When the yogin, his mind being gathered, does not cling, with the awareness that they serve no purpose, to the objects of the senses, sound and the rest, or to actions, the constant, the occasional, the desire-prompted and the forbidden, that is, when he forms no notion that they must be done; when he is a renouncer of all resolves, one whose habit it is to renounce all the resolves that are the causes of ends and desires here and hereafter: then he is said to be mounted on yoga, to have attained yoga. From the words 'renouncer of all resolves' it follows that he should renounce all desires and all actions, for all desires are rooted in resolve, by such remembered texts as 'desire is rooted in resolve; sacrifices arise from resolve' (Manu 2.3) and 'O desire, I know your root; you are born of resolve; I shall not resolve upon you, and so you will not be' (Mahābhārata, Śānti 177.25). And with the relinquishing of all desires the renunciation of all action is accomplished, by such scriptures as 'as is his desire, so is his resolve; as is his resolve, so is the action he does' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.5), by such remembered texts as 'whatever a creature does, that is the working of desire' (Manu 2.4), and by reasoning, since in the renunciation of all resolve no one is able even to stir. Therefore, from the words 'renouncer of all resolves', the Blessed Lord makes him give up all desires and all actions. When one is thus mounted on yoga, then by it the self has been drawn up out of the whole array of ills that is transmigration. So.

When this yogin, having by his nature the single experience of the self, is no longer attached, no longer comes to attachment, toward the objects of the senses, the objects of matter that are other than the self, and toward the actions that bear on them, then he is called the renouncer of all resolve, mounted on the discipline. Therefore, for one wishing to mount, the discipline of action, which has the form of the practice of non-attachment toward what is still fit to be experienced, is the cause of the consummation. So one wishing to mount should do that very discipline of action, which has the form of the practice of non-attachment to objects. The Lord states this.

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

Krishna states the mark of one who has climbed to yoga, with 'when'. Complete non-attachment belongs to him alone; and it is said, 'in him the dissolution of faults comes of itself, but for others only through effort, after the seeing'.