The maker of an unequal world remains untouched by what he makes.
It sounds like a shrug, seated as if indifferent, but it names something exact: the absence of the doer's conceit and the doer's craving, which is the only thing that ever binds anyone to their deeds.
These acts of mine do not bind me, Arjuna. I sit among them like one who is unconcerned, unattached to what they do.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
A worry has been quietly building. Krishna has just said he sends forth the whole host of beings again and again, and the world he makes is starkly unequal: some born high, some low, some to joy, some to grief. If he is the maker, must not that inequality, and whatever cruelty seems to ride with it, stick to him and bind him, the way any doer is bound by their deed? This verse meets that worry directly.
The teaching
Those actions do not bind me, he says. I am seated among them as one indifferent, the way a bystander watches two others quarrel, taking no side, untouched by who wins and who grieves. Because he stands apart from the unequal creation this way, the inequality does not attach to him as something that could bind; it rests on the beings themselves and on what they themselves have done. The deeper reason follows in a single word, unattached. Two things are absent in him: the conceit that says I am the doer, and any clinging to what the action brings back. It is exactly these two, doership and craving, that fasten a deed onto its performer. Remove them, and the commentators insist this is not a private exemption for God alone. It is a general law. Anyone who acts without that conceit and without that craving is likewise not bound, while the one who acts with both is caught by his own deeds, the way a silkworm is caught in the very thread it spins. And the word as if, seated as if indifferent, is doing careful work. Real, total indifference would mean he does nothing at all, and that cannot be true of the one who makes and unmakes worlds. The as if holds both truths together: he genuinely acts, and he remains wholly free of what the acting yields.
The doubt that rises
If the Lord really is the maker of a world this unequal, this full of suffering, is calling himself indifferent to it an explanation, or only a way of not answering the harder question of why the world is built this way at all?
Where the paths divide
Read from the standpoint of the highest truth about the Self.
The acts of creation do not bind the Lord because, at the deepest level, they are not finally real for him. He creates the way a magician conjures an illusion or a dreamer spins a dream; being false, they cannot make the changeless Self a partaker of merit or fault. Nothing actually happens to what never changes, and the inequality among beings, real enough within the world, never touches what stands beyond it.
Read with the world and the Lord's action in it held fully real.
The creation is real and the Lord truly acts within it, yet the unequal lots of beings trace back to their own prior actions, not to any partiality in him. Since the round of karma has no first beginning, there is always earlier action on the souls' part to account for present inequality; no arbitrary first injustice hides behind the world. His freedom lies in his unattached overseeing of that dependence, and in this he stands as the very model of the desireless worker this chapter commends.
Read with agency as real and freedom as its own kind of mastery.
His freedom is not a withdrawal from real agency; it is agency perfected. Scripture says he does not grow by action nor become less by it, and his rule over all action is precisely his non-attachment to it. Were his indifference total and unqualified, the world would lapse into unreality, and it has not. He remains genuinely engaged, and his mastery is exactly this: that no action, however vast, can grip the one who rules over all action.
Read cautiously, since the surviving comment here is brief.
What remains of Abhinavagupta's reading at this verse is short: it links the Lord's freedom from bondage to his role as the world's cause, since his activity depends on nothing outside itself, but it does not spell out the mechanism further. A fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading might extend this by saying that consciousness's own freedom is not lessened by its self-expression as the world, but that extension goes beyond what the extant lines actually claim, and is offered here only as a labeled possibility, not as his own settled argument.
Read through the fullness of a desire already met.
The Lord is unattached because he is apta-kama, one whose every desire already stands fulfilled; having nothing left to gain, no act can hold out anything to him, and so no act can bind him. Seated as one indifferent, like a bystander untouched by a quarrel not his own, his vast creating and dissolving leave no mark, not because he is absent from the work but because he wants nothing further from it.
Read as a precise account of the verse's own grammar.
The word like in seated like one indifferent is exact, not a loose figure of speech. Real, literal indifference would mean no agency at all, and the Lord is plainly the active maker of the world. The qualifier marks a likeness, not an identity: genuine engagement paired with complete freedom from being bound by it. What is denied throughout is the conceit of doership and the craving for fruit, never action itself, and this is offered as a general account of how any action can be done without binding its doer.
All six readings agree the Lord is unbound, and agree the word as if is doing real work, holding action and freedom together rather than choosing between them. Where they part is on what makes the world's inequality no fault of his. For Advaita it is finally not real. For Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voices, the world is real, and his freedom is located instead in the beings' own karma, in his intrinsic mastery, in his fullness of desire, or in the precision of a single grammatical marker. For Kashmir Shaivism the honest position is that the surviving text says less than the other five, and what more might be said stays a labeled possibility rather than a settled reading.
A question to carry
When you do the work in front of you today, can you let go of the inner claim I did this and the inner demand this must turn out my way, and still give the work your whole attention?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
What frees the maker of worlds is offered to you as well. The deed done with doership and craving spins its own trap, like a silkworm in its own thread. The same work, done without that claim, passes through and leaves no mark.
