Karma Yoga

Arjuna has heard that buddhi, the wisdom-poised intellect, is better than action, so he asks why Krishna still urges him to act. He says the teaching sounds mixed, pointing two ways at once. Krishna answers that from old there have been two paths: knowledge for some, action for others. He makes one thing plain. No one can stop acting, not even for a moment; merely halting the body does not bring freedom. Even keeping the body alive is action. So the way out is not to drop action but to change how you act: do your own enjoined work, offer it as yajna, which means sacrifice or offering, and let go of craving for results and the sense of being the doer. Krishna points to the wheel of sacrifice that holds the world together, to King Janaka, and to his own example. He closes by naming the real enemy, kama, desire, born of rajas, the restless strand of nature, and tells Arjuna to master the senses and slay it. The schools differ on what the final goal is. Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita each read the Self and liberation in their own way.