Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 6: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  One who restrains the organs of action (karma-indriyāṇi) — hands and the rest — yet sits inwardly rehearsing sense-objects (indriya-arthān) with a deluded mind (vimūḍha-ātmā) is called a hypocrite (mithyācāra). For Śaṅkara the sin is precise: the external posture of renunciation is taken up, but the inner instrument (antaḥkaraṇa) remains turbid with desire, so no purification accrues. Outer silence masking inner noise is not silence — it is a compound lie.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja specifies that this person still carries unextinguished sin (avinaṣṭa-pāpatā) and an unconquered inner organ (ajita-antaḥkaraṇa), yet has formally 'entered' the path of ātma-jñāna. Because the mind (manas) is still drawn toward sense-objects (viṣaya-pravaṇatā) rather than toward the self, he wills one thing and does another — and so is called mithyācāra, a self-contradicting practitioner. Rāmānuja warns: the aspirant who begins the path without cleansing his inner faculty does not advance — he merely corrupts himself further.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva treats verses 3.6 and 3.7 together to make a single polemical point: the mind alone is the true agent (manas eva prayojakaṃ), so renunciation of the external organs without renunciation of the mind is no renunciation at all. He adds that karma-yoga here means action proper to one's varṇa and āśrama (sva-varṇāśrama-ucita-karma) — not householder duty alone, since the śāstra also prescribes sannyāsa. The mithyācāra is guilty not merely of hypocrisy but of abandoning the worship of Hari through prescribed duty.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha extends the indictment: even if one argues that naiṣkarmya (cessation of outer action) is possible through restraint of karma-indriyāṇi, that remains false, because the true form of naiṣkarmya requires cessation of mental activity (mānasa-kriyā-nivartana) — and this cannot happen through outer inaction alone. He cites a supra-verse: sannyāsa is at its root a mental act (mānasā eva), so one who remains mentally engaged with sense-objects while claiming to have renounced is a mūḍha-ātmā — a fool — and vyarthācāra, one whose conduct is simply wasted.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara reads the verse as a direct censure of the pretended devotee: one who restrains even the organs of speech and hand (vāk-pāṇy-ādi) yet sits 'meditating on the Lord' (bhagavad-dhyāna-chalena) while his mind is actually running over sense-objects — that person is a kapata-ācāra, a practitioner of deception. The key phrase is chalena ('under the pretext of'): the meditation posture is a disguise. Because the mind has not achieved stillness (sthairya) in the self through purity (aviśuddhatayā), the bhakti-display is a dambha — spiritual exhibitionism.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana specifies the psychological mechanism: this person took sannyāsa driven only by eagerness (autsukya-mātreṇa), not by genuine inner purity (aśuddha-citta), so the renunciation bears no fruit. The mind, propelled by rāga-dveṣa (attraction and aversion), keeps rehearsing sense-objects (śabdādīn) — not ātma-tattva — while the man sits under the self-conceit 'I am a renunciant' (kṛta-sannyāso'ham-iti-abhimāna). Madhusūdana clinches with a dharmaśāstra citation: without purity of sattva (sattva-śuddhi), the renunciant falls rather than rises.