Faith held without grievance is already the road that frees you.
It can sound like a small ask, believe and do not complain, set against so large a promise. What is actually required is more exacting: a settled trust in what you cannot yet verify, and the quiet, real work of laying down the resentment that your duties are an unkind burden.
Those who live, again and again, by this teaching of mine, with faith and without finding fault, are released even they from the bondage of their actions.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna to act without grasping at the fruit of his action. Now he names what that way of living actually yields: not a distant promise for the philosophically advanced alone, but a freedom that reaches anyone who takes up the teaching with faith and lets go of resentment toward it.
The teaching
Two things are asked here, and they are simpler to name than to do. The first is faith, a settled trust that what has been taught is true, held even where you cannot yet see it proven for yourself. The second is the absence of a particular grievance: the resentful thought that this teacher, in setting you to toilsome, difficult duty, has been unkind to you. Where either is missing, the surviving commentaries agree, the freeing this verse promises does not open. Where both are present, something real begins, not a magical exemption from further practice, but a practice that can now continue instead of curdling into complaint. Faith is not a shortcut around transformation. It is what keeps you at the work long enough for transformation to happen, whether that is described as knowledge dawning once the mind has been purified, or as sin quietly wearing away until fuller practice becomes possible, or as fear itself finally dissolving. The small word too, appearing in the line that says even they are freed, is doing real work across every surviving reading: this freedom is not withheld from the one who has not yet attained full, direct knowledge. It reaches also the one who simply keeps faith and refuses to grumble.
The doubt that rises
If faith and the absence of complaint are enough to set this freeing in motion, what is actually changing in a person who has done no more than that? Is something already loosened, or is this only the beginning of a road whose real work still lies ahead?
Where the paths divide
Read from a brief surviving fragment naming the two conditions.
What remains of Shankara's comment here is short: faith and freedom from fault-finding are the two conditions, and meeting them frees a person from merit and demerit alike, just as the one who already knows is freed. The fragment does not go on to explain, in what survives of it, exactly how this freeing through faith connects to knowledge as the final and direct means of liberation, a connection Shankara develops more fully in other places. That fuller picture should not be read into this verse's surviving words as though stated here.
Read as three grades of person, all set on the road to freedom.
Ramanuja distinguishes three kinds of person under the single word too: those who actually carry out the teaching in practice, those who have not yet done so but hold faith in it, and those who lack even that faith yet still refuse to cavil, to declare the teaching impossible. All three, he holds, are freed from action accumulated since beginningless time, because faith and the mere refusal to find fault already wear away the obstruction, carrying even the third and weakest grade, before long, into real practice and release.
Read as ruling out one path in order to clarify the true means.
Madhva reads the verse as setting aside the idea that knowledge and action must be joined into a single combined means of liberation. Even bare, reward-free action releases, he says, but by way of knowledge: action is a step toward the direct sight of the Lord, and that sight, wanting nothing further, is what accomplishes liberation itself. The small word too, on this reading, carries the force of how much more so, not a simple also.
Read from a brief fragment pairing this verse with the one that follows.
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment is compact: whoever rests on this view is not bound by whatever he does, while the faithless are lost, their being pervaded without pause by the fear of birth and death. Faith, in this brief reading, is what dissolves that fear, and the dissolving of fear is itself what leaves the action unbinding. A broader Kashmir Shaiva account of freedom as the self's recognition of its own nature can only be offered here as a clearly marked extension, not as this fragment's own claim.
Read as praise meant to win the seeker's glad acceptance.
Sridhara's surviving comment, also brief, treats the verse as praise: those who keep faith, find no fault, and carry out the teaching step by step without grumbling that duty is painful, are, like the one who already knows, freed from action. The comparison stands largely on its own in what remains of the text, offered to draw the seeker toward glad practice rather than argued out at length.
Read as the most developed technical account among the six commentaries on file.
Madhusudana traces the mechanism most fully: action offered without aiming at reward clears the inner being, and it is in that clarity that knowledge itself arises. Faith is trust resting on teacher and scripture; the fault ruled out is precisely the resentment that names the Lord unkind for prescribing painful duty. The freeing is real, but it runs through purification and the rise of knowledge, never around them.
Every surviving reading agrees that faith and freedom from fault-finding are asked of the seeker together, and that the promised freedom reaches further than the one with full direct knowledge alone. They part on how the freeing actually happens: through a knowledge whose fuller relation to faith is not spelled out here, through a wearing-away of sin that eventually delivers full practice, through action as a rung toward the Lord's own direct sight, through the dissolving of a pervading fear, or through purification understood almost as a describable inner mechanism. Two of the six surviving comments on file, Abhinavagupta's and Sridhara's, are brief fragments rather than full expositions, and this page has tried to say only what they actually state, leaving the rest honestly open rather than filled in with invented confidence.
