The body still works; the one who used to claim the working has gone quiet.
It is tempting to hear this as a call to do less. Krishna instead describes someone who keeps eating, walking, and living in a body, while the private sense of being the doer, and the grip of mine that fed it, have simply stopped.
Free of expectation, with mind and body held in check, having let go of every sense of possession, such a person does only what the body itself requires, and no sin comes to them for it.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just said that the wise one acts while remaining free of the bondage that action ordinarily carries. Here he draws that person's portrait directly, in four plain strokes, and the picture is of someone still visibly alive in the world, not someone who has walked away from it.
The teaching
Four things are named together. Free of expectation: the reaching-forward toward some hoped-for result has simply stopped. Mind and self held in check: both the inner instrument and the outer gathering of body and senses are gathered rather than scattered. Every possession let go: not the objects necessarily, but the felt grip of mine toward them. And only bodily action: the plain minimum the body itself requires, eating, walking, the ordinary maintenance of a living frame. What holds these four together, on the fuller readings available, is the quiet fall of one thing: the sense I am the one doing this. The body still works. Onlookers still attribute the working to the person. But inwardly, the claim on the work has gone still, and because that claim is gone, the work leaves no residue for the one who carries it out. This is why the verse reaches for the smallest possible case, the alms-round, the bare upkeep of a body, rather than some dramatic renunciation: if even the plainest act draws no sin once the clinging to agency is absent, then the same must hold for everything larger. The published record behind this portrait is itself uneven, full and developed in some voices, a single sentence or a shared fragment in others, and this page tries to hold that unevenness honestly rather than smoothing it into an appearance every source equally supports.
The doubt that rises
If the body still has to act, eat, and rest, can a person genuinely tell the difference between having let go of the claim on these acts and merely doing less of them, or pretending indifference while still quietly hoping?
Where the paths divide
Read on the path where all prior action has already been burned up by knowledge.
Bodily action here means the bare upkeep the body needs, begging alms, a simple garment, nothing more. Madhusudana sharpens this with a comparison: if even a great, distracting rite loses its fruit for the knower by the strength of right knowledge, then the alms-round, which causes no distraction at all, can in no way bind such a person. What remains, on this reading, is not a fresh discipline but the visible continuation of a vision already attained; every other action has already been burned away.
Read from what the source for this exact verse actually supports, and no further.
The documented material here is thin, a single compact paragraph rather than a developed argument. It supports mind and self restrained, and possession released as the sense of mine let go, tied to the single aim of beholding the self. It does not, on this specific evidence, extend into the fuller claim, found in the wider commentarial record on this passage, that sustained bodily action alone is itself the direct vision of the self. What can be said here stays inside that narrower gloss.
Fixed by a grammatical argument about what the verse restrains.
A brief paragraph makes one precise move: self, atma, means the mind here, not the body together with its senses, because restraining the inner organ's activity is what the verse's rule actually governs. Letting go of possession is glossed simply as losing the sense of mine. The same brief note reaches backward to correct the previous verse: does nothing at all describes a mind free of hope, not a claim that action itself is unreal.
Read from a fragment shared with the previous verse, with any extension clearly marked as such.
What survives here is brief: bodily action is the senses working in the body's service, untouched by the coloring of mind and understanding. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this further, that action uncolored by a contracted, thinking ego stands close to the recognition of the self's own free agency this school elsewhere finds in such verses. But this extension is offered here as a conditional reading beyond the source, not as a report of Abhinavagupta's own words on this verse.
Offered in two readings, the plain sense and an ascended extension.
The plain reading takes the four marks directly: craving gone, mind and body restrained, possession released, bodily action done with no settled clinging to agency. An ascended, yoga-arudha reading extends this to the plainest natural acts, wandering for alms just enough to keep the body alive, which draw no sin of omission either. What unites both is that clinging to agency, not the size of the deed, is what binds; the smallest, most ordinary act can be entirely free once no one remains to claim it.
A practical reading drawn from what the fuller sources already say, without adding new doctrine.
Read together, the developed voices converge on a single practical claim: freedom is not measured by how little a person does, but by whether the private sense of being the doer, and the grip of mine that feeds it, have quieted. A person can keep eating, working, and living in a body while the inner ledger that would turn that living into merit or debt has simply stopped being kept.
The schools agree that clinging to agency, not the size of the deed, is what binds, but they do not agree on how much this verse itself says about each of their positions. Some sources here are full; others are a single sentence, or a fragment split with the verse before. What is Ramanuja's own developed view of bodily action, or Abhinavagupta's own reading of nirashih, beyond what these particular fragments show, is simply not settled by the material available for this verse, and this page leaves that gap open rather than filling it.
A question to carry
In your own ordinary day, eating, walking, resting, working, can you find the moment where the quiet thought 'I am doing this for me' arises, and can you let the doing continue without it?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So let the body do exactly what it needs today, no more urgently sought, no more anxiously withheld, and notice only whether the old, quiet claim of mine has begun, even slightly, to loosen its grip.
