Four claims sit close together in the Gita, and at first sight they seem to collide. First: nature's modes perform all action, and the self is not the doer (Gita 3.27, Gita 13.30). Second: every action has five causes, and the doer is counted among them (Gita 18.14). Third: whoever sees only the self as the doer does not see truly (Gita 18.16). Fourth: Lord Krishna still tells Arjuna to lift himself by his own mind (Gita 6.5). Is there a doer or not?

There is no collision. The Gita does not remove the doer. It removes one claim: "All this is my doing, mine alone." That claim fails in two places. On the inside, because action runs on nature's modes and the self does not drive it. On the outside, because the doer is one of five causes and never the only one.

Here we read the verses in order, chapter 3 first, then chapter 5, then chapter 18. After that we see where else the Gita says the same, where the commentators divide, and which questions a careful reader raises.

Where do these verses sit in the Gita?

In the third chapter they follow the teaching on work done as sacrifice and for the good of the world. The Lord has said that work must be done. Now he says where the feeling "I am the doer" comes from.

In the fifth chapter the question is whether to renounce action or to practise karma yoga. In the middle of that comparison the Lord says what a knower of truth holds in mind while doing everything.

In the eighteenth chapter he has just said that giving up the fruit of action, not action itself, is true renunciation (Gita 18.11). Now he explains how an action comes about, so that Arjuna can see why action need not bind once the fruit is given up.

Two verses of the thirteenth chapter are only recalled here. Whoever sees the Lord equally present everywhere does not harm his own self by the mind (Gita 13.29), and the next verse repeats the line we meet in chapter 3 (Gita 13.30). That whole passage belongs to a separate topic. The idea of acting fully and yet doing nothing was taken up in Karma and Akarma (Gita 4.20).

3.27–29: where is the mistake in "I am the doer"?

The verse has two halves. The first says how action really happens: the modes of nature perform all actions, in every way. The actions are described as under way, happening now, and what performs them is the modes. The second half describes the person whose mind is deluded by ego. He takes it for granted: "I am the doer."

The verse does not blame action. The mistake lies in taking something for granted. The verse speaks of a belief, not of a deed. A man may move the same hands everyone moves and yet add to it the belief that he is the sole owner of what happens. His error is in the belief.

The next verse sets beside him the one who has seen the line. He knows the difference between the modes and their actions, so he holds that the modes move among the modes (Gita 3.28). The senses are made of the modes, and so are their objects; action is these two meeting. The result of this seeing is one thing only: he does not become attached to action. The verse does not say he gives up action. Attachment goes. Action stays.

The following verse adds a caution. Those deluded by the modes stay busy in the modes' actions, and one who knows the whole should not unsettle those who know only part (Gita 3.29). This teaching is no stick for beating others with. The one who has understood carries more responsibility, not less: he speaks patiently, so that what the other has built up in understanding is not broken.

5.8–9: what does the knower hold while doing everything?

Two lists are given. The first has eight acts: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping and breathing. The second has four more: speaking, letting go, taking, and opening and closing the eyes. The body does most of the first list almost by itself. The second adds acts that look chosen, speaking and giving and taking. The Lord adds them on purpose, so that no one can say: "My chosen acts at least are mine."

Through all of these the knower understands that only the senses are moving among their objects (Gita 5.9), and that "in truth I do nothing" (Gita 5.8). This knower is described as established in yoga. That means he does not recite the line; it comes from a steady way of seeing.

One mistake must be avoided here. The verse does not say he stops working. The lists are lists of acts, and every act goes on. What has changed is the sense with which the act is done.

5.13–14: where does the self rest, and what does the Lord not create?

One who has mastered mind and senses renounces all action in the mind and stays at ease in the city of nine gates, the body. The tradition counts the nine openings as the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, the mouth and two lower openings. The words "in the mind" matter. The renunciation happens in the mind and not in the body: actions go on, and the claim to be their doer falls away. The verse closes with both statements together: he neither acts himself nor makes others act.

The next verse names three things that the Lord does not create for people: doership, their actions, and the joining of action to its fruit. In place of all three, what works is one's own nature. The feeling "I am the one who does" is not handed down from above. It runs in a being's own nature, just as everything else does.

The word "nature" will be useful later. Lord Krishna says that even the wise act according to their nature (Gita 3.33), and that Arjuna's ego-based resolve not to fight is false, because his nature will set him to it (Gita 18.59–60). So even where we say "I decided", nature is at work. The hardest question this raises is taken up below.

5.15–16: where does the feeling come from?

The previous verse said that the Lord does not create doership. A question follows: if he does not create it, whose delusion is it? The next verse answers. The all-pervading Lord accepts no one's sin or merit, and beings are deluded because their knowledge is covered by ignorance (Gita 5.15).

Two points arise. The first is that the delusion has its seat inside beings: knowledge that is covered over. It is not something sent from the Lord. The second is that the remedy fits it. For those whose ignorance has been destroyed by knowledge, that knowledge shines like the sun and reveals the Supreme Reality (Gita 5.16). So the mistake "I am the doer" does not go by force of will. It goes by the light of understanding. That is why the later verse names the fault as an untrained understanding (Gita 18.16).

