Bhagavad-gītā 3.8

Explain simply

Speaker: Śrī Kṛṣṇa

नियतं कुरु कर्म त्वं कर्म ज्यायो ह्यकर्मणः ।
शरीरयात्रापि च ते न प्रसिद्ध्येदकर्मणः ॥८॥

niyataṁ kuru karma tvaṁ
karma jyāyo hy akarmaṇaḥ
śarīra-yātrāpi ca te
na prasiddhyed akarmaṇaḥ

Word for word (synonyms)

niyatam
prescribed
kuru
do
karma
duties
tvam
you
karma
work
jyāyaḥ
better
hi
than
akarmaṇaḥ
without work
śarīra
bodily
yātrā
maintenance
api
even
ca
also
te
your
na
never
prasiddhyet
effected
akarmaṇaḥ
without work

Translation

Perform your prescribed duty, for action is better than inaction. A man cannot even maintain his physical body without work.

Purport

There are many pseudo-meditators who misrepresent themselves as belonging to high parentage, and great professional men who falsely pose that they have sacrificed everything for the sake of advancement in spiritual life. Lord Kṛṣṇa did not want Arjuna to become a pretender, but that he perform his prescribed duties as set forth for kṣatriyas. Arjuna was a householder and a military general, and therefore it was better for him to remain as such and perform his religious duties as prescribed for the householder kṣatriya. Such activities gradually cleanse the heart of a mundane man and free him from material contamination. So-called renunciation for the purpose of maintenance is never approved by the Lord, nor by any religious scripture. After all, one has to maintain one's body and soul together by some work. Work should not be given up capriciously, without purification of materialistic propensities. Anyone who is in the material world is certainly possessed of the impure propensity for lording it over material nature, or, in other words, for sense gratification. Such polluted propensities have to be cleared. Without doing so, through prescribed duties, one should never attempt to become a so-called transcendentalist, renouncing work and living at the cost of others.

What this verse teaches

A pretender externally renouces work but internally dwells on sense objects. Better perform prescribed work for Viṣṇu and avoid bondage.

Śrīla Prabhupāda lectures 2
Articles on this verse 1

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.