Your right is to action alone, not to steadfastness in knowledge. And even there, while you do action, let your right never, in any state whatever, be to its fruits: let there be no craving for the fruit of action. When you crave the fruit of action, you become a cause of the gaining of that fruit; so do not become the cause of the fruit of action, for when one is impelled by craving for the fruit and engages in action, one becomes the cause of the birth that is the fruit of action. And let there be no attachment, no fondness, for inaction, thinking 'if the fruit of action is not wanted, what use is action, which is painful?' If action is not to be done out of craving for its fruit, how then is it to be done? He says.

Among the obligatory, the occasional, and the desire-prompted actions heard of as connected with some particular fruit, your right, as a seeker of liberation who stands ever in sattva, is to the action only. To the fruits known as connected with that action you have no right ever, since action with a fruit is of the nature of bondage, while action without fruit, bare action in the form of the worship of Me, is the cause of liberation. And let your motive be neither the action nor the fruit. Even while you perform the action, as a seeker of liberation standing ever in sattva you should bear in mind that you are not the doer. You should bear in mind too that you are not even the cause of the fruit, such as the stilling of hunger. Both, the agency and the fruit, are to be referred either to the qualities or to Me, the Lord of all, as will be said later. Bearing this in mind, perform action. Let there be no attachment in you to inaction, to non-performance, the inaction you spoke of when you said 'I will not fight'. Let your attachment be, in the manner described, only to action, war and the rest. The Lord makes this very point plain.

The men ruled by desire have been censured. But how can desire be censured, when desire too is enjoined, as in 'one who desires heaven should sacrifice' (Apastamba Srauta-sutra 10.1.2.1) and the like? To meet this Krishna says, 'in action alone'. The word 'your' in the verse stands for more than Arjuna; even you, a man of knowledge, have no duty bound up with desire for fruit, much less others. It is not that some have no such duty while for others it remains. For Arjuna is a man of knowledge, a portion of Nara, and of Indra; what looks like delusion in such ones is only an overpowering from without. If those of pure being had no knowledge, who else could have it? Their knowledge is established from their having received teaching and the rest, and the enumeration of men of knowledge, 'Partha, Rishtishena' and so on, shows that here it is the prohibition of desire alone that is meant. Fruits arise without any independence of their own; the fruits of action do not come about, however one strives, when action is absent, while they do come about for one who does the desire-prompted rite, even if he strives against it, provided there is no obstruction. Hence the lapse lies only in not doing action, not in the non-attainment of fruit through knowledge or through desirelessness. Therefore the right is to action alone, and that alone is to be done; the gaining of fruit does not come through desire, nor through the setting aside of knowledge and the rest. The purport of the texts that speak of desire has been told by the Lord Himself, 'the proclaiming of fruit is for the sake of attracting, as the sweetening of medicine' (Bhagavata 11.21.23). So the sense is, 'let the desirer sacrifice', not 'let one become a desirer and sacrifice', as the words 'desireless, and preceded by knowledge' show, as do the texts still to come and such texts as 'spring after spring let him sacrifice with the light-rite'. Therefore, do not become one who has the fruit of action for his motive; he whose motive in the deed is the fruit of action is one who has the fruit of action for his motive, and do not be that. Then, thinking 'I shall not act at all', Krishna says, 'let not your attachment be to inaction'. The sense is, let there be no attachment to the non-doing of action; otherwise, even when fruit is absent, there is the fruit called My grace, and the desire for that is proper, by the conduct of the great, 'we choose it for your pleasing'. This follows because that desire is not censured while the other desire is specifically censured, and because it is well known that 'the particular overrides the general', as in 'bring all, no single friend'. Hence those who long for devotion say, 'some do not crave oneness with Me' (Bhagavata 3.25.34); and there are the words 'the desire to know Brahman' (Brahma-sutra 1.1.1), 'having known it, one should seek to realise insight' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.5). Toward a servant who serves his own ends there is no such fondness; but, as the maxim well known in the world has it, when the master asks 'what shall I give?', he has far greater fondness for the suppliant who asks only for service and the like. So it is established that the desire for devotion, knowledge and the rest is to be cultivated.