Giving up all duties: the word 'duty' (dharma) here takes in lawlessness too, since freedom from action is what is meant, as the texts say, 'not he who has not ceased from ill conduct' and 'give up both law and lawlessness'. So 'giving up all duties' means renouncing all action. Take refuge in Me alone, the one self of all, the same, present in all beings, the Lord, the unfallen, free of conception, birth, age, and death; that is, take it for certain that I am that, and that there is nothing other than Me. You, whose understanding is so settled, I will free from all sins, from all the bondage that is law and lawlessness, by making manifest your own nature as the self. So it was said, 'abiding in their self, I destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge'. Therefore do not grieve. Now, in this scripture of the Gita, what has been settled as the means to the highest good: knowledge, or action, or both together? Why should there be doubt? Because such texts as 'knowing which one gains the deathless' and 'having known Me truly he enters Me right after' show that the highest good is reached by knowledge alone, while such texts as 'your right is to action alone' and 'do action' show that action must without fail be done. Since both knowledge and action are taught as things to be done, someone might doubt whether the highest good has the two combined for its cause. And what is the fruit of this inquiry? Just this: the ascertaining of which one of these is the means to the highest good. So this is to be examined at greater length. Knowledge of the self is, by itself alone, the cause of the highest good, because it removes the notion of difference and ends in the fruit of aloneness (kaivalya). The notion of the difference of action, agent, and fruit is, through ignorance, ever at work in the self: 'this is my action, I am the doer, this action I shall do for that fruit.' This ignorance has been at work from beginningless time. What removes this ignorance is the knowledge concerning the self that arises in the form 'I am this, alone, a non-doer, without action, without fruit; there is no other apart from Me', because it removes the notion of difference that is the cause of engagement in action. The word 'but' serves to set aside two views: it sets aside both the view that the highest good is reached from action alone and the view that it is reached from knowledge and action combined. And since the highest good is not something to be brought about, action cannot be its means; an eternal thing is not produced by action or by knowledge. Is mere knowledge then useless? No; since it removes ignorance, it is seen to end in the fruit of aloneness. The knowledge that removes the darkness of ignorance is seen to end in the fruit of aloneness, as the light of a lamp, which removes the darkness of not knowing a snake and the like in a rope and the like, has for its fruit the rope left alone, the figment of the snake having ceased; so too with knowledge. And as, in seen matters, the factors such as agent, engaged in acts like splitting and the kindling of fire, do not, once they have gained their fruit of severance, or the appearance of fire, engage in another fruit or another action, so the factors of knowing, engaged in the act of standing in knowledge whose end is seen, do not, once the fruit of the aloneness of the self is gained, engage in another action; so the standing in knowledge accompanied by action does not hold. It might be said that it could be like the action of eating and the action of the fire-oblation. No; in the case of knowledge whose fruit is aloneness, there can be no craving for the fruit of an action. When knowledge whose fruit is aloneness has been gained, just as, when the fruit of water flooding on every side has been gained, there is no longer any craving for the fruit of digging wells and tanks, so there can be no craving for another fruit, or for the action that is its means. One engaged in an action whose fruit is the gaining of a kingdom does not engage in something whose fruit is the gaining of a mere field, nor does he crave it. Therefore action has no power to be the means of the highest good. Nor have knowledge and action combined. Nor does knowledge, whose fruit is aloneness, need the help of action, since that would conflict with its removing ignorance; for darkness does not remove darkness. So knowledge alone is the means to the highest good. It may be objected that, since failing to do the obligatory daily rites brings sin, and since aloneness is eternal, the gaining of aloneness from knowledge alone is wrong; for failing to do the obligatory rites taught by revelation would bring sin, marked by the falling into hell and the like. But then, on this objection, there would be no liberation from action at all. This is no fault, because liberation is eternal. By the performance of the obligatory rites sin does not accrue; by not doing what is prohibited an unwished-for body does not arise; by shunning the desire-prompted rites a wished-for body does not arise; and when the action that began the present body has its fruit exhausted by enjoyment, this body falls, and, there being no cause for the rise of another body, since the self does not make passion and the rest, the abiding in one's own nature is aloneness; so aloneness is gained without effort. It may be objected that the karma done in countless past lives, with the fruit of heaven, hell, and the like, whose effect has not yet begun, will not be exhausted, since it is not enjoyed. No; the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites can serve as the enjoyment of that fruit. Or, like expiation, the obligatory rite serves to destroy sin gathered before. The begun karmas are exhausted by mere enjoyment; new karmas do not begin; so aloneness is gained without effort. The revealed text 'knowing Him alone one passes beyond death, there is no other path for the journey' shows that there is no path other than knowledge for liberation; the revealed text that liberation is impossible for the ignorant, as it is impossible to wrap up space like a hide; the remembered text of the Purana, 'from knowledge one