A stilled body can still hide a mind that has not moved at all.
Krishna does not condemn the wish to renounce. He names the man who mistakes a quiet posture for an untouched mind, and calls the mismatch what it is: a fraud performed, sometimes, without the man even admitting it to himself.
Whoever holds the organs of action still but sits turning the sense-objects over in the mind is deluded. Such a person is called a hypocrite.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that action cannot be avoided and that inaction is itself a kind of doing. Here he turns the point into a sharp portrait: a man who thinks he has escaped action simply by holding his limbs still.
The teaching
Picture the man Krishna describes. His hands, his feet, his voice, all the organs of action, are held motionless. To anyone watching, he looks like someone who has renounced the world. But sit with him a while longer and a different picture appears. His mind is still moving, still turning over the very sense-objects his body has set aside, still tasting in imagination what it will not touch in fact. Nothing in him has actually changed. The craving that used to move his hands now simply moves his thoughts instead. Krishna's words for this man are exact: he is deluded, and he is a hypocrite. Deluded, because he has mistaken the stillness of his limbs for the stillness of his mind, two entirely different things. A hypocrite, because the mismatch between what he appears to be and what he actually is has become, whether he admits it to himself or not, a kind of performance. Sometimes, the sources note, this performance borrows a religious face: the man sits as though absorbed in meditation, so that others will take his stillness for depth. The brooding continues exactly as before, only now it wears a devout expression. What the verse asks, then, is not whether your body is still, but where your mind actually goes when no one, including you, is watching closely enough to notice.
The doubt that rises
If I am only beginning this discipline and my mind still wanders toward old cravings even while I try to sit still, has this verse already called me a hypocrite, or does it leave room for someone honestly still learning?
Where the paths divide
Read as a question of what actually purifies the mind.
The preserved comment here is brief but firm: such a man is fooling himself, his conduct false and harmful. Read alongside the fuller Advaita analysis available for this verse, the deeper point is that only action, not its abandonment, purifies a mind that is not yet ready; the giving-up of all action belongs to one already fit to grasp the deepest teaching, and claiming it early changes nothing but the appearance.
Read as the specific ruin of a seeker who reached too soon for renunciation.
Ramanuja's comment names a particular figure: one who set out toward knowledge of the self, but with sin not yet burned away and senses not yet mastered, finds his mind pulled back from the self to the very objects he meant to leave. He resolves one thing and does another, and becomes, in the end, the opposite of what he intended to be.
Read as showing where the real discipline must land.
Madhva's comment stays close to structure: the pairing of remembering-with-the-mind and restraining-with-the-mind shows that the mind, not the outer limbs, is the real agent to be governed. The discipline named here fits each person's own class and stage of life, not the householder alone, since renunciation too has its proper place and season.
Read as a fragment preserving one exact logical point.
Only a single compressed sentence survives here: since mental activity can never be avoided, a man who stops his outer organs is bound to act with the mind instead, and this, on this reading, is precisely why he is called deluded. Nothing further of a fuller Trika teaching is attached to this verse in what remains; any extension into the wider language of consciousness recognizing itself would be a labeled extrapolation, not the source itself.
Read as the exposure of a devout-looking disguise.
Sridhara's comment is vivid: the man holds his organs still while presenting the stillness as meditation on the Lord, but because his mind remains impure he has no real steadiness in the self. His own verdict is direct, a fraud, a hypocrite, and his diagnosis of the mechanism is exact: restraint without inner cleansing is play-acting, since the brooding goes on inside while only the limbs have quieted.
Read as a caution about the gap between appearance and inner change.
Madhusudana's fuller analysis, read for a present-day ear, lands as a caution still worth hearing: outward markers, stillness, silence, the language of renunciation, prove nothing about what has actually shifted inside. Claiming an attainment the mind has not earned is itself a subtler form of the very attachment it claims to have left behind.
All six readings agree the failure is inward, not outward. They differ on what would actually count as success. Is it action performed without craving, patiently purifying an unready mind, as the Advaita and Modern readings suggest? Is it the specific failure of a seeker who reached for knowledge before his senses were mastered, as Ramanuja frames it? Or is even the very distinction between acting and not-acting somewhat beside the point, since, as the Shaiva fragment insists, the mind never stops moving at all? The verse names the counterfeit with total clarity. It leaves the exact shape of the genuine article to be worked out elsewhere.
