Vyasa · a new plain-English translation from the Sanskrit
5.1 Arjuna said: You praise the renunciation of actions, Krishna, and then again yoga. Tell me decisively which one of these two is better.
5.2 The Blessed Lord said: Renunciation and the yoga of action both lead to the highest good, but between the two, the yoga of action is superior to the renunciation of action.
5.3 He should be known as a perpetual renouncer who neither hates nor desires; for free of the pairs of opposites, mighty-armed one, he is easily released from bondage.
5.4 Children, not the wise, speak of the disciplines of understanding (samkhya) and of action (yoga) as different. Whoever is properly established in even one of them obtains the fruit of both.
5.5 The state reached by those of the discipline of understanding is reached also by those of the discipline of action. Whoever sees understanding and action as one truly sees.
5.6 But renunciation, mighty-armed one, is hard to attain without yoga. The sage disciplined in yoga reaches brahman before long.
5.7 Disciplined in yoga, purified in self, his self mastered, his senses conquered, his self become the self of all beings, he is not stained even while acting.
5.8 "I do nothing at all," thinks the disciplined one who knows the truth — though seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, breathing,
5.9 speaking, releasing, grasping, opening and closing the eyes — holding that it is only the senses acting upon the objects of the senses.
5.10 One who acts, having offered up his actions to brahman, abandoning attachment, is untouched by evil, as a lotus leaf is untouched by water.
5.11 With the body, the mind, the understanding, or merely with the senses, the yogis perform action, abandoning attachment, for the purification of the self.
5.12 The disciplined one, having abandoned the fruit of action, attains lasting peace; the undisciplined one, attached to the fruit through desire, is bound.
5.13 Having mentally renounced all actions, the embodied self dwells at ease, master of the city of nine gates, neither acting nor causing action.
5.14 The lord creates for the world neither agency, nor actions, nor the union of action and its fruit; it is nature that acts.
5.15 The all-pervading one takes on no one's evil, nor even their good deeds. Knowledge is covered over by ignorance; by this, living beings are deluded.
5.16 But for those in whom that ignorance of the self is destroyed by knowledge, their knowledge, like the sun, illuminates that supreme reality.
5.17 Their understanding fixed on it, their self one with it, established in it, devoted to it as the highest, they go to the state from which there is no return, their impurities shaken off by knowledge.
5.18 The wise look with an equal eye upon a learned and humble brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and even an outcaste who eats dogs.
5.19 Even here, in this life, the created world is conquered by those whose minds are fixed in equanimity; for brahman is flawless and equal, and therefore they are established in brahman.
5.20 He should not rejoice on obtaining what is pleasant, nor be troubled on obtaining what is unpleasant — the one of steady understanding, undeluded, who knows brahman, established in brahman.
5.21 The one whose self is unattached to outward contacts finds the happiness that is within the self; joined to brahman through yoga, he enjoys unfailing happiness.
5.22 For the pleasures that are born of contact with the senses are only wombs of suffering; they have a beginning and an end, Kaunteya, and the wise do not delight in them.
5.23 Whoever is able, even here, before release from the body, to withstand the force that rises from desire and anger, is disciplined; he is a happy man.
5.24 Whoever finds happiness within, delight within, and likewise light within — that yogi, having become brahman, attains the extinction that is brahman.
5.25 The seers whose impurities are exhausted, whose doubts are cut away, whose selves are disciplined, who delight in the welfare of all beings, attain the extinction that is brahman.
5.26 For those ascetics who are free of desire and anger, whose thoughts are restrained, who know the self, the extinction that is brahman lies close at hand on every side.
5.27 Shutting out external contacts, fixing the gaze between the eyebrows, making the outgoing and incoming breaths equal as they move within the nostrils,
5.28 the sage who has mastered his senses, mind, and understanding, intent on liberation as the highest, free of desire, fear, and anger — he is indeed forever free.
5.29 Knowing me as the one who enjoys sacrifice and austerity, the great lord of all the worlds, the friend of all beings, he attains peace.