Not by merely abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from reaction, nor by renunciation alone can one attain perfection. 3.4

All men are forced to act helplessly according to the impulses born of the modes of material nature; therefore no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment. 3.5

One who restrains the senses and organs of action, but whose mind dwells on sense objects, certainly deludes himself and is called a pretender. 3.6

On the other hand, he who controls the senses by the mind and engages his active organs in works of devotion, without attachment, is by far superior. 3.7

Perform your prescribed duty, for action is better than inaction. A man cannot even maintain his physical body without work. 3.8

Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues. 3.21

Let not the wise disrupt the minds of the ignorant who are attached to fruitive action. They should not be encouraged to refrain from work, but to engage in work in the spirit of devotion. 3.26

It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world. 3.37

As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered by different degrees of this lust. 3.38

Thus, a man's pure consciousness is covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire. 3.39

The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust, which veils the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him. 3.40

Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bhāratas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization. 3.41