A question to carry
The next time you sit still on purpose, what does your mind actually do in that stillness, and would you be willing to let someone else see it exactly as it is?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May your stillness, when it comes, ask nothing of anyone's notice, and may it reach as far inward as it appears to reach outward.
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.
Having just urged Arjuna toward action, Krishna turns to the wrong way of refusing it: stopping the limbs while the craving inside continues unexamined.
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 outer organs are held still, and the man looks withdrawn, but the mind keeps circling back to the very things the body has set down.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 4 others’ words
The verse paints one precise portrait, and every source agrees on its outline. A man holds back the organs of action, speech, hands, feet, and the rest, so that he looks outwardly still and withdrawn. But his mind keeps remembering and dwelling on the objects the senses crave. Krishna's own words for him, deluded self and false conduct, are read by all six as descriptions of the same single figure.
This is hypocrisy, not renunciation, because craving and aversion are seated in the mind, and no amount of outward quiet reaches them.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · Madhusūdana · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 2 others’ words
The reason this counts as hypocrisy rather than renunciation is that the mind, not the limbs, is where action and bondage actually live. Freezing the outer organs changes nothing within; the attachment and aversion that color the mind keep working, so the man remains a doer in his heart even while he sits motionless.
The disguise often looks devout: stillness presented as meditation, so that others believe the man has already arrived where he has not.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
More than one source notes that the deception often wears a spiritual disguise: the man does not merely sit idle, he poses as absorbed in meditation on the Lord so that the world will reckon him advanced, while inwardly he broods on the very objects he claims to have left.
There is no shortcut to a clean mind through mere inaction; it is action carried without craving that actually does the clearing.
Across Dvaita, Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaMadhva · Madhusūdana · RāmānujaIn Madhva, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The verse functions as a warning attached to the call to act that Krishna has just given. There is no shortcut to a pure mind through outward inaction alone; several sources are explicit that action itself is what cleanses the inner organ, so abandoning it without inner readiness leaves a person impure and unfit for whatever fruit he imagines himself to have earned.
The remedy the verse points toward, though stated fully only next, is to govern the mind and let the hands keep working, rather than stopping the hands and letting the mind run free.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 3 others’ words
Underneath the differences of emphasis, all six converge on a single mechanism: outward stillness proves nothing about inward freedom. What must actually change is the mind's relationship to its objects, whether that change is described as purification through desireless action, as recognizing the self's own nature, or as offering the mind itself to the Lord.
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 brief comment identifies the hypocrite specifically as a failed seeker of self-knowledge: his sin not yet burned away, his organs unmastered, he pulls his mind from the self only to sit remembering the objects he meant to renounce, resolving one thing and doing another. He becomes, in Ramanuja's words, the very opposite of what he set out to be.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's comment reads the verse as showing that the mind, not the doing or non-doing of the limbs, is the real agent to be governed, and adds a scope-note that this discipline suits one's own class and stage of life rather than the householder alone. The comment as preserved stays at this general, structural level rather than developing a fuller portrait of the hypocrite's inner state.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's comment is vivid and direct: the man holds his organs still while pretending the stillness is meditation on the Lord, but because his mind is impure he has no real steadiness in the self. Sridhara's own verdict names him a fraud and a hypocrite, and states plainly that restraint without inner cleansing is play-acting, not yoga.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a present-day audience, Madhusudana's fuller analysis functions as an early statement of a now-familiar caution: outward markers of renunciation, robes, stillness, silence, prove nothing about the state of the mind behind them, and a spiritual identity claimed without the corresponding inner change is itself a subtler attachment, dressed as its opposite.
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 judgment, whether any stillness you practice today is aimed inward, at loosening the mind's grip on its objects, or only outward, at how the stillness looks to someone watching. Let the practice be for the one purpose and not the other.
If your stillness is honest, let it go on quietly, asking nothing of anyone's notice; and if it is not yet honest, let this verse be the mirror rather than the accusation.
