Bhagavad Gita 4.37
यथैधांसि समिद्धोऽग्निर्भस्मसात्कुरुतेऽर्जुन । ज्ञानाग्निः सर्वकर्माणि भस्मसात्कुरुते तथा ॥
yathaidhāṃsi samiddho 'gnir bhasmasāt kurute 'rjuna | jñānāgniḥ sarva-karmāṇi bhasmasāt kurute tathā ||
Translation
As a kindled fire reduces fuel to ashes, so, O Arjuna, the fire of knowledge reduces all actions to ashes.
Reflection
What past act have you been still answering to that the fire of knowing would reduce to ash?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Four
Bhasmasāt kurute. Reduces to ash. The verb is unromantic. The fire of knowledge does what fire does: it consumes the structure and leaves the trace. Sarva-karmāṇi, all actions. The image is intentionally physical. Shankara reads it as the chapter's most precise teaching on the karmic mechanism: knowing does not make the past unreal. It changes what the past can still do. Ash cannot bind anyone. The verse is also the last appearance of the fire image that has been threading the chapter.