मानापमानयोस्तुल्यस्तुल्यो मित्रारिपक्षयोः।सर्वारम्भपरित्यागी गुणातीतः स उच्यते॥
mānāpamānayos tulyas tulyo mitrāri-pakṣayoḥsarvārambha-parityāgī guṇātītaḥ sa ucyate
Word by word
The verse says
— the same in honour and dishonour, the same toward the side of a friend and the side of an enemy, having given up every undertaking: that person is said to have gone beyond the strands.
In plain words
The description closes, and the last item is the one with teeth.
Sarvārambha-parityāgī — having given up every undertaking.
Not every action. Every launching of a project, which Chapter 12 named too, and which verse 12 of this chapter listed as a sign of drive.
Where you've felt this · in community
Your neighbour built up a business over thirty years, handed it over, and did not start another one. He is busier than people expect — the allotment, two grandchildren, a bad knee he is managing. What has gone is the next thing, and he does not seem to miss it.
Going deeper
Giving up undertakings appears in three places in this book and it does not mean inactivity in any of them.
Chapter 12 listed it alongside dakṣa, capable, in the same breath. This chapter's verse 12 named the launching of projects as a symptom of drive. Here it closes the description of somebody beyond the strands. Across all three, the thing being set down is the compulsive beginning of new things, not work.
The distinction is between what needs doing and what is being started in order to become somebody.
Most undertakings carry a second project underneath them: the version of you that will exist once this is finished. That is what is described as having been given up. The allotment still gets dug, and nobody is going to be a different person because of it, and that turns out to be the whole difference.