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
he verse paints one precise portrait, and every source agrees on its outline. A man holds back the organs of action, speech, hands, feet, and the rest, so that he looks outwardly still and withdrawn. But his mind keeps remembering and dwelling on the objects the senses crave. Krishna's own words for him, deluded self and false conduct, are read by all six as descriptions of the same single figure.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The reason this counts as hypocrisy rather than renunciation is that the mind, not the limbs, is where action and bondage actually live. Freezing the outer organs changes nothing within; the attachment and aversion that color the mind keep working, so the man remains a doer in his heart even while he sits motionless.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
More than one source notes that the deception often wears a spiritual disguise: the man does not merely sit idle, he poses as absorbed in meditation on the Lord so that the world will reckon him advanced, while inwardly he broods on the very objects he claims to have left.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse functions as a warning attached to the call to act that Krishna has just given. There is no shortcut to a pure mind through outward inaction alone; several sources are explicit that action itself is what cleanses the inner organ, so abandoning it without inner readiness leaves a person impure and unfit for whatever fruit he imagines himself to have earned.
Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya
Underneath the differences of emphasis, all six converge on a single mechanism: outward stillness proves nothing about inward freedom. What must actually change is the mind's relationship to its objects, whether that change is described as purification through desireless action, as recognizing the self's own nature, or as offering the mind itself to the Lord.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's preserved word is terse: such a man is fooling himself, a false practiser whose conduct is false and leads to harm. Madhusudana's fuller comment sharpens this into a considered position: the impure-minded man does not reach perfection by mere renunciation, since scripture reserves the giving-up of all action for one fit to grasp 'that thou art'; short of that fitness, only action itself purifies the mind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's brief comment identifies the hypocrite specifically as a failed seeker of self-knowledge: his sin not yet burned away, his organs unmastered, he pulls his mind from the self only to sit remembering the objects he meant to renounce, resolving one thing and doing another. He becomes, in Ramanuja's words, the very opposite of what he set out to be.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's comment reads the verse as showing that the mind, not the doing or non-doing of the limbs, is the real agent to be governed, and adds a scope-note that this discipline suits one's own class and stage of life rather than the householder alone. The comment as preserved stays at this general, structural level rather than developing a fuller portrait of the hypocrite's inner state.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment is a single compressed logical point: since mental activity can never be avoided, a man who stops the organs of action is bound to act with the mind instead, and it is this that makes him deluded. The source does not extend this into the wider Trika teaching of recognition; any such extension here is a clearly labeled, conditional extrapolation, not the master's own words.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's comment is vivid and direct: the man holds his organs still while pretending the stillness is meditation on the Lord, but because his mind is impure he has no real steadiness in the self. Sridhara's own verdict names him a fraud and a hypocrite, and states plainly that restraint without inner cleansing is play-acting, not yoga.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a present-day audience, Madhusudana's fuller analysis functions as an early statement of a now-familiar caution: outward markers of renunciation, robes, stillness, silence, prove nothing about the state of the mind behind them, and a spiritual identity claimed without the corresponding inner change is itself a subtler attachment, dressed as its opposite.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I have been trying to sit still and quiet my senses. How do I know whether I am practicing real restraint or only performing it?
The verse itself gives you the test: not what your limbs are doing, but where your mind keeps returning when you stop watching it. If it keeps circling back to the same cravings, the stillness of the body has not yet touched anything real.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śaṅkarācārya
Neither Ramanuja's nor Madhva's comment condemns the effort to restrain the senses; both condemn only the premature claim to have already succeeded while the inner organ is still unmastered. Sincere, ongoing practice is not what either source is warning against.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya
Madhusudana's answer is the most practical: purification is not instantaneous, it comes through sustained action performed without craving its fruit. So the honest posture is not to declare yourself renounced, but to keep doing the work that actually cleanses the mind, and let the stillness arrive as its result rather than its costume.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice, without judgment, whether any stillness you practice today is aimed inward, at loosening the mind's grip on its objects, or only outward, at how the stillness looks to someone watching. Let the practice be for the one purpose and not the other.
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.