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.
Concepts