A question to carry
What resentment do you carry, quietly, against the duties life has set before you, and what would it actually cost you, today, to set that resentment down rather than the duty itself?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May you hold your work with trust, and without complaint. And may the bondage you have carried begin, even now, to loosen its hold.
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.
Krishna has just urged action offered without any grasping at its fruit; here he names the fruit of living that way, so the seeker knows plainly what is at stake in accepting or resisting the teaching.
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.
What is asked of you is twofold and no less than that: faith that the teaching is true, and the refusal of the quiet grievance that it yokes you to painful, unwanted work.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Krishna is naming a fruit, the outcome of the teaching he has just given about acting without grasping at results. What he promises here is freedom from karma, from the bondage of works, merit and demerit alike, for those who live by this teaching rather than merely hearing it once.
The fault ruled out is specific: not honest doubt, but the resentful thought that your teacher is unkind for setting this burden before you.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Two inner conditions are named together, and every commentary that survives on this verse treats them as a pair: shraddha, a settled faith that what the teaching declares is true, and freedom from finding fault, from resenting the teacher or the teaching as an unkind burden laid upon you.
The freedom promised here reaches further than the one who already knows directly; it reaches, too, the one who only practices in faith, without complaint.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The fault being ruled out is specific, not a general skepticism but a particular grievance: the thought that Krishna, as teacher, is cruel or unkind for yoking a person to toilsome, painful action. Refusing that resentment is treated as inseparable from having faith at all.
None of this treats faith as a substitute for practice; it is what lets practice continue instead of curdling into resentment, the seed rather than the whole harvest.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Madhva · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Madhva, and 1 others’ words
The small word api, too, or even, carries real weight across the readings. It signals that the freedom promised here is not reserved for the one who has already attained full, direct knowledge; it reaches also, too, the one who merely practices with faith and without complaint.
The freeing is from the works that bind, merit and demerit both, so that the same duties that once tied you down begin, held this way, to loosen their hold.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Madhva · Madhusūdana · ŚaṅkaraIn Rāmānuja, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
None of the surviving comments treat faith as a substitute for practice or as a magic shortcut around it. Whether the freeing is described as gradual, through purification and rising knowledge, or as more directly reached through devoted action, faith is what makes the practice possible and keeps it from collapsing into resentment.
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 reads the verse as gathering three distinct grades of person under the single word too: those who actually practice the teaching, those who merely have faith in it, and those who have no faith but at least do not cavil. All three, he holds, are freed from beginninglessly accumulated bondage, since faith and non-caviling by themselves wear away the sin that blocks the way, so that even the weakest of the three comes, before long, to real practice.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva reads the verse as a deliberate refutation of joining knowledge and action into one combined means of liberation. Even those who merely act without craving results are released, he says, but by way of knowledge, since action is a rung of the ladder that leads to direct sight of the Lord, while that sight itself, seeking nothing further, is what actually delivers nirvana. Too, on his reading, means how much more so, not a simple also.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment is a brief pairing with the next verse: whoever rests on this view is not bound by whatever he does, while the faithless are lost because their being is pervaded, without pause, by the fear of birth and death. Faith, on this fragment, is what dissolves that fear, and it is the dissolving of fear that leaves action unbinding. A fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading of freedom as recognition of the self's own nature can be offered only as a clearly labeled extension beyond what the fragment itself says.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's surviving comment, also brief, reads the verse as praise meant to win a seeker's glad acceptance of the teaching: those who keep faith and find no fault, who do not grumble that duty is painful, and who carry out the teaching step by step, are, like the one who already knows, freed from action. The comparison is stated rather than argued at length in what remains of the text.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana gives the most developed technical account among the six on file: offering action to the Lord without aiming at reward clears the inner being, and it is in that clarity that knowledge itself arises; faith is trust resting on teacher and scripture, and the fault ruled out is precisely the resentful charge that the Lord is unkind for prescribing painful duty. The freeing is real but mediated, running through purification and the rise of knowledge rather than bypassing them.
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, today, whether you carry any quiet resentment toward the duties life has handed you, the sense that they are an unfair or unkind burden. That resentment, more than any lack of belief, is what the verse asks you to set down. Try holding your tasks instead with a settled trust that they are not senseless, and watch whether the grievance loosens.
