The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ chapter four
act wisely, with detachment. The wise never act with selfish
attachment to the fruit of their labor; they give their best in
fortune and misfortune alike. Such people act in freedom.
The next section deals with the various kinds of yajna –
worship or offering – that may be performed by spiritual aspirants
of differing temperaments. Hindu rituals often involve
making an offering to the gods by pouring an oblation into
the sacred fire. Here the image is the same: whatever is offered
is symbolically thrown into a consuming fire that carries the
offering to God. The offering may be as obvious as worldly
goods, or as subtle as knowledge or meditation: in any case
it requires a measure of self-sacrifice. Yajna is a basic action,
necessary to life, and those who do not perform some kind of
selfless service find no home in this world or the next.
The final verses of chapter 4 introduce a new principle. In
the last chapter, Krishna mentioned the path of spiritual wisdom
as an alternative to the path of action or karma yoga. Now
he reveals that wisdom is the goal of selfless action: knowing
is the fruit of doing. The goal of all karma yoga or yajna is liberation
and spiritual wisdom. The fire of spiritual awareness
burns to ashes even a great heap of karma; thus true knowledge
is the greatest purifier of the soul.
Krishna ends by exhorting Arjuna to cut through the
doubts that still stifle him. This is the first – but not the last
– mention that Krishna makes of Arjuna’s doubting heart.
There has been no indication so far that Arjuna has taken in
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