The true renouncer keeps working; only his leaning on the fruit is gone.
It is tempting to picture renunciation as an empty hearth and a still body. Krishna opens the sixth chapter by relocating the whole test to somewhere no one can see from outside.
Whoever does the work that duty assigns, without leaning on what it will yield, is the true renouncer and the true yogi. It is not the one who has merely put out the sacred fire and stopped acting altogether.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Chapter five closed with Krishna pointing ahead, in a few compressed lines, toward the yoga of meditation. Before he unfolds that teaching, he pauses here to correct a mistake a seeker might already be making: assuming that the path toward stillness means the path away from action.
The teaching
Krishna opens by naming a very particular kind of person: someone who still performs the work that duty assigns, but who no longer leans on what that work will bring back to him. This is the person he calls, in the same breath, both a renouncer and a yogi. Notice what is not required. He has not been asked to extinguish his fires. He has not been asked to fall still. What has changed is only where his attention rests while he acts: not on the fruit still to come, but on the deed itself, being done because it must be done. The second line then turns to warn against the opposite mistake, the one a hasty seeker is likelier to make. Simply putting out the sacred fires does not make a renouncer. Simply ceasing all activity, even the quiet, fireless work of charity and service, does not make a yogi. The outward form, however dramatic, proves nothing on its own. What the verse asks for is harder to see and harder to fake: a mind that has stopped reaching past the task in front of it.
The doubt that rises
If the whole test is inward, does the outward shape of a life, kept busy or stripped bare, mean anything at all? And is the desireless worker described here already complete, already a renouncer and a yogi in full, or only someone standing at the threshold of what those words will fully mean for him later?
Where the paths divide
Read as praise, not yet as literal fact.
Shankara and, following him, Madhusudana hear renouncer and yogi here as titles of honor rather than titles of strict fact. The literal renouncer, on this reading, is the person who has formally dropped every fire and every rite, the figure scripture and the yoga treatises already know by those names. Calling the still-active, desireless worker by the same words is the Lord's way of showing how far this man already stands above one who acts from craving, even while his full and unqualified renunciation still lies somewhere ahead of him.
Read as worship that is already whole.
Ramanuja finds no need for any figure of speech. Action performed with no aim at reward, not even at heaven, is itself worship offered to the Supreme Person, and that worship is already the entire task, not a stepping-stone toward something else. On this reading the worker genuinely holds two standings at once, settled in knowledge and settled in action, and the path of action is shown to carry knowledge folded within it rather than waiting on a separate stage.
Read at full literal force, against any softening.
Madhva's brief surviving note refuses the figurative escape entirely. He points out that even the person formally in the renounced life has a fire, since Brahman himself is named the fire, and an action, the worship offered to it. No one, in other words, is ever wholly without fire or without action. So the verse's negative is read exactly as it stands: whoever is genuinely fireless and actionless is no renouncer and no yogi at all.
A brief, marveling note, offered as far as it survives.
What remains of Abhinavagupta's comment treats renouncer and yogin as, in effect, one word said twice: renunciation cannot happen without yoga, and yoga does not hold without the giving up of the wish for results, so each depends entirely on the other. He lingers on the second line less as a correction than as a wonder to be savored, a man who keeps his fire and his work and is nonetheless a true renouncer. The source does not preserve more than this.
Read as a caution against fleeing too soon.
Sridhara opens the whole chapter by insisting that even a purified mind needs meditation, not renunciation alone, to reach freedom, and reads this verse as heading off a seeker's premature urge to drop all action on the way there. His formula is compact: the one who keeps working as duty asks, with the Lord alone as witness, has in that very motion already become both renouncer and yogi. No dramatic outward gesture is asked for.
Read for what it does inside the chapter's argument.
Madhusudana's account is useful for seeing the verse's function: it is the first half of a two-verse answer to an unspoken worry, that if yoga eventually asks for the fruit to be relinquished, action itself must be the lesser thing. His answer is to show that desireless action already earns real dignity, a genuine if not yet fully ripened claim to the names renunciation and yoga, so that the road is never mistaken for an obstacle standing between the seeker and the goal.
All six readings agree the test is inward. They part on how literally to take the two titles, and on what, exactly, the formal renunciate is missing or keeping. Is the desireless worker already, fully, a renouncer and a yogi, as Ramanuja holds, or only on the way to becoming one, as Shankara and Madhusudana suggest? Is the formally fireless ascetic being gently corrected, as Madhva insists, or simply held up as a wonder alongside the worker, as Abhinavagupta's brief note seems to do? The verse does not settle this, and neither does this page.
