What the knowers of scripture and remembered text call renunciation, the renunciation in the highest sense marked as the relinquishing of all action and its fruit, that very thing know to be yoga, the carrying-out of action, O Pāṇḍava. The question may arise: on the strength of what common feature is the yoga of action, marked by engagement, said to be the renunciation in the highest sense, which is marked by its opposite, turning-away? There is a likeness, by way of the doer, between the yoga of action and the renunciation in the highest sense. For the renouncer in the highest sense, having given up all the means of action, renounces the resolve aimed at all action and its fruit, the resolve that is the cause of the desire that prompts engagement. And this doer of the yoga of action too, even while doing action, renounces the resolve aimed at the fruit. To show this He says: for one who has not renounced the resolve aimed at the fruit, no doer of action whatever becomes a yogin, one possessed of the gathered mind; that is not possible, since the resolve aimed at the fruit is a cause of the mind's distraction. Therefore whatever doer of action has renounced the resolve aimed at the fruit becomes a yogin, of gathered and undistracted mind, since the cause of the mind's distraction has been renounced. So, looking to the common feature, the doer-borne renunciation shared by the renunciation in the highest sense and the yoga of action, the renounce-hood of the yoga of action was stated, for its praise, in 'what they call renunciation, that know to be yoga, O Pāṇḍava'. The yoga of action, free of regard for fruit, is the outer means to the yoga of meditation; having praised it as renunciation, He now shows that the yoga of action is the means to the yoga of meditation.

What they call 'the discipline of knowledge', namely the knowledge of the truth of the self, know that to be the discipline of action itself. The Lord establishes this by saying 'no one becomes a yogin without renouncing resolve'. He by whom, through the dwelling on the truth of the self, the conceit of self toward matter, which is not the self, has been renounced, given up, is one whose resolve is renounced; one not such is one whose resolve is not renounced. For no one not such is in any way a man of the disciplines of action that have been described; for it was said, 'he, all of whose undertakings are free of desire and resolve'. The Lord says that the discipline of action itself, free of heedlessness, accomplishes the discipline of meditation.

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

Renunciation too is included within yoga, Krishna says, with 'what they call renunciation'. The intent is: if he does not give up desire, intention and the rest, how could he be one who possesses the means?