The true renouncer is not the one who lays down work, but the one within whom hatred and longing have already died.
It is tempting to think renunciation means walking away. Krishna hands that honored title instead to the person still fully at work, on the strength of a single inner freedom.
Know him as a constant renouncer who neither hates anything nor longs for anything. Free from the pull of opposites, mighty-armed one, he is released from bondage with ease.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that renunciation and the yoga of action both lead to the highest good, though the yoga of action is the better of the two. That claim needs grounding, since work is famously known to bind. This verse supplies the ground, by redefining what renunciation actually is.
The teaching
You are a constant renouncer the moment you neither hate anything nor long for anything, and that is true even while your hands stay busy. This is the whole of the definition, and it does not require you to change what you are doing. What has to change is only where your mind rests toward the pairs, pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, honor and dishonor. Stay even toward these and toward whatever causes them, and you are free of the only thing that ever truly bound you. Arjuna had wanted to claim the name renouncer by setting down his weapons; Krishna answers that the name belongs, more truly, to the one who stays at the work, once craving and aversion inside him have genuinely gone. Because it is craving and aversion that bind, not the deed itself, action stripped of them loses its power to fetter, and release comes easily, without the strain of fighting the work itself. This does not mean nothing further is asked. What is cleared here is an obstruction, not the whole of the path; each reading still points toward something further, whether called knowledge, devotion, or discernment, that the freed mind is now fit to take up.
The doubt that rises
If nothing about my outward life has to change, only my inner relationship to what happens, how do I know the freedom I feel is the real thing, and not simply a comfortable indifference that has learned to call itself peace?
Where the paths divide
For the one still journeying toward direct knowledge of the Self as non-agent.
Freedom from the pairs of opposites purifies the mind, clearing the obstruction that has stood between you and the knowledge that alone finally liberates. You are not exempt from needing that knowledge simply because you have stopped hating and craving; you are on a gentler road toward the very same clearing, since the mind no longer chasing pleasure and pain becomes, in time, fit to know the Self directly.
For the one already tasting the self within the very act of detached work.
Your contentment here is not an achievement won by suppressing feeling; it rests on the taste of the self already present inside detached action itself. Because you already enjoy that taste, you crave nothing further, and having nothing left to crave, you have nothing left to hate. Action and knowledge stand here as two complete paths, neither one a mere preface to the other.
Read narrowly, as a recalling of the settled meaning of renunciation.
What survives here is brief: Krishna is recalling and fixing the known meaning of the word renunciation, giving up aversion and the like, in order to ground the claim just made, that renunciation leads to the highest good. Read this way, the verse's chief work is evidentiary rather than an invitation to a fully worked-out doctrine of dependence; that fuller picture belongs to Madhva's wider teaching, not to this remark alone.
What remains is terse; a fuller reading is offered here only as a labeled extension.
The surviving fragment says simply that the true and lasting renouncer is the one who has let go of every longing and hatred, whose understanding has stepped past the pairs of opposites, and who for that reason is set free with ease. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this into freedom as consciousness's own innate nature rather than an effortful achievement, but this extension goes beyond what the fragment itself preserves.
For the one who acts for the Supreme Lord alone.
Karma-yoga's excellence is shown by the very fact that the Lord awards it the name of renouncer. Whoever acts for the Supreme Lord alone, free of liking and hatred, may be known as a renouncer even now, while standing in the very act. The pure mind that results is released through knowledge, but here devotion and clarity are read as partners walking the same road, not as rivals.
Read as a precise inward test against self-deception.
Look closely at what is actually being asked: no resentment of your work, no suspicion that it is pointless, no chasing after a reward, not even one as lofty as heaven, and an evenness toward liking and disliking that does not depend on your circumstances changing. The bondage that is removed is named precisely, as the inner impurity that blocks knowledge, not action as such, so the discipline is inward and exacting rather than a change of address.
All six readings agree that the deciding mark is inward, freedom from craving and aversion, and that this freedom can be carried straight into ordinary work. They part on what, if anything, still needs to happen after that freedom arrives. Does it clear the ground for a separate knowledge that alone liberates? Is it already, on its own, a complete path to the Self? Or is it the devotion itself, offered to the Lord, that does the freeing? The verse names the freedom precisely and leaves what comes after it unsettled, and so does this page.