A question to carry
In the work you will do today, can you feel the moment your attention drifts from the task itself toward what you hope it will bring you back?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Keep the fire you are tending, and the work already in front of you. Let go only of what you were hoping it would hand back to you, and see what is left when that hope is gone.
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.
Chapter five ended with a glimpse of meditation ahead; before teaching it, Krishna first secures the ground beneath it, so that no seeker mistakes the discipline of action for something beneath the goal.
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.
Before he speaks of meditation, the Lord first honors the one who keeps acting, so the road itself is not mistaken for an obstacle.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
This verse opens the sixth chapter as a deliberate correction. The end of chapter five had leaned toward the path of knowledge and pointed ahead to meditation, and a seeker hearing that might rush to conclude that action itself is a lesser, discardable thing. Before teaching meditation, Krishna first insists on the dignity of desireless action, so that no one mistakes the road for an obstacle to the destination.
Do the work that duty assigns, and let go of every claim on what it yields; that release, not any outward sign, is where the two titles are actually earned.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
Across the readings, the test for who counts as a true renouncer and a true yogi is placed inside the person, not on any outward sign. Letting go of the craving for what an action will yield is what earns both titles; nothing about the outward form of one's life, kept or dropped, decides the matter on its own.
One inner motion carries both names: the letting-go of the fruit is renunciation, and the mind no longer scattered by craving is yoga.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Several readings converge on why the same person can be called both renouncer and yogi by a single act. Giving up the fruit is renunciation, a letting go; and because that letting go removes the very craving that scatters the mind, it is also yoga, a gathering of the mind into steadiness. One inner motion, two names.
An empty hearth or an idle body proves nothing by itself; the verse denies both titles to anyone who has only dropped the outward form.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
The second line is read as a pointed rebuke of empty outward form. Simply extinguishing the ritual fires does not make a renouncer, and simply ceasing all activity, even the fireless works of charity and service, does not make a yogi. What is being denied its usual honor here is the appearance of renunciation stripped of its inward substance.
Do not rush toward stillness by abandoning duty; the desireless work you would leave behind is itself what purifies and steadies the mind you hope to still.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
There is broad agreement that abandoning one's duty is not the shortcut to freedom it can appear to be. Continuing to act, but without craving its result, is treated as equal or superior to formally dropping all activity, since the work itself, done this way, is what purifies and steadies the very mind that will later be asked to sit still.
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 denies any figure of speech is needed. Action performed without aim at reward is itself worship of the Supreme Person, and worship is already the whole task, not a means to something further. On this reading the desireless worker literally holds two standings at once, settled in knowledge and settled in action, both together the means to beholding the self, and the path of action is shown to carry knowledge within it rather than waiting for knowledge to arrive afterward.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva rejects the figurative reading outright. Even the person formally in the renounced order keeps a fire, since Brahman himself is called the fire, and an action, the worship of that fire; so no one is ever, in the full sense, without fire or without action. The conclusion follows at full literal force: the person genuinely without fire and without action is no renouncer and no yogi whatsoever, and this severity is the extent of the extant comment.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta's surviving note treats renouncer and yogin as effectively synonyms, bound to each other because renunciation cannot occur without yoga, and yoga cannot hold without the renunciation of the wish for results. He lingers on the second line as a marvel to savor: a man who keeps his fire and keeps acting, and is nonetheless a true renouncer. This is the extent of what the source preserves; a fuller Kashmir-Shaiva elaboration is not available.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the verse as answering a real danger: a seeker impatient for stillness might drop action too soon. His answer places the whole weight of the two titles on the inward release of the fruit while work continues, and closes with the image of one who works on as duty asks, with the Lord alone as witness, thereby becoming both renouncer and yogi in that very motion.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for its structural function, Madhusudana's account frames the verse as the opening half of a two-verse argument meeting an implicit worry: if yoga eventually asks for the relinquishing of action, is action therefore inferior? His answer is to show that desireless action already earns the titles renunciation and yoga in a real, if not yet fully ripened, sense, so the road itself carries dignity before the destination is reached.
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 moment you reach for a result before the work is even finished. Do not fight that reaching; simply see it, and let your attention fall back to the task itself, the way it would fall back to a fire-offering performed for its own sake. The fire need not go out for you to be free of it. What has to go out is your leaning on what it gives back.
