Action never bound you; acting only for yourself did.
It sounds like a rule about ritual. It is closer to a rule about where your attention goes the instant your hand moves.
This world is held in bondage by action, except action done as sacrifice. So act for that sake, Arjuna, free of attachment.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that no one, not even for an instant, actually rests without acting; nature's own forces keep everyone in motion. That raises an old worry that a remembered teaching seems to confirm: a creature is bound by its action. If that is simply true, then work itself looks like a trap, and the seeker of freedom should walk away from it. This verse is Krishna's direct answer to that worry.
The teaching
The binding power was never in the action itself. It belongs only to action done for some end of your own, apart from sacrifice. Several of the oldest commentators read the pivot word here, yajna, sacrifice, through a scriptural line that identifies sacrifice with the Lord himself: action for the sake of sacrifice becomes action done for the sake of the Lord. Offered that way, it does not bind. Aimed at your own gain, the very same act does. What decides this, on the readings gathered here, is not how devotional or dutiful the work looks from outside, but where the doer's attention is actually resting. The practical instruction that follows is not withdrawal. It is redirection: keep earning your living, keep performing your duty, and let the aim behind it shift from your own account to an offering beyond yourself. It is worth saying plainly that the source material for each of the six commentators on this exact verse is short, in most cases a single compact paragraph. None of them unfolds a long argument here; each states the core identification of sacrifice with the Lord, or the terse principle that aim decides bondage, and moves on. That brevity is itself part of an honest reading of the verse, not a gap to be quietly filled in with invented elaboration.
The doubt that rises
If the very same outward action can bind you or free you depending only on an inner aim no one else can see, how do you actually catch yourself in the moment, before the self-interest has already dressed itself up as an offering?
Where the paths divide
Read through the scriptural identification of sacrifice with the Lord.
Shankara and Madhusudana both take sacrifice to mean Vishnu, since scripture equates the two directly. Action done for the Lord's sake, without craving its fruit, does not bind the qualified doer; every other action does. Both comments are notably brief at this verse, stating the identification and the resulting instruction to act, free of attachment, for that purpose, without extending into further argument here.
Read as the redirection, not the abandonment, of ordinary activity.
Ramanuja keeps his gaze on concrete life: earning a living and its kin, done only for private ends, are what the world is bound by. His remedy redirects the same activity into the service of sacrifice, releasing the grip that treats it as a tool for oneself. Action offered this way lets the Lord, worshipped through it, cut away the doer's beginningless accumulated impression and grant steady vision of the self.
Read as a case where a particular rule overrides a general one.
Madhva opens with the very worry the verse answers, the inherited line that a creature is bound by action, and meets it with an interpretive principle: where a general rule and a particular rule stand together, the particular holds force. Since sacrifice names Vishnu, action for His sake, attachment gone, is the particular exception that governs here.
Read from a single terse surviving fragment, honestly marked as such.
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment here is one short sentence: action other than what must be done for sacrifice binds; obligatory action, done without clinging to its fruit, yields no fruit that could bind. The richer vocabulary of recognition and the self's own freedom found in his fuller commentary elsewhere is simply not present in this fragment, and any extension of it to this verse should be held as a conditional gloss, not as his recorded word.
Read as the reply to the claim that all action binds.
Sridhara stages the verse as Krishna's answer to the position that action as such always binds and so should be abandoned altogether. Sacrifice again means Vishnu; action to worship Him does not bind, and Sridhara closes his short comment with his own compressed principle, that the whole binding power of action lies in the doer's aim, never in the deed itself.
Read as a portable instruction drawn from the terse classical comments themselves.
Taken together, the brief statements from the Advaita-line commentators already carry a plain, usable instruction outside their doctrinal frame: the trouble was never in acting, only in acting for yourself. Keep the deed. Change what it is aimed at. This is less a distinct sixth school than a distillation already implicit in what the classical commentators actually wrote at this verse.
