It is children, not the learned, who say that Sāṅkhya and yoga are separate, of opposed and distinct fruits. The learned, the knowers, hold that the fruit is one and not divided. How? One who has rightly taken his stand on, has rightly carried out, even one of Sāṅkhya and yoga gains the fruit of both; for the fruit of both is that same highest good, so there is no opposition in the fruit. It may be asked: having raised the topic with the words 'renunciation' and 'yoga of action', how does He here speak of something not in hand, the oneness of fruit of Sāṅkhya and yoga? There is no fault here. Although Arjuna's question was framed with mere renunciation and the yoga of action in view, the Blessed Lord, without abandoning those, joined to them the particular sense He intended and gave His answer under other words, 'Sāṅkhya' and 'yoga'. Those very two, renunciation and the yoga of action, when joined with knowledge, with the means to knowledge, and with evenness of mind and the rest, are, in the Blessed Lord's view, denoted by the words 'Sāṅkhya' and 'yoga'. So it is not the introducing of something out of hand. How, from the right carrying-out of even one, does one gain the fruit of both? He says.

Those who say that the discipline of knowledge and the discipline of action are separate because they differ in fruit are children, with knowledge unripe, not the learned, not knowers of the whole. Those who say that they are distinct by a difference of fruit, holding 'the discipline of action accomplishes only the discipline of knowledge, while the discipline of knowledge alone accomplishes the beholding of the self', are not learned. This is the meaning. Of the two, which have the single fruit of the beholding of the self, one who takes his stand even on a single one gains, since they have a single fruit, that very fruit. The Lord unfolds this.

Renunciation was spoken of as an inner aid to knowledge, in 'not even the most excellent of words suffice for the grasping of His truth' (Bhagavata 5.11.3) and the like. So how could it be the lower? To that Krishna says, with 'Sankhya and Yoga'. Since both are inner aids, there is no conflict. The texts 'one bewildered by the fire, dimmed by smoke, does not recognise his own world', and 'O fathers, may the paths trodden by us, the paths of the smoke from the seat of the sacrificial hall, not be yours', have desire-prompted rites for their scope; that is the import. Those who say otherwise are children.