Read slowly, the passage seems to pull two ways. The person who delights and is content in the self has no duty left (Gita 3.17). Such a person has nothing to gain from action and nothing to lose by inaction, and leans on no one for a personal aim (Gita 3.18). Yet in the very next verse Arjuna is told to act, always and well (Gita 3.19). The world's welfare is then named as a reason to act (Gita 3.20). And the Lord, who has nothing to obtain, says that He acts (Gita 3.22). If nothing is missing, what is the action for? And if there is a reason after all, was the freedom of the first verses real?

The answer is short. The purpose that the verses rule out is a personal gain, something the doer needs. The welfare of the world is not a gain for the doer. It is care, and care is what remains when need is gone. The passage is about the change from work that comes from lack to work that comes from fullness. Here we read the verses closely, set the readings of the commentators side by side, answer four objections, and then take up the questions that the verses raise and that the rest of the Gita and the tradition answer.

The passage and the order in which it is read

The ten verses fall into four steps. The first describes a person who needs nothing (Gita 3.17–18). The second gives Arjuna his own instruction and its two grounds: action leads him to the Supreme, and the world needs it (Gita 3.19–21). The third points to the Lord as the proof (Gita 3.22–24). The fourth tells the wise how to act among those who are still attached (Gita 3.25–26). The previous topic, Work as Sacrifice, ends on the wheel of giving and receiving, and on the person who lives only for the senses and does not turn it (Gita 3.16). These verses turn to the opposite person, the one who needs nothing, and ask what such a person does. The Gita's answer belongs to The Path of Karma Yoga and is carried further in Karma and Akarma: Acting Without Being Bound.

The wording of the passage is steady in the site's verse text, and the points below rest on that text.

A close reading of the ten verses

The person who needs nothing (3.17–18)

The verse opens with a turn: "but". The person in view is the opposite of the one who lives for the senses. Three things are said of this person, and they deepen one after another. The person takes delight in the self, is satisfied in the self, and is content in the self alone. Delight is the joy of the moment, satisfaction is the end of searching, and contentment is the rest that no longer asks for anything. The closing words, "in the self alone", shut out every other source. Nothing outside is being waited for. This is the contentment in the self that chapter 2 already describes as the mark of the steady person, who is satisfied in the self by the self (Gita 2.55).

"No duty remains" has a narrow sense. A duty, in the Gita's usage, is what a person owes because something is lacking: a goal to reach, a debt to clear, a fault to mend. When nothing is lacking, no such debt stands. Duty does not turn wrong, and the content person need not stop. The verse describes a freedom from compulsion, and nothing more.

The next verse (Gita 3.18) spells the freedom out in two negatives and one more. Nothing is gained by action, nothing is lost by inaction, and the person does not lean on any being for a personal aim. The third point matters most for what follows. No person, post or result is this person's private support. He does not need other people to fill an inner gap, whether by their praise, their obedience or their company. A reader who stops here concludes that such a person may as well do nothing. The verses that follow answer that conclusion.

Experience shows why this freedom helps work and does not end it. When we want something from a task, the mind keeps running toward the result: will it come, when, how much. That running pulls attention away from the work. When it quiets, the work is seen more clearly. Fullness is therefore not the enemy of action but its best ground.

The command that follows from this freedom (3.19)

The verse begins with "therefore". The freedom just described is the point Arjuna is to reach, and the way is stated at once: always do the duty that is before you, do it well, and do it free of clinging. Each of the three phrases carries weight. "Always" excludes the view that action is a temporary stage to be dropped once a feeling of peace arrives. "Well" excludes careless work done in the name of detachment. "Free of clinging" places the freedom where the Gita always places it, in the relation to the result and not in the stopping of work. The person who is not clinging to the fruit has no reason left to avoid action, and work free of clinging is also more complete, since attention rests on the work and not on the outcome.

The last clause gives the reward: acting without clinging, a person reaches the Supreme. Action is therefore not the delay before the goal. It is the road. The same teaching is given in the plainest form where the Lord says that neither refusing to act nor outer renunciation brings perfection, and that no one can remain without action even for a moment (Gita 3.4–5). The true renunciate and yogi is the one who does the work that is to be done without leaning on its fruit (Gita 6.1).