18.13–15: what are the five causes of every action?

The Lord tells Arjuna to learn from him the five causes through which all actions come to completion (Gita 18.13). They are taken from a teaching that explains how actions reach their end.

The five are these.

• The base: the body and the place where the act happens.
• The doer: the one who acts.
• The instruments: the senses and outer tools, of many kinds.
• The efforts: many kinds of trying.
• Destiny: what is beyond our sight and control.

The fifth stands last in the list. Three fine points deserve notice.

First, the doer is on the list. He is not called an illusion. What is caught is the doer who stands outside the list and says "I alone do it."

Second, effort is a cause of its own. It is not dissolved into the doer or into destiny. So the claim "everything is destiny, effort is useless" does not follow from the verse.

Third, the five are set side by side. No single one completes an action by itself.

The next verse gives the range of the list. Whatever action a person begins by body, speech or mind, right or wrong, has these five causes. Three things follow. Acts of speech and thought are counted, not only visible deeds. A wrong act has the same five causes. And so the list explains an act but does not excuse it. Naming the five causes of a bad act does not make it good.

18.16–17: what is faulty vision, and what is freedom from the doer-feeling?

"That being so" means: when the five causes are plain. Then whoever, through an untrained understanding, sees only the self as the doer does not see truly. The verse names the untrained understanding as the cause. The fault is in the understanding, not in anyone's character, and understanding can be trained. This verse is therefore a diagnosis more than a condemnation.

One in whom the feeling "I am the doer" is absent, and whose intellect is not stained by the fruit of action, does not slay and is not bound, even if he slays these people. Two conditions stand together: no doer-feeling, and an undefiled intellect. One alone is not enough. The verse is close in pattern to the one that says the self neither slays nor is slain (Gita 2.19), and the picture of one who is fully engaged and yet does nothing was given in chapter 4 (Gita 4.20). It is spoken to Arjuna at the moment before a battle, and how to read it is the subject of one of the questions below.

2.47: why "do not be the cause of the fruit"

In the second chapter the Lord said that our right is in action, and told Arjuna not to be the cause of the fruit of action (Gita 2.47). At that point it jars: is the doer not the cause of what his work produces? The list in chapter 18 answers. The doer is one of the causes, so the whole weight of the fruit is not his to carry. The Gita says one thing in two forms: as instruction ("do not be the cause") and as analysis ("you are one of five"). The first says what to do, and the second shows why it is right.

18.26–28: the Gita also describes the kinds of doer

The doer has not been struck from the list, and this is clear from the fact that a little further on the Gita gives three pictures of him. The sattvic doer is free from attachment, does not speak the words of ego, is full of firmness and enthusiasm, and is unmoved by success or failure (Gita 18.26). The rajasic doer is attached, craves the fruit, is greedy, and swings between joy and sorrow (Gita 18.27). The tamasic doer is undisciplined, stubborn, lazy and given to putting things off (Gita 18.28).

The pure doer can be taken as the outer face of the free one in the verse about slaying (Gita 18.17). Inside there is no doer-feeling and the intellect is clear. Outside the work is done with firmness and enthusiasm, without the constant "I, I". The full account of this division is a subject of its own. Here it is enough to see that the Gita's aim is not that the doer vanish, but that he be purified.

Where else does the Gita say the same?

The three claims of chapter 5 come back in these verses: nature performs the actions, the self is a non-doer, and seeing this is seeing truly. The verse from chapter 9 adds something different. Nature does not run on its own; it works under the Lord's supervision. That returns below as one of the questions.

Where do the commentators read the hard points differently?

On three points the commentators divide into streams. On all three the conclusion that follows is the same.

Who is "the Lord" in the verse about creating doership (Gita 5.14)? One stream takes it as the self dwelling in each body: master of its body, yet not the creator of doership. The other stream takes it as the Supreme Lord: God does not place doership in anyone from above. On either reading the point is one: doership is not handed down; nature works.

The fifth cause. One stream reads destiny as the unseen result of earlier action. The other reads it as the will of the Lord's ordering. Both agree that this is the cause the doer cannot hold in his hand.

"The self alone" (Gita 18.16). One stream says the error is to take the pure self as the doer, when action belongs to body, mind and senses. The other says the error is to count the doer alone as the whole cause, among five. In both, the mistake has one name: credit or blame put in the wrong place.

Six questions a careful reader asks

Does "non-doer" clash with "the doer is a cause"?

No. They speak at two levels. At the level of the self, action belongs to the modes and the self does not drive it (Gita 13.30). At the level of conduct, the person who acts is one of five causes (Gita 18.14). The first verse cuts the claim "I am the owner" (Gita 3.27); the second cuts the claim "I am the only cause" (Gita 18.16). Both times the target is the same "I" that wants to write everything in its own name.

If nature does everything, is any responsibility left?

