Sanskrit
योगयुक्तो विशुद्धात्मा विजितात्मा जितेन्द्रियः । सर्वभूतात्मभूतात्मा कुर्वन्नपि न लिप्यते ॥
yogayukto viśuddhātmā vijitātmā jitendriyaḥ sarvabhūtātmabhūtātmā kurvann api na lipyate
Translation
He who is harmonised by yoga, the self purified, Self-ruled, the senses subdued, whose Self is the Self of all beings, although acting he is not affected.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Having settled the sannyasa-versus-yoga question, the text turns to portraiture: what the accomplished karma yogi actually looks like. The verse piles up qualifications — purified self, self-mastery, controlled senses, a self identified with the self of all beings — before landing on the claim that matters for the chapter’s argument: such a person keeps acting, and remains untouched by it. Identifying one’s own self with the self “of all beings” is doing real metaphysical work here, the same non-dual move chapter 2 makes explicit about the atman, applied here to explain why the yogi’s actions don’t bind. Sarva-bhūta-ātma-bhūta-ātmā — “one whose self has become the self of all beings” — is why the actions don’t stick: there is no separate self for them to accrue to. This is the ātman teaching of chapter 2 turned into the mechanism of non-binding action.
Study deeper
Word by word
- yogayuktoयोगयुक्तो
- joined in yoga (yoga-yuktaḥ)
- viśuddhātmāविशुद्धात्मा
- of purified self (viśuddha-ātmā)
- vijitātmāविजितात्मा
- of conquered self (vijita-ātmā)
- jitendriyaḥजितेन्द्रियः
- senses mastered (jita-indriyaḥ)
- sarvabhūtātmabhūtātmāसर्वभूतात्मभूतात्मा
- whose self is the self of all beings (sarva-bhūta-ātma-bhūta-ātmā)
- kurvann api na lipyateकुर्वन्न् अपि न लिप्यते
- though acting, is not tainted (kurvan + api + na + lipyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Grammatically, this verse makes you wait: five qualifications pile up — purified, self-ruled, senses controlled, identified with all beings — before the sentence finally delivers its real claim, that such a person acts and remains untouched. The syntax enacts the content. Untouched action isn’t a switch flipped by one insight; it’s a state built from several disciplines stacked on top of each other, and the sentence won’t let a reader skip ahead to the payoff without passing through all of them.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you want the quality of acting without being consumed by outcomes, resist looking for a single trick — it's usually several disciplines working together (self-control, non-identification, groundedness), not one insight that unlocks it all at once.
Professional
- When a senior colleague seems unusually unbothered by a failed launch or a rejected proposal, recognize that composure like that is typically built from several stacked habits, not one trait — don't expect to copy it from a single technique.
Family & Social
- If someone in your life seems remarkably steady no matter what happens, resist assuming it's just temperament — steadiness like that is usually a stack of practiced habits, and naming them to yourself is more useful than simply envying the result.
Ask yourself
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