So keep the fire you are tending and the work in front of you, and let go only of what you were hoping it would hand back to 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
his verse opens the sixth chapter as a deliberate correction. The end of chapter five had leaned toward the path of knowledge and pointed ahead to meditation, and a seeker hearing that might rush to conclude that action itself is a lesser, discardable thing. Before teaching meditation, Krishna first insists on the dignity of desireless action, so that no one mistakes the road for an obstacle to the destination.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Across the readings, the test for who counts as a true renouncer and a true yogi is placed inside the person, not on any outward sign. Letting go of the craving for what an action will yield is what earns both titles; nothing about the outward form of one's life, kept or dropped, decides the matter on its own.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Several readings converge on why the same person can be called both renouncer and yogi by a single act. Giving up the fruit is renunciation, a letting go; and because that letting go removes the very craving that scatters the mind, it is also yoga, a gathering of the mind into steadiness. One inner motion, two names.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The second line is read as a pointed rebuke of empty outward form. Simply extinguishing the ritual fires does not make a renouncer, and simply ceasing all activity, even the fireless works of charity and service, does not make a yogi. What is being denied its usual honor here is the appearance of renunciation stripped of its inward substance.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
There is broad agreement that abandoning one's duty is not the shortcut to freedom it can appear to be. Continuing to act, but without craving its result, is treated as equal or superior to formally dropping all activity, since the work itself, done this way, is what purifies and steadies the very mind that will later be asked to sit still.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara and Madhusudana both read renouncer and yogi here as titles used in a secondary, figurative sense. The literal renouncer, in their reading, is the person formally without fire and without any rite at all, already well known to scripture and to the yoga treatises under those names. Calling the still-active, desireless worker by the same titles is a figure of praise, meant to show how far he already stands above the person who acts from desire, even though full and primary renunciation still lies ahead of him.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja denies any figure of speech is needed. Action performed without aim at reward is itself worship of the Supreme Person, and worship is already the whole task, not a means to something further. On this reading the desireless worker literally holds two standings at once, settled in knowledge and settled in action, both together the means to beholding the self, and the path of action is shown to carry knowledge within it rather than waiting for knowledge to arrive afterward.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva rejects the figurative reading outright. Even the person formally in the renounced order keeps a fire, since Brahman himself is called the fire, and an action, the worship of that fire; so no one is ever, in the full sense, without fire or without action. The conclusion follows at full literal force: the person genuinely without fire and without action is no renouncer and no yogi whatsoever, and this severity is the extent of the extant comment.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving note treats renouncer and yogin as effectively synonyms, bound to each other because renunciation cannot occur without yoga, and yoga cannot hold without the renunciation of the wish for results. He lingers on the second line as a marvel to savor: a man who keeps his fire and keeps acting, and is nonetheless a true renouncer. This is the extent of what the source preserves; a fuller Kashmir-Shaiva elaboration is not available.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as answering a real danger: a seeker impatient for stillness might drop action too soon. His answer places the whole weight of the two titles on the inward release of the fruit while work continues, and closes with the image of one who works on as duty asks, with the Lord alone as witness, thereby becoming both renouncer and yogi in that very motion.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for its structural function, Madhusudana's account frames the verse as the opening half of a two-verse argument meeting an implicit worry: if yoga eventually asks for the relinquishing of action, is action therefore inferior? His answer is to show that desireless action already earns the titles renunciation and yoga in a real, if not yet fully ripened, sense, so the road itself carries dignity before the destination is reached.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If true renunciation is really something inward, does it matter at all whether I keep up my outward duties, or could I just as well drop them?
The verse itself answers this directly, by naming the true renouncer as the one who does the work that must be done, not the one who has stopped doing it. Dropping your duties is not what the inward test asks for; it names the person still active, but free of craving, as the one who has passed it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Several readings go further and warn that abandoning duty in a hurry can be its own trap. The desireless work you would be giving up is precisely what purifies and steadies the mind; dropping it does not empty you of activity so much as risk filling the space with other, less examined action.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
So the inward and the outward are not rivals here. The same duty, held without craving for its yield, is what earns both titles; what changes is never whether you act, only what you are leaning on while you do.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice, today, the moment you reach for a result before the work is even finished. Do not fight that reaching; simply see it, and let your attention fall back to the task itself, the way it would fall back to a fire-offering performed for its own sake. The fire need not go out for you to be free of it. What has to go out is your leaning on what it gives back.
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.