'Action' is mere activity, since 'karma' is whatever is done. He who would see in action inaction, the absence of action, and in inaction the absence of action see action: for, since engagement and turning-away depend on a doer, the whole dealing with act and act-factor belongs only to the ground of ignorance, and goes on without ever reaching the real thing. He who sees this is the man of understanding among men; he is the yogin, the one yoked, and he is one who has done all action. So the one who sees action and inaction each in the other is praised. Is not what is said here a contradiction, 'see inaction in action' and 'action in inaction'? Action cannot be inaction, nor inaction action; how then could a seer see what is contradictory? The answer: inaction, though in the highest truth real, shines forth as though it were action to the deluded vision of the world, and action likewise shines forth as though it were inaction. To make us see them as they truly are, the Blessed Lord says 'he who would see inaction in action' and the rest; so there is no contradiction. That the seeing meant is a seeing of things as they are is borne out by the mention of 'understanding' and the rest, and by the word 'something to be understood', which means precisely the seeing of things as they truly are. Liberation from what is inauspicious cannot come from a mistaken cognition, and it has been said 'knowing which you will be freed from what is inauspicious' (Gītā 4.16). So, since action and inaction are grasped by living beings in a reversed way, the Blessed Lord's words are for the removal of that reversed grasping. Here there is no inaction lodged in action as in a locus, the way jujubes lie in a bowl; nor is there action lodged in inaction, since inaction is the mere absence of action. Action and inaction are grasped in a reversed way by ordinary people, as water is grasped in a mirage or silver in a piece of mother-of-pearl. It may be objected that action is just action for everyone and never strays from being action. Not so: to one seated in a moving boat the unmoving trees on the bank appear to move in the opposite direction, and distant things, not near the eye, appear motionless though they move. Just so, here too, the seeing of action in inaction and of inaction in action is a reversed seeing; and it is to set that aside that He says 'he who would see inaction in action' and the rest. Though this answer has been given more than once, the world, bewildered by being steeped in an utterly reversed seeing, forgets again and again the truth it has heard, drags in the false alternative and raises it as an objection; so the Blessed Lord, seeing how hard the thing is to know, gives the answer again and again. In texts such as 'this is unmanifest, this is unthinkable' and 'it is not born, it does not die', the absence of action in the Self, established by scripture, by remembered text and by reasoning, has been stated and will be stated again. When the Self is thus actionless, the reversed seeing of action in it, where there is inaction, is utterly fixed; that is why 'even the wise are deluded here as to what is action and what is inaction' (Gītā 4.16). Superimposing on the Self action that has body and the rest for its ground, one thinks 'I am the doer, this action is mine, the fruit of this action is to be enjoyed by me'; and likewise, superimposing on the Self the cessation of activity that has body and the instruments for its ground, and the ease that comes of it, one thinks 'I shall be still; now I shall be at ease, free of effort, doing nothing'. To remove this reversed seeing of the world the Blessed Lord says 'he who would see inaction in action' and the rest. Here action, while remaining action and having body and the instruments for its ground, is superimposed by everyone upon the actionless, changeless Self, so that even a learned man thinks 'I act'. Therefore, in action universally held to inhere in the Self, he who would see inaction, the absence of action, seeing it as it truly is, as one rightly sees the absence of motion in the trees on the river bank; and in inaction, the cessation of the activity of body and instruments, superimposed upon the Self with the thought 'I sit still and at ease, doing nothing', since that too is occasioned by the conceit and resolve of the ego, he who would see action: he who thus knows the division of action and inaction is the man of understanding among men, the learned one; he is the yogin, and he is one who has done all action, freed from what is inauspicious, having done what was to be done. This verse has been explained otherwise by some. Their explanation runs: the constant rites, when performed for the Lord's sake, are called 'inaction' in a figurative sense, since they bear no fruit; and the not-doing of them is 'action', figuratively, since it bears the fruit of transgression. So in the constant rite, which is action, one should see inaction because of its fruitlessness, as a milch cow is called a no-cow when it does not yield the fruit called milk; and in the not-doing of the constant rite, which is inaction, one should see action, since it yields the fruit of transgression, hell and the like. That explanation is not right. By it, liberation from what is