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 said he sends forth the whole host of beings again and again into an unequal world; here he answers the worry that inequality this stark must stain and bind its maker.
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 unequal creation does not stain or bind its maker; the worry that it must is met with a flat denial.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
Krishna answers a worry that has been quietly building: he has just said he sends forth the whole host of beings again and again, and that world is starkly unequal, some born high, some low, some to ease, some to suffering. If he is the maker, must not the inequality, and whatever cruelty seems to ride with it, stick to him and bind him, the way any doer is bound by what he does? This verse is his flat denial. Those actions, he says, do not bind me, Dhananjaya.
Seated as one indifferent, he is like a bystander at a quarrel, untouched by who wins and who grieves.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The reason offered first is the image of the bystander: he is seated as one indifferent, the way a person watching two others quarrel takes no side and is untouched by who wins and who grieves. Because he stands apart from the unequal creation in this way, the inequality is not his in any sense that could bind him; it rests elsewhere, on the beings themselves.
What actually binds is doer-conceit and clinging to fruit, and their absence frees anyone, God or seeker, from any deed.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
The deeper reason is named in the word unattached. Two things are absent in him: the conceit that says I am the doer, and any clinging to the fruit an action brings. It is exactly these two that fasten a deed onto its performer. The commentators stress this is not a private exemption for God; it is a general law. Anyone who acts without that conceit and without that craving is likewise not bound, while the one who acts with both is caught by his own deeds like a silkworm in its own thread.
The word 'as if' is exact: total indifference would end his agency, so it holds real action and complete freedom together.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
The qualifying word as if, in seated as if indifferent, is read as doing careful, deliberate work rather than being a loose figure of speech. Real, total indifference would mean he does nothing at all, and that contradicts his being the active maker and sustainer of the world. The as if holds both truths together: he genuinely acts, and he remains wholly untouched by what he does.
His freedom is the model handed to the seeker: work done fully, without 'I did this' or a demand on how it turns out, leaves no bond.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Because the Lord is himself the standing example of acting while remaining unbound, the verse becomes a model for anyone doing the chapter's practice. What frees him, no doership, no craving for the fruit, is offered as exactly what frees the seeker who works in the same spirit; the largest possible act, the making and unmaking of worlds, and the smallest daily task are governed by the very same law.
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 creation fully real and the Lord genuinely active within it, yet clears him of the apparent cruelty by tracing the unequal lots of beings to their own prior actions rather than to him; since the round of karma has no first beginning, there is always earlier action on the souls' part to account for present inequality, and the Lord's freedom lies in his unattached overseeing of that dependence, not in any unreality of the world.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva reads the Lord's freedom as intrinsic to his very nature rather than as a withdrawal from real agency: he is as one indifferent, not literally so, since scripture says he does not grow by action nor become less by it, and his mastery over all action is precisely his non-attachment to it. Were his indifference total and unqualified, the world itself would lapse into unreality, which it does not; his rule over action is real, and so is his freedom from its grip.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
The surviving fragment of Abhinavagupta's comment here is brief: it states that the Lord's freedom from bondage and his causal role in shaping the world are bound together, since his activity depends on nothing outside itself. The source does not spell out the mechanism further. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one would extend this to say that consciousness's own freedom, svatantrya, is not diminished by its self-expression as the world, but this extension goes beyond what the extant lines actually say.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara grounds the Lord's non-attachment in his being apta-kama, one whose every desire already stands fulfilled, so that no act can hold out anything to him and no act can therefore hold him. He weighs the word as if with particular care: total indifference would end his agency altogether, so the qualifier preserves both his genuine engagement in creation and his complete freedom from the fault inequality might seem to lay at his feet.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads the address to Dhananjaya as a quiet reminder of Arjuna's own strength, meant to encourage him toward the teaching, and treats the whole verse as a precise technical account: the suffix vat, like, marks a likeness of being indifferent rather than an identity with it, since real indifference would mean no agency at all. What is denied is the conceit of doership and clinging to fruit, not action itself, and this analysis is offered as a general law for any actor, not a divine exception.
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 that the very thing that frees the Lord is offered to you. He is unbound because he acts without the conceit I am the doer and without clinging to what the action yields. This is not a privilege reserved for God; it is a law that holds for anyone. When you act with the sense of being the doer and with craving for the reward, the action wraps around you and binds you, like a silkworm spinning the very thread that traps it. When you drop the doership and release the grip on outcomes, the same action passes through you and leaves no mark. So the practice is to do what is before you fully, while letting go of the inner claim I did this and the inner demand this must turn out as I want. That release is freedom.
So take up your work as he takes up the making of worlds: fully, without flinching, and without asking it to hand you back anything at all.
