On this path of liberation, the yoga of action, there is no loss of an undertaking once begun, as there is with farming and the like: an undertaking in the field of yoga is not of uncertain fruit. Nor is there, as with a course of medicine, any adverse result. Rather, even a little of this dharma, the dharma of yoga, once practised, protects from great fear, from the fear of transmigration, marked by birth, death and the rest. This understanding, told in Sāṅkhya and about to be told in yoga.

In this discipline of action there is no loss of effort begun. 'Effort begun' is the undertaking; 'loss' is the loss of the disposition that is the means to the fruit. Even what has been begun and not finished, what has been broken off, is not without fruit. And in the breaking off of what has been begun there is no sin incurred. Even a very little of this duty of one's own, called the discipline of action, saves from great fear, the fear of transmigration. This is the meaning of what will be unfolded later in 'for him there is destruction neither here nor hereafter'. Other means, worldly and Vedic, when broken off, do not bear fruit, and do bring sin. The Lord now marks off the understanding that has liberation-bound action for its object from the understanding that has desire-prompted action for its object.

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

Madhvacharya does not comment on this verse.