Verse 6.1

Verse 6.1: “Not adhering to the action’s fruit, who does what need doing, he is the one that has renounced, as also the one that possesses (even-tempered) application: and not the one that relinquishes the (Sacred) Fires or abjures action. (39)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

A (Karma) Yogin and a Sanyasin are seemingly two, but in essence they are one. You might take them to be different, but think closely and they will be found to be one. Leaving aside the appearance of two names, the Karmayoga—Path of action—is at bottom the path of renunciation and viewed from “Brahman point of view”, there is, know ye, no difference between them. One may address the same person by different names, one may reach one’s destination by two roads; or the same water may fill different pots; in that way the difference between “Yoga and Renunciation” is only nominal and not real. He is a Yogin, O Arjuna, according to the general need, who performs actions and yet is not attached to the action-fruit. Does not the earth, out of her natural stuff, sprout trees and other plants without expecting any fruit or gain out of them? That is the way the Yogin perforins action grounded in his Vision of Soul according to his own station in life and in good time and is also free from selfish love of his person, and who does not permit any attachment for actionfruit even to touch his mind—such a person alone should be taken as a Sanyasin, and he alone is a great Yogin in truth. Otherwise, not realising the essence of the Yoga, one who renounces all actions—usual as also occasional—in the belief that they become binding on him, and yet side by side gets fettered in the bondage of other actions—this is just like washing out one coating by another—and one acting in such a perverse way is handicapped for nothing. Every one has already been burdened with the worldly duties: in such a state instead of discharging that duty properly, why should he hastily get himself loaded further with a new burden of renunciation? Therefore even-tempered application to actions, without relinquishing worship of the Sacrificial Fire or without abjuring action prescribed in the Scriptures, is in itself the path leading to happiness.