Bhagavad Gita · 5.3 · Path of Renunciation·3 of 29
ज्ञेयः स नित्यसंन्यासी यो न द्वेष्टि न काङ्क्षति।निर्द्वन्द्वो हि महाबाहो सुखं बन्धात्प्रमुच्यते ॥
jñeyaḥ sa nitya-sannyāsī yo na dveṣhṭi na kāṅkṣhati
nirdvandvo hi mahā-bāho sukhaṁ bandhāt pramuchyate
Sanskrit recitation
Renounce the clinging, not the work · 5.1–5.12 · Teaching
Translation
He should be known as a perpetual Sannyasi who neither hates nor desires; for, free from the pairs of opposites, O mighty-armed Arjuna, he is easily freed from bondage.
Meaning
A man does not become a Sannyasi by merely giving up actions because of laziness or ignorance or some family quarrel or calamity or unemployment. A true Sannyasi is not a hypocritical coward.The Karma Yogi who neither hates pain and the objects which give him pain, nor desires pleasure and the objects that give him pleasure, who has neither attachment nor aversion to any senseobject and who has risen above the pairs of heat and cold, joy and sorrow, success and failure, victory and defeat, gain and loss, praise and censure, honour and dishonour, should be known as a perpetual Sannyasi though he is ever engaged in action.One need not have taken Sannyasa formally but if he has the above mental attitutde, he is a perpetual Sannyasi. Mere ochrecoloured robe cannot make one a Sannyasi. What is wanted is a pure heart with true renunciation of egoism and desires. Physical renunciation of objects is no renunciation at all. (Cf.VI.1)
After Swami Sivananda
Renounce the clinging, not the work· 5.1–5.12→
Teachers usually read this idea across several verses together, one shared reflection covers the whole unit.
- 5.1Arjuna said, "O Krishna, you praise renunciation of actions and also yoga. Please tell me conclusively which is better of the two."
- 5.2The Blessed Lord said, "Renunciation and the Yoga of action both lead to the highest bliss; but of the two, the Yoga of action is superior to the renunciation of action."
5.3He should be known as a perpetual Sannyasi who neither hates nor desires; for, free from the pairs of opposites, O mighty-armed Arjuna, he is easily freed from bondage.
- 5.4Children, not the wise, speak of knowledge and the Yoga of action, or the performance of action, as though they are distinct and different; he who is truly established in one, obtains the fruits of both.
- 5.5That place which is reached by the Sankhyas or the Jnanis is also reached by the Yogis (Karma Yogis). He who sees knowledge and the performance of action (Karma Yoga) as one, sees truly.
- 5.6But, O mighty-armed Arjuna, renunciation is hard to attain without Yoga; the sage who is in harmony with Yoga quickly goes to Brahman.
- 5.7He who is devoted to the path of action, whose mind is pure, who has conquered the self, who has subdued his senses, and who realizes his Self as the Self in all beings, though acting, is not tainted.
- 5.8I do nothing at all," thus would the harmonized knower of Truth think, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping, and breathing.
- 5.9Speaking, letting go, seizing, opening, and closing the eyes, one should be convinced that the senses move among the sense-objects.
- 5.10He who does actions, offering them to Brahman and abandoning attachment, is not tainted by sin, just as a lotus leaf is not tainted by water.
- 5.11Yogis, having abandoned attachment, perform actions only through the body, mind, intellect, and even the senses, for the purification of the self.
- 5.12The one who is united (the well-poised or harmonized) having abandoned the fruit of action attains eternal peace; whereas the one who is not united (the unsteady or unbalanced), impelled by desire and attached to the fruit, is bound.
Word-by-word→
- hi
- certainly
- na
- nor
- nitya
- always
- saḥ
- that person
- yaḥ
- who
- sukham
- easily
- bandhāt
- from bondage
- jñeyaḥ
- should be considered
- sanyāsī
- practising renunciation
- dveṣhṭi
- hate
- mahā-bāho
- mighty-armed one
- pramuchyate
- is liberated
- nirdvandvaḥ
- free from all dualities
- kāṅkṣhati
- desire
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