather than simply abandoned. The seeker's hands are emptied of ownership, not of the work itself.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
And the promise that follows, I will free you from all sins, do not grieve, is not addressed to someone about to become careless. It is addressed to the fear that letting go of self-reliance might itself be a fault, a fear that only makes sense for someone still deeply engaged with getting the duty right.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice what this verse actually removes and what it leaves standing. It does not ask you to stop acting, and none of the six readings here claim that it does, not even Shankara's widest reading, which is a claim about the ground of knowledge, not a claim that duty may now be neglected. Try, today, naming one thing you have been carrying as your own burden, whether it is a fruit you are owed, a merit you are counting, or a judgment only you feel qualified to make, and set it down as an offering rather than a possession. See what remains of the work once the ownership is gone.
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.