In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna instructs Arjuna not to worry about the outcome of his actions in the war but to "hold alike happiness and unhappiness, gain and loss, victory and defeat" (77). Still, he advises Arjuna to continue to fight because it is better to act than to not act. This confused me because if it is true that the purpose of one’s actions is inconsequential and one ought to do them without desire for what they result in, why act at all?

I came across a few explanations that I think might answer this question. The first is that Krishna seems to emphasize that it is the application of single mindedness and control of desire while carrying out acts that is key to finding Brahman. Someone who has the restraint and focus needed to remove herself from her desires while still performing an act is brought closer to Brahman than someone who is merely "curbing the faculties of action, yet in his mind indulges his memories of sense objects" (82-83). Krishna finds detached action more conclusive proof of successful enlightenment than the renunciation of action. And action does not produce bad karma if it is done for what Krishna calls "purposes of sacrifice" (83). I am unsure what he means by using this term. Does he mean only that actions of a selfless nature do not deter one from finding immortality as acts of a selfish manner would? Or does he want to say something more about the role of these actions?

The second case in favor of continued involvement in the world, which I think might illuminate somewhat the sacrificial aspect of the detached actor, is that such behavior is necessary to keep the world order from collapsing along with all those people who are as yet unenlightened. Krishna says of himself, "If I were not to move in action, untiringly, at all times…people all around me would follow my lead. These people would collapse if I did not act" (83). So even those people who no longer hold any attachment to the world ought to continue to act in it in order to be role models and "hold the world together" for those who are still attached to it (83). Does the Bhagavad-Gita use this line of reasoning to suggest that the yogi’s sacrifice of selfish desire is somewhat equivalent in purpose to the ritual fire sacrifice?

The third argument I can find for action over nonaction is that one cannot help acting because it is not oneself that causes one to act, but the forces of nature. At the beginning of book 3 Krishna says, "A person does not avoid incurring karman just by not performing acts, nor does he achieve success by giving up acts. For no one lives… without doing some act, for the three forces of nature cause everyone to act" (81). This makes sense, but then he goes on to say that the three forces of nature not only cause, but perform the actions as well, and that it is only because one is "deluded by self-attribution" that "one thinks: ‘I did it!’" (83). This whole concept seems to me a contradiction of Krishna’s earlier reasoning because how can the practice of detaching oneself from an action be an exercise in control if one is not the one performing it in the first place?