Janaka, and the second ground (3.20)

Janaka and others, says the Lord, reached perfection through action alone. The tradition remembers Janaka as a king who ruled while established in knowledge of the self. The verse uses him as an example that the highest state and the work of a household or a kingdom have lived together.

The name is chosen with care. Arjuna is also a warrior who carries the weight of many people. Janaka shows that knowledge and responsibility can go together, and that there is no rule that the knower must go to the forest. Nor is the Lord telling Arjuna to give himself up for society. He says that a person whose action holds people steady cannot turn away from action.

Then comes a second ground. "Even" keeping the welfare of the world in view, Arjuna ought to act. The small word shows that the world's welfare is added to the first ground and does not replace it. The first ground concerns the doer: acting without clinging leads to the Supreme. The second concerns others: the world is held together and guided by those who act well. The word for this second ground, acting for the welfare of the world, joins "the world" and "holding together or gathering". It means keeping people steady on the right way and looking after their good. Where the commentators differ on this point is taken up below.

The conduct of the respected becomes the world's measure (3.21)

Whatever a respected person does, others follow. Whatever standard such a person accepts as the measure, the world follows it. The verse says two things. The first is about imitation: ordinary people take their pattern from the conduct of those they look to. The second goes further, and is easy to pass over. It is the standard that such a person accepts that becomes the world's standard, not only the single acts. The weight lies on what the respected person takes as the measure of right and wrong, because that is what others will take from it. People do not copy the motion of his hand. They see what he holds worth honouring and what he thinks beneath him. If he changes his measure, the measure of those who follow changes too.

"The respected" has no fixed rank here. It means whoever others look to, a parent for a child, a senior for a junior, a teacher for a class. The verse explains why the welfare of the world is not something for a few. Everyone is, to someone, the person who sets the pattern.

The Lord as the proof (3.22–24)

Here the Lord points to Himself. In all three worlds there is no duty for Him, and nothing He has not obtained and has yet to obtain. Even so, He is engaged in action (Gita 3.22). The case of the self-satisfied person is thus taken to its end: the one who stands at the highest point acts.

Two reasons follow. If He did not act, always alert and without tiredness, people would follow His path in every way (Gita 3.23). The word "alert" shows how He acts: with attention, never with idleness. And if He did not act, these worlds would fall into ruin, and He would be the cause of disorder among beings (Gita 3.24). The order of the world rests on action continuing.

The two results are different. In the first, people take up the Lord's way, which here means that they too give up work: that concerns the effect of example, as in the verse on the respected (Gita 3.21). The second concerns the world itself: it does not stand by itself, and action goes on behind it. Taken together they complete the meaning of the Lord's action: He holds the world together, and He shows the way. When the Lord acts, His action does not bind Him, since He has no wish for its results (Gita 4.14), and He is seated, as it were, unconcerned, with His acts not tying Him (Gita 9.9). The Gita has no more complete example of work that is free of need.

The wise act like the ignorant, without clinging (3.25–26)

The last two verses return from the Lord to Arjuna and to every wise person. The ignorant act with clinging to the action, and the wise should act in the same way, with the same energy, but without clinging, wishing the world's good (Gita 3.25). The outer work is the same. The difference is inside, and it is stated exactly: what the ignorant do from clinging, the wise do from care. The ignorant person's work carries a pull: what will I get? The wise person's work carries a wish: may this be good for all. That wish is not clinging. It is the inner form of the wise person's work.

The next verse (Gita 3.26) says how the wise are to treat those who are still attached. They should not unsettle the minds of the ignorant who are attached to action. They should do all work well, in the right spirit, and draw others into it. The weight falls on two things. The mind of the attached person is the thing to protect, because it is what holds that person to action at all. And "in the right spirit" is the condition: the wise can draw others only if their own work is joined to the right inner state. What the wise offer is an example and not an argument. To pull away the support of a person whose mind rests on action is to unsettle him. And "in the right spirit" is the condition without which drawing others would be false: a person whose own mind is not joined does not join others by his example.

