Sanskrit
कर्मजं बुद्धियुक्ता हि फलं त्यक्त्वा मनीषिणः । जन्मबन्धविनिर्मुक्ताः पदं गच्छन्त्यनामयम् ॥
karmajaṃ buddhiyuktā hi phalaṃ tyaktvā manīṣiṇaḥ janmabandhavinirmuktāḥ padaṃ gacchanty anāmayam
Translation
The Sages, united to the Pure Reason, renounce the fruit which action yieldeth, and, liberated from the bonds of birth, they go to the blissful seat.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
States the stakes plainly: this isn’t a technique for better outcomes, it’s what liberation from rebirth actually consists in, according to this passage. The sages described here aren’t people who avoid action, but people who’ve stopped being bound by what it produces — the same “bonds of action” verse 39 promised this teaching would loosen. Padaṃ anāmayam — “the place without disease” — is the chapter’s first name for the goal that verse 72 will call brahma-nirvāṇa. Karma-yoga is being presented here as a full path to mokṣa, not a preliminary to one.
Study deeper
Word by word
- karmajaṃकर्मजं
- born of action
- buddhiyuktā hiबुद्धियुक्ता हि
- for those joined with understanding (buddhi-yuktāḥ + hi)
- phalaṃ tyaktvāफलं त्यक्त्वा
- having abandoned the fruit (phalam + tyaktvā)
- manīṣiṇaḥमनीषिणः
- the wise
- janmabandhavinirmuktāḥजन्मबन्धविनिर्मुक्ताः
- wholly freed from the bondage of birth (janma-bandha-vinirmuktāḥ)
- padaṃपदं
- the state
- gacchantyगच्छन्त्य्
- reach
- anāmayamअनामयं
- free of ill (an-āmayam)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This verse doesn’t present liberation as a reward that follows renunciation of the fruit — it identifies the two as the same event. There’s no gap here between the practice and the payoff for the practice to fall into, which is a stronger claim than verses 49 and 50’s talk of skill and reasoning as means to something else.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Notice when you're treating a practice — meditation, exercise, honesty — as a means to some future reward instead of as the thing itself already complete; some practices don't have a gap between doing them and having arrived.
Professional
- Don't sell a difficult practice — writing clean postmortems, giving honest feedback — to your team purely as a means to a future outcome; sometimes doing it well already is the outcome, and framing it that way sustains it longer.
Family & Social
- Notice when you tell yourself you'll be present with family "once" some condition is met; presence done fully isn't a means to closeness later, it already is the closeness — no gap to wait out.
Ask yourself
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