A question to carry
Think of one thing today that you neither have to give up nor have to gain. What would it feel like to hold it exactly that way, wanting nothing more from it and resenting nothing about it, while still doing what needs to be done with it?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So do not wait for a day when your work is finished or your duties are set down. Let the hatred and the longing go now, in the middle of what you are already doing, and find out what in you was free all along.
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.
Arjuna had been drawn to claim the name renouncer by the outward gesture of laying down his arms; here Krishna answers him by giving that very title to the one who stays in the field, if the pairs of opposites no longer pull at his mind.
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 honored name of renouncer belongs to the person still at work, once hatred and craving inside him have genuinely died.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Every reading agrees that Krishna is transferring an honored title. Arjuna had been drawn to the name renouncer by the outward gesture of laying down his arms; here that title is handed instead to the karma-yogin, the person still fully at work, because the title was always about an inner posture, not an outward gesture.
The one mark that decides it is evenness toward the pairs, pleasure and pain, gain and loss, no longer pulling the mind back and forth.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The single decisive mark of that inner posture is freedom from the pairs of opposites: no hatred, no craving, evenness toward pleasure and pain and whatever causes them. This is what actually constitutes renunciation. Dropping work while still pulled by craving and aversion would not qualify; keeping the work while free of both, does.
It is craving and aversion, not the deed, that bind; strip them away and the very same action leaves no residue at all.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Because craving and aversion, not action itself, are what bind, action emptied of them loses its power to bind. This is why release comes easily, without strain: there is no residue left over from the deed once the grasping behind it is gone.
This answers the old worry that work must always bind: work without grasping simply does not bind in the way ordinary work does.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhvaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
The verse is offered as an answer to a real objection: work is well known as a cause of bondage, so how could it possibly lead to the highest good? The answer given is that work performed without craving or aversion, its fruit not grasped, simply does not bind in the way ordinary work does.
None of this is the final word; the freedom described here clears the way for what each path still asks of the seeker next.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
None of the readings treat this ease as a promise that no further work is needed. Whether that further work is called knowledge, discernment, or offering, the freedom from the pairs is consistently the clearing of an obstruction, not the whole of the path by itself.
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 grounds the renouncer's contentment in a present taste of the self already found within detached action itself. Because he already enjoys that taste, he craves nothing further and so hates nothing. Renunciation and action, on this reading, are declared independent and self-sufficient: each reaches the Self on its own, with neither needing the other to complete it.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
What survives of Madhva's comment reads the verse narrowly, as Krishna recalling and fixing the settled meaning of the word renunciation in order to ground the preceding claim that renunciation leads to the highest good. The remark is brief and evidentiary rather than expansive; any fuller claim about the self's dependent standing in action would extend beyond what this particular fragment states.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
The surviving fragment from Abhinavagupta is terse: the true and lasting renouncer is simply the one who has let go of every longing and hatred, whose understanding has stepped past the pairs of opposites, anger, delusion, and the rest, and who is therefore set free with ease. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this into freedom as consciousness's own innate nature rather than an effortful achievement, but that extension is not present in what remains of his text and is offered here only as a labeled possibility.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads karma-yoga's excellence as demonstrated by the very fact that the Lord awards it the name of renouncer. Whoever acts for the Supreme Lord alone, free of liking and hatred, is to be known as a renouncer even while standing in the act. The pure mind that results is released through knowledge, but the devotion behind the offering and the clarity that frees are read as partners rather than rivals.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a contemporary ear, Madhusudana's careful description functions almost as a checklist against self-deception: the renouncer neither resents the work nor suspects it is pointless, does not chase heaven or any comparable prize, and stands even toward liking and disliking. The bondage removed is named precisely as the inner impurity that blocks knowledge, not action as such, so the discipline asked for is inward and exacting rather than a change of outward circumstance.
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, one moment when you feel the pull of a pair: praise or blame, a small gain or a small loss, comfort or its lack. Do not change what you are doing. Only notice the pull, and let your hands keep working while the pull passes through you without being obeyed. That noticing, repeated, is the entire practice this verse asks for.
So do not wait for the day you can set your work aside. Let the hatred and the longing go first, today, in the middle of it, and see what is already free in you.