So carry your duties today with trust and without complaint, and let the resentment you find in yourself, when you find it, simply be set down rather than nursed.
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 is naming a fruit, the outcome of the teaching he has just given about acting without grasping at results. What he promises here is freedom from karma, from the bondage of works, merit and demerit alike, for those who live by this teaching rather than merely hearing it once.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Two inner conditions are named together, and every commentary that survives on this verse treats them as a pair: shraddha, a settled faith that what the teaching declares is true, and freedom from finding fault, from resenting the teacher or the teaching as an unkind burden laid upon you.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The fault being ruled out is specific, not a general skepticism but a particular grievance: the thought that Krishna, as teacher, is cruel or unkind for yoking a person to toilsome, painful action. Refusing that resentment is treated as inseparable from having faith at all.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The small word api, too, or even, carries real weight across the readings. It signals that the freedom promised here is not reserved for the one who has already attained full, direct knowledge; it reaches also, too, the one who merely practices with faith and without complaint.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
None of the surviving comments treat faith as a substitute for practice or as a magic shortcut around it. Whether the freeing is described as gradual, through purification and rising knowledge, or as more directly reached through devoted action, faith is what makes the practice possible and keeps it from collapsing into resentment.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The surviving fragment of Shankara's comment is brief: it names faith and freedom from fault-finding as the two conditions, and says that those who meet them are freed from action, from merit and demerit, just as the one who already knows. It does not, in what remains, spell out in detail how this freeing through faith relates to knowledge as the final means of liberation, a relation Shankara develops more fully elsewhere in the text. That fuller architecture should not be presented here as though this verse's surviving comment states it outright.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the verse as gathering three distinct grades of person under the single word too: those who actually practice the teaching, those who merely have faith in it, and those who have no faith but at least do not cavil. All three, he holds, are freed from beginninglessly accumulated bondage, since faith and non-caviling by themselves wear away the sin that blocks the way, so that even the weakest of the three comes, before long, to real practice.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva reads the verse as a deliberate refutation of joining knowledge and action into one combined means of liberation. Even those who merely act without craving results are released, he says, but by way of knowledge, since action is a rung of the ladder that leads to direct sight of the Lord, while that sight itself, seeking nothing further, is what actually delivers nirvana. Too, on his reading, means how much more so, not a simple also.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment is a brief pairing with the next verse: whoever rests on this view is not bound by whatever he does, while the faithless are lost because their being is pervaded, without pause, by the fear of birth and death. Faith, on this fragment, is what dissolves that fear, and it is the dissolving of fear that leaves action unbinding. A fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading of freedom as recognition of the self's own nature can be offered only as a clearly labeled extension beyond what the fragment itself says.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's surviving comment, also brief, reads the verse as praise meant to win a seeker's glad acceptance of the teaching: those who keep faith and find no fault, who do not grumble that duty is painful, and who carry out the teaching step by step, are, like the one who already knows, freed from action. The comparison is stated rather than argued at length in what remains of the text.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana gives the most developed technical account among the six on file: offering action to the Lord without aiming at reward clears the inner being, and it is in that clarity that knowledge itself arises; faith is trust resting on teacher and scripture, and the fault ruled out is precisely the resentful charge that the Lord is unkind for prescribing painful duty. The freeing is real but mediated, running through purification and the rise of knowledge rather than bypassing them.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If simply having faith and not finding fault is enough to free me, even before I have done any real practice, is that not too cheap a liberation, a matter of mere agreement rather than actual change?
None of the surviving readings treat faith as a substitute for practice. Madhusudana is explicit that the freeing runs through purification and the rise of knowledge; faith is what keeps a person practicing without collapsing into resentment, not a bypass around the practice itself.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
Ramanuja's three grades make the same point from another angle: even the weakest grade, who merely refuses to cavil, does not stay there. Faith and non-caviling wear away the sin that blocks the way, so that this person comes, before long, to actual practice. Faith is the seed, not the whole harvest.
Rāmānujācārya
What is actually being asked of you is not trivial: refusing the resentment that your duties are an unkind burden is a real, often difficult, change of inner posture. It is precisely because that grievance is so natural that faith and freedom from it count as genuine transformation, not mere assent.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Notice, today, whether you carry any quiet resentment toward the duties life has handed you, the sense that they are an unfair or unkind burden. That resentment, more than any lack of belief, is what the verse asks you to set down. Try holding your tasks instead with a settled trust that they are not senseless, and watch whether the grievance loosens.
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.