Verse 18.11

Verse 18.11: “For, by one while dwelling within the body, it is not possible to renounce actions in their entirety. But he who relinquishes the fruits of actions, is designated the relinquisher. (218)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

And, O Arjuna (savyasācī) anyone feeling an aversion for actions, having got into the body, must be taken as thoughtless. What would an earthen pot do by feeling aversion for clay? Or where would a piece of cloth be were it to hate thread? Would things holding fire in them feel troubled by their own heat? Or would a (burning) lamp ever hate light? How could asafoetida (hiṅgu) ever bring fragrance to itself simply by feeling disgust for its obnoxious smell? Or how could water exist leaving its fluidity? In all these ways, so long therefore as there exists the semblance of the body-form, what point is there in entertaining the silly ideas of relinquishing (all) actions.

One can efface the mark (ṭilā) on his forehead put by himself and put it there again and again; but could he scratch out the very forehead and replace it? In that way precribed [prescribed] actions started by a person voluntarily, could at most be relinquished; but how could actions that are natural (automatic) in the body itself be relinquished? Actions such as breathing, etc. go on functioning even during sleep, and this holds good even in the case of the one who performs no action whatever. Thus activism in its entirety closely follows (the being) on the plea of his body-form. Thus neither the living nor the dead can escape it.

There is only one device by which persons can escape from the clutches of activism in this world and it is this: One must not fall a victim to the greed for fruit while performing actions. When the action-fruit is dedicated to God, there dawns the realisation of knowledge through His grace, and when this takes place, nescience together with the actions gets destroyed through knowledge, in the way the delusion of there being a serpent gets removed with the knowledge of (its being) the rope; and the relinquishment that in this way takes place is the regular and proper relinquishment, O Partha.

Therefore, only such a person who relinquishes actions is in this way a great and true relinquisher. Otherwise it would be like treating the unconsciousness on the part of a patient as being restful sleep, or like engaging oneself in another action (by way of diversion) getting fatigued with the first, and calling the latter as rest. But all this is like putting up with fist blows, in order to escape from the blows with a cudgel. Enough however of this. He alone, I repeat, is the (proper) relinquisher in all the three worlds, who has relinquished the action-fruit and (thereby) reduced activism to nullity.