gains aloneness'; and the impossibility of exhausting the meritorious karmas whose fruit has not begun: all confirm this. For just as there is the possibility of past sins whose fruit has not begun, so there would be the possibility of meritorious karmas whose fruit has not begun; and since these cannot be exhausted without taking another body, liberation would not hold. And the cause of merit and demerit, namely passion, aversion, and delusion, cannot be uprooted except by knowledge of the self, so the cutting off of merit and demerit would not hold. And since the obligatory rites are heard to have a meritorious fruit, and the remembered text 'the castes and orders, each devoted to its own action' says the same, the exhausting of karma would not hold by action alone. Some say that the obligatory rites, being painful in nature, are themselves the fruit of sinful action done before; that there is no fruit of them apart from their own nature, since none is heard of, and since they are enjoined on the occasion of being alive and the rest. No; for karmas that have not begun to fructify cannot give fruit, and there would be no particular painful fruit. What was said, that the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites is the enjoyed fruit of the sinful karmas done in past births, is wrong. It does not hold that the fruit of a karma not sprouted to give fruit at the time of death is enjoyed in a birth begun by another karma; otherwise the enjoyment of the fruit of hell-bound karma in a birth begun by the fire-oblation and the like for the enjoyment of heaven would not be ruled out. And it does not hold that that sin has a particular painful fruit; for, when many sins are possible, each with its own distinct painful means of fruit, if all are fancied to have for their fruit only the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites, the suffering of pairs of opposites, sickness and the rest, would be left without a cause; it cannot be supposed that only the pain of the toil of performing obligatory rites, and not the pain of carrying stones on the head and the like, is the fruit of sin gathered before. And this is said outside the point at issue, that the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites is the fruit of sinful karma done before. How so? The point at issue was that a sin done before, whose fruit has not sprouted, cannot be exhausted. Now you say that the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites is the fruit of a karma whose fruit has sprouted, not of one whose fruit has not sprouted. If you hold that all sin done before has its fruit sprouted, then the qualification 'the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites is the fruit' is uncalled for. And it would follow that the injunction of the obligatory rites is purposeless, since the sin whose fruit has sprouted is exhausted by enjoyment alone. Further, if pain is the fruit of the obligatory rites heard of in scripture, that pain is seen to come from the very toil of performing them, as with bodily exercise and the like, so it cannot be supposed to be the fruit of something else. And since the obligatory rites, like expiations, are enjoined on the occasion of being alive and the rest, it does not hold that they are the fruit of sinful karma done before; for the expiation enjoined on the occasion of a sinful act is not the fruit of that sin. If the pain of the expiation is the fruit of the very sin that occasioned it, then the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites enjoined on the occasion of being alive and the rest would be the fruit of that very occasion, since the obligatory and the occasional rites do not differ in being occasioned. Further, since the toil of performing the fire-oblation and the rest is the same whether they are obligatory or desire-prompted, if the pain of the toil of performing the obligatory rites is the fruit of sin done before, then, there being no difference, the pain of the toil of performing desire-prompted rites would equally be the fruit of sin done before. And in that case, since no fruit is heard of for the obligatory rites and their injunction would otherwise be without basis, the supposition by presumption that the pain of the toil of performing them is the fruit of sin done before is itself unfounded; for the injunction would otherwise be without basis, and one infers a fruit of the obligatory rites distinct from the pain of the toil of performing them. There is also a contradiction: it is contradictory to say, on the one hand, that when an obligatory rite is being performed the fruit of some other karma is being enjoyed, in which case that very enjoyment is the fruit of the obligatory rite, and, on the other hand, that the obligatory rite has no fruit. Further, when a desire-prompted fire-oblation is being performed, the obligatory fire-oblation too is performed by the same procedure, so the fruit of the desire-prompted fire-oblation would be used up by the very pain of that toil, since it shares the procedure; but if the fruit of the desire-prompted fire-oblation is something else, heaven and the like, then the pain of the toil of performing it would have to be something distinct; and there is no such thing, for it conflicts with what is seen, no pain of the toil of performing desire-prompted rites being seen as distinct from the pain of the toil of performing the merely obligatory ones. Further, only action neither enjoined nor prohibited has its fruit then and there; action enjoined or prohibited by scripture does not have its fruit then and there. Therefore the obligatory rites do not have an unseen fruit lacking; and so knowledge alone, not the performance of the obligatory rites, is what destroys without remainder the auspicious and inauspicious action that is preceded by ignorance. For all action whatever has ignorance and desire for its seed. Thus it has been established that action belongs to the domain of the ignorant, and that the standing in knowledge, preceded by the giving up of all action, belongs to the domain of the knower; this is shown by such texts as 'these two do not know', 'know the indestructible, the