Every reading gathered here agrees the aim decides bondage, not the deed. They differ on how thick a doctrine surrounds that agreement, from Ramanuja's account of the Lord actively removing accumulated impressions, to the single spare sentence preserved from Abhinavagupta. The sources themselves are short at this verse; this page keeps that shortness visible rather than smoothing it into a uniform, fully developed six-school argument that the material does not actually support.
A question to carry
Take one thing you did today for your own sake, without noticing it at the time. Now ask: could you have done the very same thing, and simply let the aim belong to something larger than yourself?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So keep your hands at the work already in front of you, and let the aim behind it, quietly, belong to more than your own account.
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 told Arjuna that no one, ever, rests even a moment without acting; here he answers the deeper worry that follows, that if action truly binds, the seeker of freedom should stop acting altogether.
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 binds is action done for a private end, never action as such.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
The verse answers a live worry: an inherited teaching says a creature is bound by action, and if that were the whole truth, the seeker of freedom should simply stop acting. Krishna's reply relocates the blame. The binding power was never in action as such; it belongs only to action done for some private end other than sacrifice.
Sacrifice, on this reading, is not confined to ritual; it opens toward the Lord himself.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
Across these readings the pivot word is yajna, sacrifice, and it is read through the same scriptural line, sacrifice is indeed Vishnu. Action for the sake of sacrifice becomes action done for the sake of the Lord himself; offered to him, work does not bind, done for any other aim, it does.
The deciding factor is the doer's aim, not the outward shape of the work.
Across Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚrīdhara · AbhinavaguptaIn Śrīdhara and Abhinavagupta’s words
What decides bondage, on every reading gathered here, is the doer's inner aim, not the outward shape of the deed. Sridhara states this almost as a formula: the whole binding power of action lies in what is being aimed at, never in the doing itself.
Redirect ordinary activity toward sacrifice; do not set it down.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚaṅkaraIn Rāmānuja, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The instruction that follows is not merely to feel differently about work already underway. It is to redirect concrete activity, earning a living, performing duty, and the rest, so that it serves sacrifice, and to do this with attachment to the fruit let go, not with the deed itself set down.
The surviving comments on this exact verse are brief across every school gathered here, and that brevity is itself worth naming honestly rather than papering over.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 4 others’ words
Every one of these six comments on this verse is short. None develops a full three-part argument here; each states the core identification of sacrifice with the Lord, or the terse principle of aim over deed, and then moves on, leaving richer elaboration to be found elsewhere in each acarya's larger commentary rather than at this exact verse.
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 keeps the frame concrete: ordinary self-interested activity such as earning a living is not to be dropped but redirected into the service of sacrifice, with the grip of using it for private ends released. Action done this way lets the Lord, worshipped through it, cut away the doer's beginningless accumulated impression and grant steady vision of the self.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva reads the verse as a precise reply to an inherited general rule, a creature is bound by action, using a principle of interpretation: where a general and a particular rule meet, the particular overrides. Since sacrifice names Vishnu, action for His sake, attachment gone, is the particular exception that stands.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara stages the verse as Krishna's answer to the Sankhya claim that all action binds and so none should be done. Sacrifice again means Vishnu; action to worship Him does not bind, and Sridhara closes with his own compressed principle, that binding power lies wholly in the doer's aim, never in the deed.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read together, these two brief comments already carry a plain, portable instruction usable outside their doctrinal frame: the trouble was never with acting, only with acting for oneself; redirect the aim, keep the deed, and the same activity that once bound now purifies.
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
Take one activity from today, something ordinary, and ask plainly for whose sake you did it. Not whether it looked right, but where your attention ran the moment it was finished. If it ran toward what you hoped to gain, notice that without judgment, and simply try the same act again tomorrow with the aim quietly redirected outward, offered rather than claimed.
So take the work your hands are already doing, and simply ask, before you finish it, for whose sake you are doing it.
