Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 7: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Yoga-yukta (yoked to yoga) — not as achievement but as the one whose apparent doership has dissolved — the viśuddha-ātmā (the one whose inner instrument is purified of rajas and tamas) no longer performs any action in the paramārtha (ultimate sense). Vijitātmā (the body subdued) and jitendriya (senses brought under) are prerequisites for the samyag-darśana (correct vision) that sees oneself as the ātman of all beings from Brahmā down to a blade of grass. He acts, yes — for loka-saṃgraha (sustaining the world) — but na lipyate (is not bound), because in truth he does not act at all.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The karma-yogi engaged in śāstrīya karma (scriptural action as worship of the Paramapuruṣa) naturally achieves viśuddha-manas (purified mind), and from that purity flows the mastery that Rāmānuja reads as three ascending grades: mind made tractable through the joy of habitual service, senses following naturally, and then the decisive vision — sarva-bhūtātma-bhūtātmā (the ātman recognised as uniform in all bodies, free from prakṛti-pariṇāma distinctions). Such a one, acting, na lipyate (is not entangled) in the non-self — and therefore attains the ātman swiftly (aciryena). The logic is kainkarya: because the act is surrender, the fruit cannot bind.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva reads sarva-bhūtātma-bhūtātmā not as monistic identity but as a theological predicate of Paramādhīśvara alone: it is Paramēśvara (the Supreme Lord) who is sarvabhūtātmabhūtaḥ — the inner ātman who draws the jīva toward himself (svsamīpaṃ pratyādānādikartā). The yoga-yukta jīva is not the universal ātman; the jīva's na lipyate (non-binding) comes from dependent proximity to Hari, not from any conflation of essence. This is a sharp polemic: identity-readings dissolve the very distinction that makes liberation (nearness to Hari) meaningful.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads these three epithets — yoga-yukta, vijitātmā, jitēndriya — as characterising the triguṇātīta (one who has transcended the three guṇas through Kṛṣṇa's prasāda, grace-gift). The verse does not describe a sādhaka's gradual conquest but the natural condition of one whom Bhagavān has already seized. Na lipyate (non-binding) is therefore not an achievement; it is Kṛṣṇa's own quality shining through a vessel emptied of self-will. The bhāṣya is concise here by design — Vallabha's point is that elaboration would re-introduce the doer.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames the verse as a direct answer to a live objection: even for one who has attained Brahman through karma-yoga, might not subsequent action still bind? No — because yoga (the quality of being yoked) produces viśuddha-citta (purified mind), which produces vijitātmā (mastered body), which produces jitēndriya (mastered senses), which culminates in the vision sarva-bhūtātmā (one's ātman as the ātman of all beings). Acting svābhāvikam (according to nature) or for loka-saṃgraha (world-sustenance), such a one na badhyate — is simply not bound.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana insists that the objection — karma binds, therefore karma-yoga cannot lead to Brahman — is dissolved by the meaning of the word yoga itself: karma offered without fruit-desire and without the sense of offering (bhagavad-arpaṇa-phala-abhisandhi-rāhitya) ceases to be karma in the bondage-producing sense. He then traces four ascending stations — viśuddha-ātmā (rajas and tamas expelled from the antaḥkaraṇa), vijitātmā (body controlled), jitēndriya (external senses controlled) — and equates this precisely with Manu's tridaṇḍī (the one whose speech, mind, and body are disciplined). At the summit the parama-artha-darśin (seer of ultimate reality) sees all — jaḍa and ajaḍa alike — as ātmamātra; acting from another's perspective (para-dṛṣṭyā) he appears to act, yet from his own standpoint (sva-dṛṣṭyā) there is no action and therefore na lipyate.