eternal', 'by the discipline of knowledge for the Sankhyas, by the discipline of action for the yogins', 'of the ignorant attached to action', 'but the knower of truth, mighty-armed, holding that the qualities move among the qualities, is not attached', 'renouncing all actions with the mind he rests', 'the knower of truth, joined, should think I do nothing at all'; that is, the ignorant man thinks 'I do', and for one wishing to mount the discipline action is the means, while for one who has mounted it, settled in the discipline, calm alone is the means; the three afflicted, the seeker of goods, and the seeker of knowledge are all ignorant, but the knower, in My judgment, is My very self; the ignorant who act, craving desires, gain coming and going, while those who, undistracted, meditating on Me, ever joined, worship the self described as space-like, to them I give the discipline of understanding by which they come to Me, that is, not the ignorant who act. Those qualified workers, even the most joined, who do the Lord's work, are ignorant, and their means end in the relinquishment of fruit, each higher than the last; whereas the worshippers of the indescribable Imperishable are those whose means were stated, from 'not hating any being' to the close of the chapter, and whose means of knowledge were stated in the three chapters beginning with the chapter on the field. The threefold fruit of action, the unwished-for and the rest, does not arise for those who renounce all action caused by the five, the seat and the rest, who have the knowledge of the self's oneness and non-agency, who stand in the supreme standing in knowledge, who know the truth of the Lord, the wandering ascetics of the highest order who have taken refuge in the oneness of their self with the gained nature of the Lord; but it does arise for the others, the ignorant who act and do not renounce. This is the division of what is to be done as taught by the scripture of the Gita. It may be objected that it is not established that all action is preceded by ignorance. No; it is, as with the slaying of a brahmin. Though the obligatory rite is learned from scripture, it still belongs only to one who has ignorance. As the action marked as the slaying of a brahmin, though learned from prohibitive scripture, is a cause of harm only for one who has the faults of ignorance, desire, and the rest, since otherwise engagement in it would not hold, so too the obligatory, the occasional, and the desire-prompted rites. It may be objected that, the self being distinct from the body unknown, engagement in the obligatory rites would not hold; for engagement is seen with the conviction 'I do', toward action which is of the nature of motion and is not done by the self. It may be said that the notion of 'I' in the aggregate of body and the rest is figurative, not false. No, for then its effects too would have to be figurative. The notion of 'I' in the aggregate of body and the rest, which is one's own, would be figurative as the notion of 'I' in one's own son is figurative, as in 'you are your very self named son', and as in the world one says 'this cow is my very breath'. But it is not so; this notion is not a false notion. The false notion is the one about the post and the man whose particular features are not grasped. A figurative notion does not have the purpose of bringing about the effect of the primary thing; it serves only to praise its substratum, the word of comparison being elided. As 'Devadatta is a lion', 'the boy is fire', meaning 'like a lion', 'like fire', because he shares the general features of cruelty, tawniness, and so on, serve only to praise the substratum, Devadatta or the boy; no effect of a lion or of fire is brought about by the figurative word and notion; whereas the effect of a false notion is the suffering of harm. One who has the figurative notion knows 'this Devadatta is not a lion, this boy is not fire'. So action done by a figuratively-styled self, the aggregate of body and the rest, would not be action done by the primary self, the object of the notion of 'I'. For action done by a figurative lion or fire is not done by the primary lion or fire. And no effect of the primary lion or fire is brought about by cruelty or tawniness, since they are used up in serving praise; and the men being praised know 'I am not a lion, I am not fire', for the lion's action is not mine, nor the fire's. So the notion 'the aggregate's action is not mine, the primary self's', rather than 'I am the doer, mine is the action', would be the more fitting. As for the claim that the self does action by means of its own memory, desire, and effort, which are the causes of action, no, for these are preceded by a false notion. Memory, desire, effort, and the rest are preceded by the impressions left by the experience of the fruit of actions, wished-for and unwished-for, occasioned by a false notion. As in this life merit and demerit, and the experience of their fruit, are made by attachment, aversion, and the rest that come of the conceit of being the aggregate of body and the rest, so in the past life, and the one before that; so transmigration, made by beginningless ignorance, is to be inferred as both past and future. And from this it is established that in the standing in knowledge accompanied by the renunciation of all action there is the utter ceasing of transmigration. And since the conceit of the body is of the nature of ignorance, on its ceasing, the body not holding, transmigration does not hold. The conceit of self in the aggregate of body and the rest is of the nature of ignorance. For in the world no one who knows 'I am other than cows and the rest, and cows and the rest are other than me' takes them to be himself. But one who does not know, like the man taking a post for a man, makes, without discernment, the notion 'I' in the aggregate of body and the rest, not one who knows with discernment. As for the notion 'I' in a son, as in 'you are your very self named son', that is figurative, occasioned by the relation of begetter and begotten; and by a figuratively-styled self one cannot do what is real, such as eating, any more than the primary