Where the commentators differ

There are two points on which the traditions of reading divide. In both, the practical conclusion is the same. The streams are given here without names.

What "perfection through action alone" means for Janaka (Gita 3.20). One stream holds that Janaka and others reached perfection by the practice of karma yoga itself: they acted without clinging. That action purified the mind, and knowledge came as its fruit. In this reading, action is the cause of perfection. Another stream holds that Janaka and others were already perfect, and that "through action alone" describes their way of living after perfection: they went on acting, and did not take refuge in leaving the world. In this reading, action is the expression of perfection and the model for others. Both streams agree that no one is excused from action, and that the example matters. They differ on whether the verse speaks of the road or of the state at its end. The second ground in the verse, the welfare of the world, fits both: for one who is still on the road it is a reason to keep going, and for one who has arrived it is the reason that remains. For Arjuna the practical gain differs a little. The first stream tells him that action will carry him to the goal. The second tells him that those who have reached the goal do not leave action.

What the welfare of the world means (Gita 3.20, Gita 3.25). One stream takes it as holding the world together: protecting its order and keeping beings from falling into confusion, as the Lord says of Himself (Gita 3.24). Another stream takes it as guiding people on to the right path: gathering them toward what is good, as the verses about example describe (Gita 3.21, Gita 3.26). In the Lord's own example (Gita 3.24) the second sense is the clearer, and in the verse on example (Gita 3.21) the first. Both lead to the same conduct, a person who acts well, free of clinging, with the whole in mind.

The same teaching elsewhere in the Gita

Four objections and their replies

Is the welfare of the world a purpose after all?

It is a purpose, but not a gain. The verse that rules out purpose says that the person has nothing to gain by action and does not lean on any being for a personal aim (Gita 3.18). What is ruled out is need, the leaning on others and on results to make oneself whole. Care for the world is a different kind of thing. It does not fill a gap, since there is no gap. The Gita describes this care elsewhere as the delight of those who rejoice in the good of all beings (Gita 5.25, Gita 12.4). It also shows it in the best yogi, who feels the joy and pain of others as his own (Gita 6.32). A person who feels this way does not act to gain a result. The action is simply what such a person is like.

Take a person who nurses a sick neighbour because the neighbour needs help and not because anything will come back. The nursing fills no gap in him, and leaving it would take nothing from him, and still it is service. The verse gives a test for telling the two apart: does the person's inner state rise and fall with the result? If success puffs him up and failure sinks him, his work still comes from lack, however much it looks like service. If he stays the same in both and goes on working, it is the work of one who is full. So the two statements do not collide: the first removes the compulsion, and the second names what flows out when the compulsion is gone.

Does the respect for example turn goodness into a public performance?

It does not, because the verses put the inner state before the outer example. The wise are to act in the same way as the ignorant but without clinging and wishing the world's good (Gita 3.25), and the condition for drawing others is that they themselves are established in the right spirit (Gita 3.26). Someone who acts well only to be seen as an example is acting from clinging to image, which is exactly what these verses set aside. The Gita names this fault elsewhere: the person who holds back the body but dwells on the objects in the mind is called a pretender (Gita 3.6). The example the verses want is the by-product of a free mind, not a method to be used. People copy the one in whom inside and outside agree, and the crack in a pretence shows sooner or later. The only way to become an example is to be that first.

If the wise must not unsettle others, may they never teach?

They may, and the Gita shows how. The Lord does not instruct Arjuna on His own motion. Arjuna first becomes a disciple and asks for certain guidance (Gita 2.7). Later the Lord says that the teaching should not be told to one without austerity, without devotion, unwilling to hear, or given to finding fault, and that sharing it among His devotees leads to Him (Gita 18.67–68). The difference is between pushing a person away from the work he knows before a better ground is given, which is what "unsettling" means, and giving the teaching to the one who asks. The wise do not break the footing of the attached. They show a better way by their work, and when asked, they teach (Gita 4.34). To unsettle is to remove a person from his work when there is nothing better to put in its place. The first teaching of the wise is their own work, which shows without words that action and fullness can go together.

