Action in the Bhagavad Gita — 10 verses across Chapter 1, including 1.38, 1.43, 2.38, 2.39, 2.43. Sanskrit, Hindi, English. One reel per verse.
They're blinded by greed. We are not. We can see the sin clearly. So why shouldn't we — who see it — be the ones to walk away?
“Clarity without action isn't wisdom. It's a comfortable excuse.”
— Krishna
This isn't his opinion. It's what the scriptures say. Men who destroy their family's dharma dwell in hell — not for a season, but forever.
“Scripture doesn't take sides. It takes understanding.”
— Krishna
Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same — engage in battle. Thus you will not incur sin.
“Equanimity is not indifference. It is the only condition under which action becomes completely free. When outcomes can no longer move you, they can no longer stop you.”
— Krishna
This wisdom has been declared to you in Sankhya, O Partha. Now hear it in Yoga — equipped with this buddhi, you will cast off the bondage of action.
“The map and the path are not the same. You needed to know what you are. Now you need to know how to move. Both are one wisdom — applied differently.”
— Krishna
Desire-ridden, with heaven as their highest aim — they prescribe elaborate rites conferring birth and fruits of action, all for the attainment of pleasure and power.
“Heaven is still within the realm of desire. Pleasure and power end. The one who aims at heaven aims at a beautiful prison. What I offer is beyond what desire can reach.”
— Krishna
Your right is to action alone, never to its fruits. Let not the fruit of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.
“Act — because action is yours. Release the result — because it never was. Do not work for the fruit. Do not flee into inaction. This is the whole secret: full effort, open hands.”
— Krishna
Established in yoga, perform your actions, abandoning attachment, O Arjun — remaining equal in success and failure. That equanimity is called yoga.
“Yoga is not the posture. Not the breath. Not the trance. Stand steady inside, act with everything you have, and keep the same face when it works and when it does not. Samatvam — that evenness — is yoga.”
— Krishna
Far inferior is mere action to the yoga of wisdom, O Arjun. Seek refuge in the awakened intellect. Pitiable are those who work only for the fruits.
“The same work can be done two ways — clutching at the outcome, or resting in wisdom. One is miserliness. The other is yoga. Seek refuge in the buddhi. The vast is unclaimed.”
— Krishna
One united with wisdom casts off both good and bad karma in this very life. Therefore strive for yoga. Yoga is excellence in action.
“Even good karma is a chain — a golden one. The wise act from beyond the ledger of merit and sin. Harness yourself to yoga. Work so cleanly that nothing sticks. Yoga is skill in action.”
— Krishna
The wise, united with wisdom, abandon the fruits born of action. Freed from the bondage of birth, they reach the state beyond all sorrow.
“You asked what the wise receive for all they let go. Not the small fruits they released — but freedom from the wheel itself, and a state without fever, without wound, beyond the reach of sorrow.”
— Krishna
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