Shloka 1
Karma-vāda Critiqued, Varṇāśrama Reframed, and the Soul’s Distinction from the Body
श्रीभगवानुवाच मयोदितेष्ववहित: स्वधर्मेषु मदाश्रय: । वर्णाश्रमकुलाचारमकामात्मा समाचरेत् ॥ १ ॥
śrī-bhagavān uvāca mayoditeṣv avahitaḥ sva-dharmeṣu mad-āśrayaḥ varṇāśrama-kulācāram akāmātmā samācaret
သီရိဘဂဝန်တော် မိန့်တော်မူသည်— ငါ့ကို အပြည့်အဝ အားကိုးကာ၊ ငါပြောကြားထားသော ကိုယ်ပိုင်ဓမ္မများ၌ စိတ်ကို သတိထား၍ တည်စေပြီး၊ ကိုယ်ရေးကိုယ်တာ ဆန္ဒမရှိသော စိတ်ဖြင့် ဝဏ္ဏာရှ్రమနှင့် မိသားစုဓလေ့ကို လိုက်နာကျင့်သုံးရမည်။
In the previous chapters Lord Kṛṣṇa described through the story of an avadhūta brāhmaṇa the qualities and character of a saintly person. Now the Lord describes the practical means for achieving such a saintly position. In the Pañcarātra and other scriptures the Personality of Godhead gives instructions for executing devotional service. Similarly, in Bhagavad-gītā (4.13) the Lord says, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ: “I have personally created the varṇāśrama system.” There are innumerable rules and regulations in the varṇāśrama system, and the devotee should execute those which do not contradict the process of devotional service. The term varṇa indicates different classes of human beings, some in the mode of ignorance, some in the mode of passion and some in the mode of goodness. Devotional service to the Lord is executed on the liberated platform, and therefore some injunctions for those persons in passion and ignorance may be contradictory to the regulative principles for those on the liberated platform. Therefore, under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master who is nondifferent from the Lord, one should execute the basic principles of varṇāśrama in a way favorable for advancement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
FAQs
This verse teaches that one should follow the duties prescribed by the Lord—varṇa, āśrama, and wholesome family conduct—while taking full shelter of Him, performing duty without selfish desire.
Krishna explains that regulated, desireless conduct stabilizes one’s life and purifies the heart, and when done with shelter in Him, it supports steady devotional advancement rather than mere social religiosity.
Do your responsibilities conscientiously (work, family, ethics), avoid selfish motives, and consciously connect your actions to Krishna through prayer, remembrance, and offering the results to Him.