A great deal, and it is clear. The doer and effort are both among the five (Gita 18.14). A wrong act has the same five causes, so the doer can look at his part and mend it (Gita 18.15). The right is in action, not in fruit (Gita 2.47). And Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to lift himself (Gita 6.5). After the whole teaching, he asks him to reflect fully and then do as he wishes (Gita 18.63). Why speak so to one who is no doer at all, if no part of the choosing were in his hands?

Does the fifth cause make effort pointless?

No. Effort is a cause in its own right, and destiny is one of five. Destiny is what the doer does not hold, and that is why the Gita forbids clinging to fruit while it gives the right to action (Gita 2.47). The existence of destiny is no reason to give up effort. It is a reason to give up the fruit.

Does 18.17 forgive harm done without the doer-feeling?

No. Four things stand against that reading. First, the verse sets two conditions, and the second is that the intellect is not stained by the fruit of action. Violence driven by hatred, greed or pride is exactly the case where the intellect is stained. Second, the verse declares no act harmless; it says where bondage forms: in the doer-feeling and in a spoiled intellect. Third, it is said at the point where Arjuna has refused to fight, and nowhere does the Gita give it as a licence for violence. Fourth, it is the same kind of statement as the one made about the self (Gita 2.19); whether a particular act is right is judged by the Gita's other measures, such as the marks of a good doer (Gita 18.26–28), and the words "right or wrong" (Gita 18.15) point to that judgement.

If my nature drives me, where is my freedom?

The Gita keeps both ends of this question. On one side, a resolve taken on the support of ego loses to nature (Gita 18.59–60), and even the wise act according to their nature (Gita 3.33). On the other side, the same Lord says: raise yourself by your own mind (Gita 6.5). Freedom, in this context, is not understood as a choice entirely unaffected by one's nature, conditioning, or circumstances. Rather, it lies in recognising these influences and acting with awareness of them. The more clearly the five causes are seen, the less pressure the claim "I alone" exerts, and the less the mind is pushed about. The measure is the state of the mind: the more an action springs from ego and attachment, the more nature rules it (Gita 18.59–60), and the more it is done with sight and with the claim handed over, the freer it is (Gita 3.28).

Who answers for mistakes if nature works under the Lord?

The verse sees the question coming. The all-pervading Lord accepts no one's sin or merit (Gita 5.15). The cause of the delusion is the covered-over knowledge of beings, and knowledge removes it (Gita 5.16). On the other side, the doer remains answerable for his own part, because a wrong act has the same five causes and he is one of them (Gita 18.15). That nature works under the Lord's supervision does not mean the doer's part has been moved to someone else's account.

Questions the verses raise, answered from the Gita and the tradition

Three questions rise from these verses: how much of an outcome belongs to effort and how much to the fifth cause, how nature can work under the Lord's supervision while the Lord creates no doership, and how being an instrument fits with acting by one's own wish. The Gita answers all three.

How much belongs to effort and how much to the unseen cause?

The Gita divides it by what is ours: the right is to action alone, never to its fruits (Gita 2.47). The doer is one of the five causes (Gita 18.14), so his part is real and he answers for it (Gita 18.15). The fifth cause and the fruit are beyond his hand. So the measure is this: what is in your hand, which is doing the work with your whole mind, is yours; keeping an account of the rest is not your task.

The tradition has a saying that a chariot does not move on one wheel: for success, human effort and fate are both needed.

How can nature work under the Lord while the Lord creates no doership?

The Gita assigns them different roles. Under the Lord's supervision nature brings forth the moving and the unmoving (Gita 9.10), and He dwells in the heart of every being (Gita 18.61). But He does not create doership, action or the link between action and its fruit in the living being; that is the working of nature (Gita 5.14). The doer-feeling rises from knowledge covered by ignorance (Gita 5.15), and knowledge, like the sun, removes it (Gita 5.16). So the Lord is the ground and the witness, not the author of the doer-feeling.

The tradition gives the image of the sun: people do their various tasks in its light, and the sun neither does them nor is touched by their faults.

How does being an instrument fit with acting by one's own wish?

They are two ends of one thing. To be an instrument is to give up the doer-feeling and the claim on the fruit (Gita 11.33); to act as one wishes is to decide after full reflection (Gita 18.63). The Lord tells Arjuna everything and leaves the decision to him, and Arjuna accepts, saying that his delusion is gone, his doubts are over, and he will act on the Lord's word (Gita 18.73). So the one who becomes an instrument is the one who chooses.

So no question these verses raise is left empty. The verses give the direction, the rest of the Gita develops it, and the tradition explains it through examples and streams.

What the Gita does give is a practice. Do the work with the whole mind, see your own part, and let go of your claim over the rest. The next step in that practice is to hand over the work and its fruit, which is the subject of Offering All Actions. The freedom that comes to one who lives this way, active yet unbound, is taken up in Freedom Through Action. The self that neither slays nor is slain is the subject of The Imperishable Self.

Going deeper

The same verses, in plainer words and with an everyday example, are in the simple reading.