Shloka 14
अक्षरब्रह्मयोग (Akṣara-Brahma-Yoga) — Knowledge of the Imperishable, Prakṛti, and Devotion
सम्बन्ध-- जबकि आत्मा वास्तवमें कर्म करनेवाला भी नहीं है और इनद्द्रियादिसे करवानेवाला भी नहीं है; तो फिर सब मनुष्य अपनेको कर्मोका कर्ता क्यों मानते हैं और वे कर्मफलके भागी क्यों होते हैं? इसपर कहते हैं-- न कर्त॒त्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभु: । न कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते,परमेश्वर मनुष्योंके न तो कर्तापनकी, न कर्मोंकी और न कर्मफलके संयोगकी ही रचना करते हैं;* किंतु स्वभाव ही बर्त रहा है?
arjuna uvāca | na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ | na karmaphalasaṁyogaṁ svabhāvas tu pravartate ||
Arjuna said: The Lord does not create for people the sense of doership, nor the actions themselves, nor the linkage with the fruits of action. Rather, it is one’s own nature—habitual disposition shaped by the guṇas—that sets all this in motion. In the ethical setting of the Gītā’s battlefield teaching, Arjuna is pressing the question of moral responsibility: if the Self is not truly an agent, why do humans still experience themselves as accountable actors and inheritors of consequences?
अर्जुन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse distinguishes the Supreme Lord from the immediate mechanism of human action: Īśvara is not the author of a person’s doership, actions, or their fruit-bearing linkage; instead, action proceeds from svabhāva—one’s conditioned nature under the guṇas. This frames responsibility as arising within prakṛti-based conditioning rather than being imposed by God.
In the midst of Kṛṣṇa’s instruction on karma, renunciation, and the Self, Arjuna raises a pointed doubt about accountability: if the true Self is not an agent, why do people still act as ‘doers’ and undergo results? This verse states the premise that the Lord is not manufacturing doership; the momentum of nature is what drives embodied conduct.