If the Lord needs nothing, does He depend on the world?

The Lord does not depend on the world. The beings depend on Him. His action is care for them, not need: He comes to protect the good and to re-establish what is right (Gita 4.8), and nature brings forth the world under His supervision (Gita 9.10). The verse says that He has nothing to obtain and yet acts (Gita 3.22); this is exactly the point of the example. If He acted from need, His action would teach nothing about freedom. Because He acts without need, His action shows what action looks like when it flows only from care.

Questions the verses raise, answered from the Gita and the tradition

What does the content person do in an ordinary day?

The verses say that this person does the duty that is before him, well and without clinging (Gita 3.19). The Gita adds a picture of the inner state. Such a yogi, who knows the truth, thinks, "I do nothing at all," while seeing, hearing, touching, eating and walking, because he sees that it is the senses that move among their objects (Gita 5.8–9). The outer life continues; the sense of being the one who acts and gains falls away. The Lord describes the result: a person whose mind is unattached everywhere, who has mastered himself and is free of desire, reaches the highest freedom from the bond of action (Gita 18.49). The wise person sees inaction in action and action in inaction (Gita 4.18): work goes on outside, and inside there is stillness. The tradition tells of Janaka as a king who governed his kingdom while established in the knowledge of the self, and holds him up as the pattern of a householder who is free. This is the tradition's account and not a verse of the Gita.

What moves a person to act when nothing is lacking?

The verses give the answer in the welfare of the world (Gita 3.20). The rest of the Gita shows what stands behind it: the delight in the good of all beings (Gita 5.25) and the view that makes another's pain one's own (Gita 6.32). It also describes the devotee who bears no hatred, is friendly and is compassionate (Gita 12.13). Fullness makes room for others, since the mind is no longer busy with itself. A full person gives, and loses nothing by giving, so what moves him is compassion and not lack. The Bhagavata tradition draws the same picture of the great souls who move among people for the sake of others, and not for any gain of their own.

Does this apply to someone not yet content?

It applies, but not in the form of "no duty remains". That is a description of the one who has reached the state. For the person still on the road, the Gita says that action is the means: before yoga is reached, action is the way up, and afterward inner calm is the means (Gita 6.3). It also says that refusing to act brings no perfection (Gita 3.4), and that the seekers of earlier times acted for this reason (Gita 4.15). The tradition describes the order in familiar terms: work done without clinging purifies the mind, and the steadiness that results is where knowledge is established.

What if the person others copy sets a wrong standard?

The verse says that the world follows the standard such a person accepts (Gita 3.21), so the quality of the standard matters. The Gita gives the measure: let the teaching of the scriptures be the authority in knowing what to do and what to avoid (Gita 16.24). A person who looks to that measure and not only to personal liking sets a standard that others can safely follow. The Gita also asks the doer to understand action, wrong action and inaction, because the way of action is hard to see (Gita 4.17). A standard that does not agree with this teaching is not made a model. The tradition says the same in its advice to follow the conduct of the wise that agrees with the teaching and not conduct that departs from it.

How can the wise help others without shaking them?

By working well, in the right spirit, so that others are drawn into the work (Gita 3.26). The Gita says again that the wise should not unsettle the dull (Gita 3.29), and it shows the other side of the matter. The teaching goes to one who approaches with respect, asks and serves (Gita 4.34). It goes also to those who wish to hear and have devotion (Gita 18.67–68). The tradition describes the same relation between teacher and student.

The three layers fit together. The verses give the direction: act, free of clinging, with the world in mind. The rest of the Gita gives the way: act, offer the work (Gita 3.30), delight in the good of all, and worship through one's own duty (Gita 18.46). The tradition gives the examples of Janaka and the great souls, who show that this way can be lived.

What this reading rests on

The verse text and the Hindi and English wording come from the site's verse data. The readings of the commentators above are given as streams of the tradition and not from a direct reading of any named commentary. The account of Janaka and the Bhagavata picture of great souls are tradition and are not verses of the Gita.

For a shorter reading, see the simple reading.