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 answers a live worry: an inherited teaching says a creature is bound by action, and if that were the whole truth, the seeker of freedom should simply stop acting. Krishna's reply relocates the blame. The binding power was never in action as such; it belongs only to action done for some private end other than sacrifice.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Across these readings the pivot word is yajna, sacrifice, and it is read through the same scriptural line, sacrifice is indeed Vishnu. Action for the sake of sacrifice becomes action done for the sake of the Lord himself; offered to him, work does not bind, done for any other aim, it does.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
What decides bondage, on every reading gathered here, is the doer's inner aim, not the outward shape of the deed. Sridhara states this almost as a formula: the whole binding power of action lies in what is being aimed at, never in the doing itself.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
The instruction that follows is not merely to feel differently about work already underway. It is to redirect concrete activity, earning a living, performing duty, and the rest, so that it serves sacrifice, and to do this with attachment to the fruit let go, not with the deed itself set down.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
Every one of these six comments on this verse is short. None develops a full three-part argument here; each states the core identification of sacrifice with the Lord, or the terse principle of aim over deed, and then moves on, leaving richer elaboration to be found elsewhere in each acarya's larger commentary rather than at this exact verse.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Both read yajna as Vishnu by the same scriptural citation and both apply it identically: action for the sake of the Lord, done without craving its fruit, does not bind the qualified doer; every other action does. Madhusudana adds Krishna's direct address to Arjuna, restating that since he is fit for action, he should act well, with faith, free of attachment.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja keeps the frame concrete: ordinary self-interested activity such as earning a living is not to be dropped but redirected into the service of sacrifice, with the grip of using it for private ends released. Action done this way lets the Lord, worshipped through it, cut away the doer's beginningless accumulated impression and grant steady vision of the self.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva reads the verse as a precise reply to an inherited general rule, a creature is bound by action, using a principle of interpretation: where a general and a particular rule meet, the particular overrides. Since sacrifice names Vishnu, action for His sake, attachment gone, is the particular exception that stands.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The extant fragment is terse: obligatory action performed without clinging to its fruit yields no binding fruit, while any other action ties the doer down. The source does not extend this into the vocabulary of recognition or the self's spontaneous freedom found in richer Kashmir-Saiva material elsewhere; any such extension here would be a conditional gloss, not the master's own recorded word.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara stages the verse as Krishna's answer to the Sankhya claim that all action binds and so none should be done. Sacrifice again means Vishnu; action to worship Him does not bind, and Sridhara closes with his own compressed principle, that binding power lies wholly in the doer's aim, never in the deed.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read together, these two brief comments already carry a plain, portable instruction usable outside their doctrinal frame: the trouble was never with acting, only with acting for oneself; redirect the aim, keep the deed, and the same activity that once bound now purifies.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
A Seeker Asks
If the same action binds or frees me only by my inner aim, how do I know whether I am really offering my work, or just calling my self-interest by a holier name?
Start from what all six readings agree on: the test is internal. Every one of these comments locates the difference in the doer's aim, not in how devotional or dutiful the act looks from outside, so a holy-looking act aimed at your own gain is still, on this verse's own terms, the binding kind.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śaṅkarācārya
The practical marker the sources give is attachment to the fruit. Ramanuja is explicit that the fault lies in treating the act as a tool for your own ends; loosen that grip specifically, rather than trying to manufacture a feeling of devotion, and the redirection has actually begun.
Rāmānujācārya
Because the extant comments here are brief, none of the six pretends to give you a foolproof internal instrument for telling devotion from disguised self-interest in the moment. That honesty is itself useful: keep returning to the question rather than assuming you have settled it once.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Take one activity from today, something ordinary, and ask plainly for whose sake you did it. Not whether it looked right, but where your attention ran the moment it was finished. If it ran toward what you hoped to gain, notice that without judgment, and simply try the same act again tomorrow with the aim quietly redirected outward, offered rather than claimed.
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.