Knowledge does not arise without the performance of actions, the rites such as sacrifice, done in this birth or in another. Such actions, by destroying the accumulated sins, become the cause of purity of being, and through that, by giving rise to knowledge, the cause of steadfastness in knowledge; so the remembered text, 'knowledge arises for men by the destruction of sinful action; one sees the Self in oneself, as in a polished surface' (Mahābhārata, Śānti 204.8) and the like. So, by the non-undertaking of actions, by not performing them, a man does not reach actionlessness, the state free of action, the steadfastness in the yoga of knowledge, that is, abiding in the very form of the actionless Self. From the statement that one does not reach actionlessness by the non-undertaking of actions, it is understood, by the reverse, that one does reach actionlessness by the undertaking of actions. Why so? Because the undertaking of action is itself the means to actionlessness, and without a means there is no reaching of the end. That the yoga of action is the means to the yoga of knowledge, which is marked as actionlessness, is set out both in scripture and here. In scripture, with regard to the world of the Self that is the thing to be known: 'this it is that the brāhmaṇas seek to know by the recitation of the Veda, by sacrifice' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.22) and the like. And here too He will set it out: 'but renunciation, O mighty-armed one, is hard to reach without yoga' (Gītā 5.6), 'the yogins perform action, abandoning attachment, for the purification of the self' (Gītā 5.11), 'sacrifice, gift and austerity are the purifiers of the wise' (Gītā 18.5) and the like. Now, in such texts as 'having given fearlessness to all beings, let him practise actionlessness', actionlessness is shown to be reached even by the renunciation of the action that is to be done; and in the world it is more widely held that actionlessness comes from the non-undertaking of actions; so it would seem that for one who seeks actionlessness there is no use in undertaking action. To this He says 'and not by renunciation alone'. Not by renunciation alone, by the mere relinquishing of action devoid of knowledge, does one reach the perfection marked as actionlessness, the steadfastness in the yoga of knowledge. Why is it that a man does not reach that perfection by the mere renunciation of action devoid of knowledge? In answer He says.

Not by the mere non-undertaking of the scriptural actions does a man attain actionlessness, the standing in knowledge; that is, he does not attain the standing in knowledge that is preceded by the withdrawal from action, the working of all the senses. Nor, by the giving up of a scriptural action once begun, does he attain it; for it is from action performed with no eye to its fruit, action that is the worship of the supreme Person, that the consummation, the standing in the self, would come, and so without that he does not attain it. For those who have not worshipped Govinda by actions done with no eye to their fruit, whose endless heap of sin gathered from beginningless time is undestroyed, the standing in the self that is preceded by the unagitatedness of the senses is hard to bring about. The Lord establishes this very point.

And for this further reason the Lord says He will set Arjuna to action, with 'not by abstaining from actions'. Freedom from action, the state of doing no action, is not reached by not undertaking actions, war and the rest, nor by giving up desire-prompted rites, and so a man does not thereby attain release; knowledge alone is the means to it, not the non-doing of action. Why? Because he is a person. The living being is always joined to a city, gross or subtle; and if release came by not doing action, it would belong to the unmoving things. Nor does release come, in the absence of action, through mere non-doing, since the actions done in each birth are endless. Nor have they all been enjoyed, for in a single body one does many actions, and some of those, taken one by one, bear the fruit of many births; and there, while he enjoys those actions one by one, he still reaches a human birth by the remainder, so that, since the actions bear the fruit of many bodies, there is no end of it. So it is said in the Brahma text, 'a man, living on past fourteen, of necessity, or a woman past full ten, earns a human body; the lives past fourteen are beginningless transmigration; so, O great sage, without knowing the supreme God, what hope of release is there?'. If transmigration had a beginning, then, in the absence of prior action, that body would not be reached. Freedom from bondage comes only through desirelessness, as will be said in 'the unwelcome, the welcome' (18.12). But, one might object, release is taught as following from desireless action, since it bears no fruit; the Manava text says, 'the desireless action preceded by knowledge is here called the action of withdrawal, and one who practises the action of withdrawal reaches the everlasting Brahman'. So, by likeness to that, release would come even by not acting. To this Krishna says 'and not'. 'Renunciation' (sannyasa) is the giving up of desire-prompted rites, since it will be said 'of desire-prompted actions' (18.2). It is from knowledge, through the purifying of the inner organ by desireless actions, that release comes. So it is said in the Bhagavata, 'for one whose being is purified by actions, dispassion arises in the heart', and knowledge is said to be only for the dispassionate, 'not even the most excellent of words suffice for the grasping of His truth' (Bhagavata 5.11.3). It is not from the mere absence of fruit, or the absence of action. Therefore the giving up of action is not by itself the means to release. The order of the renunciate serves the end of self-restraint and of pleasing the Lord. For householders and the rest are, for the most part, in a state of no self-restraint, because of their exertion at other actions, and for the unrestrained there is no knowledge, as the scripture says, 'not one without calm, not one uncollected' (Katha Upanishad 2.23). And great is the Lord's pleasure in the renunciate order, as the Narayanashtakshara-kalpa says, 'the fourth, the renunciate order, is a consecration that pleases Me well'. The holders of office, however, are equally able to keep self-restraint in that very state, and that itself is a great pleasing of the Lord, as the Padma says, 'though the gods and the first of kings are bent on great exertion as enjoyers, the enjoyment of Vishnu surpasses theirs, and is most exceedingly pleasing to Hari'.