inauspicious through knowledge would not be possible, and the Blessed Lord's words 'knowing which you will be freed from what is inauspicious' (Gītā 4.16) would be contradicted. Liberation from the inauspicious might come from the performance of the constant rites, but not from the mere knowledge that they are fruitless; and nowhere has the knowledge that the constant rites are fruitless been enjoined as bearing the fruit of liberation, nor has knowledge of the constant rite, nor has the Blessed Lord said any such thing here. By this the seeing of action in inaction is also answered: the seeing of action in inaction is not enjoined here as a thing to be done, only the mere doing of the constant rite is; and no fruit would come from the knowledge that transgression arises from not doing the constant rite, nor is the not-doing of the constant rite enjoined as a thing to be known. Nor, from a false cognition that action is inaction, can liberation from the inauspicious, the state of being a man of understanding, the state of being yoked, the fruit of having done all action, or any praise, be possible. False knowledge is itself, directly, of the form of the inauspicious; how could there be liberation from another inauspicious thing through it? Darkness does not dispel darkness. It may be objected that the seeing of inaction in action, or of action in inaction, is not false knowledge but a figurative usage occasioned by the presence or absence of fruit. No: because no fruit is anywhere heard of from a figurative knowledge of action and inaction either; and no gain is found in abandoning what scripture says and inventing what it does not. The matter could be stated in plain words: 'the constant rites have no fruit, and from not doing them comes a fall into hell'. What use, then, is a roundabout statement, framed to confuse others, 'he who would see inaction in action' and the rest? To explain it so would plainly make out that the Blessed Lord's sentence was framed to bewilder the world; and a real thing is not to be guarded by a deceptive sentence, nor would a thing said again and again in different words be made easy to grasp. At 'your right is to action alone' (Gītā 2.47) the meaning was stated quite plainly and needs no restating. Everywhere what is praised, and what is to be understood, is itself what is to be done; what is to be understood is not said to be purposeless. And false knowledge is not a thing to be understood, nor is the thing-appearance set up by it. Nor does a positive transgression arise from the non-being, the not-doing, of the constant rites, by the words 'of the non-existent there is no being' (Gītā 2.16) and 'how should the existent be born from the non-existent' (Chāndogya 6.2.2), which deny the birth of the existent from the non-existent. One who declares the arising of the existent from the non-existent would be saying that the non-existent itself becomes existent and the existent non-existent; and that is not right, since it contradicts every means of knowledge. Scripture would not enjoin a fruitless action, since action is of the nature of pain and the doing, with deliberate intent, of what is painful is untenable; and if a fall into hell is granted from not doing it, then scripture would be made out purposeless, doing only harm whether one acts or not. There is self-contradiction too, for one who, having granted that the constant rite is fruitless, then says it is for the fruit of liberation. Therefore the meaning of 'he who would see inaction in action' and the rest is just as the words say; and so the verse has been explained by us. Now this seeing of inaction in action is praised.

By the word 'inaction' here, what is other than action, namely knowledge of the self, is the topic. He who would see knowledge of the self in action itself while it is being done, and who, abiding in inaction itself, namely knowledge of the self, would see action. What is meant? He who would see action, even while it is being done, as having the form of knowledge by the dwelling on the truth of the self, and who would see that knowledge, as included within action, as having the form of action; for when action is being done, by the dwelling on the truth of the self who is the agent, both of these are accomplished together. He who would see action thus, with the dwelling on the truth of the self enclosed within it, is wise, a knower of the whole meaning of scripture; among men he is the one joined, fit for liberation; he alone does the whole of action, does the whole meaning of scripture. How does action, plainly being done before the eyes, have the form of knowledge? To this the Lord speaks.

Krishna states the own-form of action and the rest, with 'in action'. He who, while action is being done, sees non-action, thinking 'this is the action of Vishnu alone; I, a reflection of consciousness, do nothing at all'; and who, in non-action, in deep sleep and the other states of not-doing, sees the action of the supreme Lord, thinking 'this very One, the supreme Lord, does all creation and the rest at all times', he is the man of understanding, the man of knowledge, and he alone is the one joined, joined in yoga. Though he does nothing at all, he alone is the doer of all action, since he has the fruit of all.