Bhagavad Gita 6.1
अनाश्रितः कर्मफलं कार्यं कर्म करोति यः । स संन्यासी च योगी च न निरग्निर्न चाक्रियः ॥
anāśritaḥ karma-phalaṃ kāryaṃ karma karoti yaḥ | sa sannyāsī ca yogī ca na niragnir na cākriyaḥ ||
Translation
He who does the work he ought to do without depending on its fruit is the renouncer and the yogi, not he who lights no sacred fire and does no rites.
Reflection
What action have you been waiting to escape that you could finish today without grasping at the result?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Six
Krishna opens the chapter by overturning a picture of the holy man. The renouncer is not the one who walks away from the fire and the work. The renouncer is the one who stands inside the work and lets go of the result. The cooking still happens. The letter still gets written. The meeting still gets held. What is dropped is the inner clutch on what comes back. This sentence quietly closes the exit door that the householder mind keeps eyeing. There is no escape into the forest that he is asking for. There is only this, done without grasping at what it will earn.