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
very reading agrees that Krishna is transferring an honored title. Arjuna had been drawn to the name renouncer by the outward gesture of laying down his arms; here that title is handed instead to the karma-yogin, the person still fully at work, because the title was always about an inner posture, not an outward gesture.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The single decisive mark of that inner posture is freedom from the pairs of opposites: no hatred, no craving, evenness toward pleasure and pain and whatever causes them. This is what actually constitutes renunciation. Dropping work while still pulled by craving and aversion would not qualify; keeping the work while free of both, does.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Because craving and aversion, not action itself, are what bind, action emptied of them loses its power to bind. This is why release comes easily, without strain: there is no residue left over from the deed once the grasping behind it is gone.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The verse is offered as an answer to a real objection: work is well known as a cause of bondage, so how could it possibly lead to the highest good? The answer given is that work performed without craving or aversion, its fruit not grasped, simply does not bind in the way ordinary work does.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya
None of the readings treat this ease as a promise that no further work is needed. Whether that further work is called knowledge, discernment, or offering, the freedom from the pairs is consistently the clearing of an obstruction, not the whole of the path by itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the ease of liberation as explained by the purification such desireless action brings to the mind, clearing the obstruction that blocks the knowledge that alone finally liberates. The karma-yogin is not exempt from needing that knowledge; he walks a gentler road toward the same clearing, since the mind that no longer chases the pairs of opposites becomes fit, in time, to know the Self directly.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja grounds the renouncer's contentment in a present taste of the self already found within detached action itself. Because he already enjoys that taste, he craves nothing further and so hates nothing. Renunciation and action, on this reading, are declared independent and self-sufficient: each reaches the Self on its own, with neither needing the other to complete it.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
What survives of Madhva's comment reads the verse narrowly, as Krishna recalling and fixing the settled meaning of the word renunciation in order to ground the preceding claim that renunciation leads to the highest good. The remark is brief and evidentiary rather than expansive; any fuller claim about the self's dependent standing in action would extend beyond what this particular fragment states.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The surviving fragment from Abhinavagupta is terse: the true and lasting renouncer is simply the one who has let go of every longing and hatred, whose understanding has stepped past the pairs of opposites, anger, delusion, and the rest, and who is therefore set free with ease. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this into freedom as consciousness's own innate nature rather than an effortful achievement, but that extension is not present in what remains of his text and is offered here only as a labeled possibility.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads karma-yoga's excellence as demonstrated by the very fact that the Lord awards it the name of renouncer. Whoever acts for the Supreme Lord alone, free of liking and hatred, is to be known as a renouncer even while standing in the act. The pure mind that results is released through knowledge, but the devotion behind the offering and the clarity that frees are read as partners rather than rivals.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a contemporary ear, Madhusudana's careful description functions almost as a checklist against self-deception: the renouncer neither resents the work nor suspects it is pointless, does not chase heaven or any comparable prize, and stands even toward liking and disliking. The bondage removed is named precisely as the inner impurity that blocks knowledge, not action as such, so the discipline asked for is inward and exacting rather than a change of outward circumstance.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I never formally give anything up, and I keep doing all the same work I always did, can I really be called a renouncer, or is this just a comforting way of avoiding the harder path?
The verse itself removes the outward gesture from the definition. Krishna calls the karma-yogin, the person still fully at work, a constant renouncer, and does so precisely because the title was always about an inner state, evenness toward the pairs of opposites, not about what your hands are or are not doing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
What is asked of you is not smaller than formal renunciation; several readings suggest it may in fact be harder, since it must be sustained inside ordinary activity rather than supported by a changed circumstance. The test is whether you are genuinely even toward gain and loss, not whether you have withdrawn from the world.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And it is not the final word either. The freedom from craving and aversion is consistently read as what clears the way, not as a substitute for the knowledge, devotion, or discernment the path still asks of you. So the honest answer is: yes, if the inner mark is genuinely present, and no, it does not exempt you from what comes next.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya
Contemplation
Notice, today, one moment when you feel the pull of a pair: praise or blame, a small gain or a small loss, comfort or its lack. Do not change what you are doing. Only notice the pull, and let your hands keep working while the pull passes through you without being obeyed. That noticing, repeated, is the entire practice this verse asks for.
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.