The fruit of action, of merit and demerit, is of three kinds: unwished for, marked by hell, the animal state, and the like; wished for, marked by the state of a god and the like; and mixed, joined of the wished for and the unwished for, marked by the human state. This fruit, brought about by the working of many external instruments, is fashioned by ignorance, like a conjuror's illusion, breeding great delusion, seeming to draw near the inmost self; the very word for 'fruit' suggests that, being slight, it passes away into non-appearance. Such a fruit comes, after the fall of the body, to those who do not relinquish, the ignorant who act and who are not renouncers in the highest sense; but never to renouncers in the highest sense, the wandering ascetics of the highest order who are settled in knowledge alone. For the standing in mere right vision never fails to uproot ignorance and the other seeds of transmigration. So it is only the seer of the highest truth who can be a renouncer of all action, since in him action, agent, and fruit have been falsely superimposed on the self by ignorance; whereas for the ignorant man, who sees the seat of action and the rest, the act, agent, and instruments, as his very self, the renunciation of all action is not possible. The Lord shows this in the verses that follow.

The unwished is the fruit of hell and the rest; the wished is heaven and the rest; the mixed is mixed with the unwished, a son, cattle, food, and the rest; this threefold fruit of action comes, after death, to those who do not relinquish, who are without the relinquishment of agency, the sense of mine, and fruit, that is, in the time after the performance of the action. But to renouncers, never; to those who have given up agency and the rest there is never any liberation-obstructing fruit. This is what is said: although the fire-oblation, the great sacrifices, and the rest are obligatory, still, as in the qualification for being alive and the qualification for desire, so in the qualification for liberation, they are set apart by a separateness of application; and the application to liberation is by such texts as 'Him the brahmins seek to know by the recitation of the Veda, by sacrifice, by giving, by austerity, by fasting'. So, in actions while they are being done, the relinquishment of agency and the rest, the renunciation established by scripture, that very thing has been told as relinquishment. Now the Lord states the manner of dwelling on non-agency in the self, by the dwelling on agency in the Blessed One, the highest Person, the inner ruler. For from that very thing the giving up of the sense of mine toward fruit and action too follows. For the supreme Person, by His own individual self and by His own instruments, body, and breaths, begins action for the purpose of His own play; so the fruit too that belongs to the individual self, the stilling of hunger and the rest, and the action that is its means, belong to the supreme Person alone.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Krishna praises relinquishment, with 'the unwelcome, the welcome and the mixed'.