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 said the wise one acts while remaining free of action's bondage, Krishna now draws this person's portrait in four strokes, showing how ordinary bodily life continues without leaving a mark.
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.
See the four marks together: nothing chased, mind and body held in, possession released, only the body's own bare need attended to.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
Krishna names four marks of a person so free that even continuing to act no longer binds them: nirashih, free of expectation or longing; yata-chittatma, mind and self held in check; tyakta-sarva-parigrahah, every sense of possession let go; and sharira-karma, only the action the body itself requires. Together these describe someone still visibly active in the world, not someone who has withdrawn from it.
Notice that what actually frees is the silence of 'I am the doer,' not the shrinking of the deed; the body works on, unclaimed.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The decisive freedom underneath all four marks is the fall of the conceit I am the doer. The body still works; onlookers go on attributing the doing to the person; but inwardly the sense of being the one who acts has quieted. Because that inner claim is gone, the action leaves no residue for the one who performs it.
Letting go of possession is inward before it is outward: the felt sense of mine falls away, whether or not the objects themselves are given up.
Across Dvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaMadhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Madhva, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Letting go of possession is read as an inner release, not merely owning fewer things. The grip of mine toward the body, its needs, and whatever sustains it falls away; what is renounced is the felt sense of belonging, not the objects themselves.
Where the sources are full, let them speak fully; where they are thin, one line only, or a fragment shared with the verse before, let the thinness itself be told plainly.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
For one who wants liberation, sin, kilbisha, is read broadly, as bondage itself rather than only wrongdoing. Even the smallest, most blameless act, keeping the body fed and clothed, could in principle tie a person back into further birth if approached with the ordinary clinging to agency; the verse insists that when that clinging is gone, not even this smallest act can bind.
Freedom here is not measured by less living, but by a quieter claim on the living that continues.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 4 others’ words
The published record for this verse is markedly uneven across the six acaryas. Shankara, Sridhara, and Madhusudana each leave a developed paragraph or more; Ramanuja, Madhva, and Abhinavagupta leave only a brief note, a single short paragraph, or a fragment shared with the previous verse. This synthesis stays inside what each source actually supports rather than smoothing the six into an appearance of equal depth.
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
The material on file for Ramanuja here is thin, a single compact paragraph rather than a developed argument. What it supports is narrow: mind and self restrained, and possession released as the sense of mine let go, tied to the single aim of beholding the self. It does not, on this evidence, extend into a fuller claim that sustained bodily action alone is itself the direct vision of the self; that fuller Vishishtadvaita position belongs to the wider commentarial record on this passage, not to a documented paragraph of Ramanuja's own on 4.21 specifically.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's brief paragraph makes one precise move: fixing self, atma, as the mind rather than the body with its senses, on the ground that restraining the inner organ's activity governs the verse. Possession released is glossed simply as the loss of the sense of mine. The paragraph also corrects the previous verse backward, insisting does nothing at all describes a mind free of hope, not a claim that action is unreal. Beyond this, the source does not extend into a fuller doctrine of dependence for this specific verse.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment treats 4.20 and 4.21 together, with the substantive remark filed at 4.20; what remains at 4.21 itself is only a brief note that bodily action is the senses working in the body's service, uncolored by mind and understanding. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this: action uncolored by a contracted, thinking ego stands close to the recognition of the self's free agency this school elsewhere finds in such verses. But that extension is clearly a conditional reading beyond the fragment, not a report of his own words on this verse.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara offers two readings side by side. The first takes the four marks straightforwardly: expectation and craving gone, mind and body restrained, possession released, bodily action done with no settled clinging to agency. The second, an ascended yoga-arudha reading, extends this to the plainest natural acts, alms-walking just enough to keep the body going, which draw no sin of omission either. What unites both readings is that clinging to agency, not the size of the deed, is what binds; the smallest, most ordinary act can be entirely free once no one remains to claim it.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read together for a contemporary ear, these readings converge on a single practical claim: freedom is not measured by how little a person does, but by whether the private sense of being the doer, and the grip of mine that feeds it, have quieted. The verse describes someone who keeps working, keeps eating, keeps living in a body, while the inner ledger that would turn that living into merit or debt has simply stopped being kept.
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, the smallest actions you take only to keep the body going: eating, walking, resting. See whether you can do even these without the quiet, habitual thought I am doing this for me. Let the doing continue exactly as it needs to; only let the private claim on it go slack for a moment, and notice what, if anything, still feels bound.
So let the body do what the body needs, eating, walking, resting, and watch only whether the old, quiet claim of mine and for me has begun to loosen.
