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Bhagavad Gita 2.47: Act Without Attachment to Results

In short

Krishna's most quoted teaching: you have a right to your effort, never to its fruits. It steadies the mind when you are anxious about outcomes you cannot control.

anxiety about outcomeswork and careerhard decisions

karmaṇy-evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana

Bhagavad Gita 2.47 · Chapter 2, Sankhya Yoga

You have a right to your actions alone, never to their fruits. Let not the fruits be your motive, nor attachment draw you to inaction.

Spoken by Krishna to the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra — the Gita sits within the Mahabharata's Bhishma Parva — as Arjuna, overcome with grief and unwilling to fight his own kin, laid down his bow before the war.

What it means

You have a right to your actions alone, never to their fruits. Let not the fruits be your motive, nor attachment draw you to inaction.

Spoken by Krishna to the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra — the Gita sits within the Mahabharata's Bhishma Parva — as Arjuna, overcome with grief and unwilling to fight his own kin, laid down his bow before the war.

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About this verse

What does Bhagavad Gita 2.47 mean?

You have a right to your actions alone, never to their fruits. Let not the fruits be your motive, nor attachment draw you to inaction. (Bhagavad Gita 2.47 · Chapter 2, Sankhya Yoga.) Godify shows this verse verbatim from a verified corpus with its exact source, never a paraphrase passed off as the original.

Is this Bhagavad Gita 2.47 translation accurate and verified?

Yes. The transliteration, source, and meaning come from Godify's verified scripture corpus and are shown with their exact citation. Godify never invents or misquotes a verse.

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