lion's or fire's effect can be done by the figurative lion or fire. It may be objected that, since the injunction concerning the unseen is authoritative, what the self must do is done by the figurative selves, the body, senses, and the rest. No, because they are selves only as fashioned by ignorance. And the body, senses, and the rest are not figurative selves; rather, being non-selves, they are made to take on selfhood by a false notion alone, since selfhood is present when that notion is present and absent when it is absent. For in the unknowing condition of children without discernment the notion 'I' in the aggregate of body and the rest is seen, 'I am tall, I am fair'; but for those of discernment, who know 'I am other than the aggregate of body and the rest', the notion 'I' in that aggregate does not arise at that time. Therefore, being absent when the false notion is absent, it is made by that notion, not figurative. A figurative notion or word is used where the particular and the general are separately grasped, as with the lion and Devadatta, or the fire and the boy, not where they are not separately grasped. As for the appeal to the authority of revelation, no; for the authority of revelation lies in the domain of the unseen. In the domain of the connection of means and end in the fire-oblation and the rest, which is not reached by perception and the other means of knowledge, revelation is authoritative, not in the domain of perception and the rest, since the authority of revelation has for its object the showing of the unseen. Therefore it cannot be supposed that the notion 'I', occasioned by a seen false cognition, is figurative in regard to the aggregate of body and the rest. For not even a hundred revealed texts saying 'fire is cold' or 'without light' would gain authority. If they should say 'fire is cold' or 'without light', then some other meaning of revelation would have to be supposed, since otherwise its authority would not hold; revelation does not contradict another means of knowledge or its own statement. It may be objected that, since action has a doer who is fashioned by a false notion, in the absence of a real doer revelation would be without authority. No, since revelation has its purpose in the knowledge of Brahman. It may be objected that the revelation enjoining the knowledge of Brahman would then be as void of authority as the revelation enjoining action. No, because no contrary cognition holds. As, when the self has been made known by the revelation enjoining the knowledge of Brahman, the notion 'I' in the aggregate of body and the rest is set aside, so the cognition of the self in the self can never, by anyone, in any way, be set aside, because the cognition is not separate from its fruit, as one knows 'fire is hot and bright'. And the revelation enjoining action is not therefore void of authority, since its purpose is to produce, by checking the previous engagement, the rise of a new engagement, turned toward the inmost self. Even though the means be false, by the truth of the end it would itself be true; as with the explanatory passages that are subsidiary to injunctions, and as in the world, when milk and the like are to be given to children or madmen, the words about the growing of a top-knot and the like are used. And of those who are in another condition, before knowledge of the self, the authority of perception and the rest, occasioned by the conceit of the body, is established directly, just as it is. As for what you suppose, that the self, though not itself active, does by mere proximity, and that this is the primary agency of the self, as a king is said to fight when his soldiers fight, though he does not himself fight, and is said, by mere proximity, to be victor or vanquished; or as a commander acts by mere word; and as the connection with the fruit of the action is seen for the king and the commander; and as the action of the priests belongs to the sacrificer, so the action of the body and the rest would be done by the self, since the fruit comes to the self; and as a magnet, though itself unmoving, has the primary agency because it makes iron move, so it would be with the self: that is wrong, since agency would then belong to one who does not act. It may be said that a factor is of many kinds. No, since the primary agency of the king and the like is also seen. The king fights with his own activity too, and in causing the soldiers to fight and in giving wealth he has primary agency; so too in the enjoyment of the fruit of victory or defeat. And the sacrificer has primary agency in the offering of the chief oblation and in the giving of the priestly fees. Therefore the ascribing of agency to one who does not act is understood to be figurative. If the primary agency, marked by one's own activity, were not found in the king, the sacrificer, and the rest, then agency by mere proximity might be supposed to be primary, as with the magnet's moving of the iron; but it is not so, for the activity of the king, the sacrificer, and the rest is found. Therefore agency by mere proximity is only figurative. And this being so, the connection with its fruit too would be only figurative. A primary effect is not brought about by what is figurative. Therefore what is sung, that the self, though itself not active, would by the activity of the body and the rest be doer and experiencer, is unreal. But everything occasioned by error does hold, as in a dream and in a magic show. And in the breaks in the stream of the error of the notion of self in the body and the rest, in deep sleep, absorption, and the like, no harm of agency, experiencership, and the like is found. Therefore this delusion of transmigration is occasioned only by an erroneous notion, and is not real; so it is established that, by right vision, there is an utter ceasing of it. Having summed up the whole meaning of the teaching of the Gita in this chapter, and especially at the end, and having made a brief summing-up here to make firm the meaning of the scripture, the Lord now states the rule for the handing down of the scripture.
Contemporary English rendering of the Sanskrit bhāṣya, pending scholar review.