Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga

Knowledge as a sacrifice. Action as offering. Krishna names his own incarnations and the lineage of yoga that came before.

All 42 verses below.

Wisdom translation, edited by Ankur Shukla. Commentary AI-drafted, human-reviewed. Reviewed June 2026. Methodology →

Verses

• 4.1Timeless wisdom survives by being passed on, not newly invented.
• 4.2Even timeless wisdom disappears when no one keeps receiving it.
• 4.3The deepest teaching opens only to devotion and trust.
• 4.4Doubt becomes the doorway to deeper seeing.
• 4.5Your memory is partial; the divine awareness is not.
• 4.6The unborn can still appear without ceasing to be free.
• 4.7When dharma collapses, the divine steps into history.
• 4.8The divine returns whenever order must be restored.
• 4.9Seeing Krishna truly ends the cycle of return.
• 4.10Purified minds reach what fear and craving cannot.
• 4.11The divine response matches the way you come forward.
• 4.12Desire for quick success makes people chase fast-acting powers.
• 4.13The source of order stands outside the order it creates.
• 4.14Knowing the action is not yours to possess breaks its grip.
• 4.15Right action is the path even for those seeking freedom.
• 4.16Clear seeing about action is what breaks bondage.
• 4.17Action cannot be judged quickly; its true pattern is subtle.
• 4.18Freedom can live inside action, and bondage can hide inside stillness.
• 4.19Knowledge frees action from craving and leaves no binding trace.
• 4.20Action loses its grip when nothing in you waits to possess its fruit.
• 4.21Freedom from clinging keeps action untouched.
• 4.22Equal-minded action leaves no hook for bondage.
• 4.23Action loses its grip when it becomes offering, not possession.
• 4.24When action is fully absorbed, even the result is not separate from Brahman.
• 4.25Sacrifice changes shape, but its aim remains surrender into the absolute.
• 4.26Restraint can consume desire before desire consumes you.
• 4.27Knowledge turns self-control into a fire that consumes every impulse.
• 4.28Sacrifice can be wealth, effort, austerity, or study.
• 4.29Breath itself can become disciplined offering.
• 4.30Discipline itself becomes offering, and offering burns away inner stain.
• 4.31A life without offering cannot even support itself.
• 4.32Seeing every offering as action frees you from action’s binding force.
• 4.33Knowledge is the point where every action finally comes to rest.
• 4.34Humility opens the door to knowledge that pride cannot reach.
• 4.35Knowing deeply ends confusion by revealing one reality in all beings.
• 4.36Clear understanding can carry even the heaviest past across.
• 4.37Real understanding burns the binding power of every action.
• 4.38Nothing purifies like knowledge, and yoga ripens it from within.
• 4.39Trust, discipline, and restraint make room for peace.
• 4.40A divided mind loses both peace and direction.
• 4.41Freedom begins when action no longer leaves a hook.
• 4.42Knowledge cuts doubt, and then action becomes possible again.