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 names four marks of a person so free that even continuing to act no longer binds them: nirashih, free of expectation or longing; yata-chittatma, mind and self held in check; tyakta-sarva-parigrahah, every sense of possession let go; and sharira-karma, only the action the body itself requires. Together these describe someone still visibly active in the world, not someone who has withdrawn from it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The decisive freedom underneath all four marks is the fall of the conceit I am the doer. The body still works; onlookers go on attributing the doing to the person; but inwardly the sense of being the one who acts has quieted. Because that inner claim is gone, the action leaves no residue for the one who performs it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Letting go of possession is read as an inner release, not merely owning fewer things. The grip of mine toward the body, its needs, and whatever sustains it falls away; what is renounced is the felt sense of belonging, not the objects themselves.
Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
For one who wants liberation, sin, kilbisha, is read broadly, as bondage itself rather than only wrongdoing. Even the smallest, most blameless act, keeping the body fed and clothed, could in principle tie a person back into further birth if approached with the ordinary clinging to agency; the verse insists that when that clinging is gone, not even this smallest act can bind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The published record for this verse is markedly uneven across the six acaryas. Shankara, Sridhara, and Madhusudana each leave a developed paragraph or more; Ramanuja, Madhva, and Abhinavagupta leave only a brief note, a single short paragraph, or a fragment shared with the previous verse. This synthesis stays inside what each source actually supports rather than smoothing the six into an appearance of equal depth.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Both readers fix bodily action as the bare minimum the body needs, begging alms, a simple garment, not whatever the body happens to accomplish; only this reading avoids contradicting scripture on forbidden or enjoined acts. Madhusudana sharpens the point with a comparison: if even a great, distracting rite loses its fruit for the knower, then the alms-round, which causes no distraction at all, can in no way bind. Both place the teaching within the path of knowledge: all the person's actions have already been burned up, so what remains is the fruit of a vision already attained, not a fresh discipline.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
The material on file for Ramanuja here is thin, a single compact paragraph rather than a developed argument. What it supports is narrow: mind and self restrained, and possession released as the sense of mine let go, tied to the single aim of beholding the self. It does not, on this evidence, extend into a fuller claim that sustained bodily action alone is itself the direct vision of the self; that fuller Vishishtadvaita position belongs to the wider commentarial record on this passage, not to a documented paragraph of Ramanuja's own on 4.21 specifically.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's brief paragraph makes one precise move: fixing self, atma, as the mind rather than the body with its senses, on the ground that restraining the inner organ's activity governs the verse. Possession released is glossed simply as the loss of the sense of mine. The paragraph also corrects the previous verse backward, insisting does nothing at all describes a mind free of hope, not a claim that action is unreal. Beyond this, the source does not extend into a fuller doctrine of dependence for this specific verse.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment treats 4.20 and 4.21 together, with the substantive remark filed at 4.20; what remains at 4.21 itself is only a brief note that bodily action is the senses working in the body's service, uncolored by mind and understanding. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this: action uncolored by a contracted, thinking ego stands close to the recognition of the self's free agency this school elsewhere finds in such verses. But that extension is clearly a conditional reading beyond the fragment, not a report of his own words on this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara offers two readings side by side. The first takes the four marks straightforwardly: expectation and craving gone, mind and body restrained, possession released, bodily action done with no settled clinging to agency. The second, an ascended yoga-arudha reading, extends this to the plainest natural acts, alms-walking just enough to keep the body going, which draw no sin of omission either. What unites both readings is that clinging to agency, not the size of the deed, is what binds; the smallest, most ordinary act can be entirely free once no one remains to claim it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read together for a contemporary ear, these readings converge on a single practical claim: freedom is not measured by how little a person does, but by whether the private sense of being the doer, and the grip of mine that feeds it, have quieted. The verse describes someone who keeps working, keeps eating, keeps living in a body, while the inner ledger that would turn that living into merit or debt has simply stopped being kept.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
A Seeker Asks
If even the smallest, most necessary actions, like eating and resting, are still actions, how can any of it truly leave no mark on me?
What leaves no mark is not the size of the act but the absence of the one claiming to be its doer. The verse describes the smallest possible actions precisely to make this point at its hardest case: even here, with nothing dramatic at stake, the mark comes only from the inner claim I am doing this, not from the deed itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The mark also depends on the grip of mine. When wealth, comfort, even the body's own upkeep are no longer held as mine and for me, the same actions that once fed a private ledger simply stop feeding one. The acts continue; the ledger closes.
Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where the sources go thin, honesty is the better answer than invention. Not every acarya left an extended argument for this exact verse; some left only a line or a fragment. What can be said with confidence rests on what those lines actually support, not on filling their silence with a fuller voice they did not, here, use.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice, today, the smallest actions you take only to keep the body going: eating, walking, resting. See whether you can do even these without the quiet, habitual thought I am doing this for me. Let the doing continue exactly as it needs to; only let the private claim on it go slack for a moment, and notice what, if anything, still feels bound.
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.