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 answers a worry that has been quietly building: he has just said he sends forth the whole host of beings again and again, and that world is starkly unequal, some born high, some low, some to ease, some to suffering. If he is the maker, must not the inequality, and whatever cruelty seems to ride with it, stick to him and bind him, the way any doer is bound by what he does? This verse is his flat denial. Those actions, he says, do not bind me, Dhananjaya.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The reason offered first is the image of the bystander: he is seated as one indifferent, the way a person watching two others quarrel takes no side and is untouched by who wins and who grieves. Because he stands apart from the unequal creation in this way, the inequality is not his in any sense that could bind him; it rests elsewhere, on the beings themselves.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The deeper reason is named in the word unattached. Two things are absent in him: the conceit that says I am the doer, and any clinging to the fruit an action brings. It is exactly these two that fasten a deed onto its performer. The commentators stress this is not a private exemption for God; it is a general law. Anyone who acts without that conceit and without that craving is likewise not bound, while the one who acts with both is caught by his own deeds like a silkworm in its own thread.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The qualifying word as if, in seated as if indifferent, is read as doing careful, deliberate work rather than being a loose figure of speech. Real, total indifference would mean he does nothing at all, and that contradicts his being the active maker and sustainer of the world. The as if holds both truths together: he genuinely acts, and he remains wholly untouched by what he does.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Because the Lord is himself the standing example of acting while remaining unbound, the verse becomes a model for anyone doing the chapter's practice. What frees him, no doership, no craving for the fruit, is offered as exactly what frees the seeker who works in the same spirit; the largest possible act, the making and unmaking of worlds, and the smallest daily task are governed by the very same law.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The actions do not bind the Lord because, seen from the standpoint of the highest truth, they are not finally real for him; the making, sustaining, and dissolving are done the way a magician conjures an illusion or a dreamer spins a dream, and what is false cannot make him a partaker of merit or fault. The Self is changeless, so nothing actually happens to it, and the inequality among beings rests on the beings' own natures rather than on any doing of his.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja keeps the creation fully real and the Lord genuinely active within it, yet clears him of the apparent cruelty by tracing the unequal lots of beings to their own prior actions rather than to him; since the round of karma has no first beginning, there is always earlier action on the souls' part to account for present inequality, and the Lord's freedom lies in his unattached overseeing of that dependence, not in any unreality of the world.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva reads the Lord's freedom as intrinsic to his very nature rather than as a withdrawal from real agency: he is as one indifferent, not literally so, since scripture says he does not grow by action nor become less by it, and his mastery over all action is precisely his non-attachment to it. Were his indifference total and unqualified, the world itself would lapse into unreality, which it does not; his rule over action is real, and so is his freedom from its grip.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The surviving fragment of Abhinavagupta's comment here is brief: it states that the Lord's freedom from bondage and his causal role in shaping the world are bound together, since his activity depends on nothing outside itself. The source does not spell out the mechanism further. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one would extend this to say that consciousness's own freedom, svatantrya, is not diminished by its self-expression as the world, but this extension goes beyond what the extant lines actually say.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara grounds the Lord's non-attachment in his being apta-kama, one whose every desire already stands fulfilled, so that no act can hold out anything to him and no act can therefore hold him. He weighs the word as if with particular care: total indifference would end his agency altogether, so the qualifier preserves both his genuine engagement in creation and his complete freedom from the fault inequality might seem to lay at his feet.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads the address to Dhananjaya as a quiet reminder of Arjuna's own strength, meant to encourage him toward the teaching, and treats the whole verse as a precise technical account: the suffix vat, like, marks a likeness of being indifferent rather than an identity with it, since real indifference would mean no agency at all. What is denied is the conceit of doership and clinging to fruit, not action itself, and this analysis is offered as a general law for any actor, not a divine exception.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If God really is the maker of a world this unequal and full of suffering, how can he be morally off the hook simply by calling himself indifferent to it?
The verse does not let the claim of indifference stand in for an explanation; it relocates the cause. The differing lots of beings, born high or low, fortunate or suffering, arise from the beings' own prior actions, not from a divine whim, and the Lord presides over this without that inequality attaching to him as cruelty or favoritism.
Rāmānujācārya
To the natural follow-up, that there could be no prior karma before the very first creation, the answer given is that the cycle has no beginning; there is always earlier action to account for present inequality, so the chain never traces back to an arbitrary first injustice on the Lord's part.
Rāmānujācārya
The word indifferent here is not cold unconcern but the absence of two things that would make him a moral agent in the binding sense: the conceit of being the doer and the clinging to a result. He has no stake to gain, being one whose every desire is already fulfilled, so no self-interested favoritism drives the unequal creation, and the qualifying as if keeps him genuinely active without that fault touching him.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice that the very thing that frees the Lord is offered to you. He is unbound because he acts without the conceit I am the doer and without clinging to what the action yields. This is not a privilege reserved for God; it is a law that holds for anyone. When you act with the sense of being the doer and with craving for the reward, the action wraps around you and binds you, like a silkworm spinning the very thread that traps it. When you drop the doership and release the grip on outcomes, the same action passes through you and leaves no mark. So the practice is to do what is before you fully, while letting go of the inner claim I did this and the inner demand this must turn out as I want. That release is freedom.
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.