सत्कारमानपूजार्थं तपो दम्भेन चैव यत्।क्रियते तदिह प्रोक्तं राजसं चलमध्रुवम्॥
satkāra-māna-pūjārthaṃ tapo dambhena caiva yatkriyate tad iha proktaṃ rājasaṃ calam adhruvam
Word by word
The verse says
Discipline kept up to be thought well of, to be honoured, to be looked up to, and done for show - that is the driven kind, and it is called shaky and short-lived.
In plain words
Two words are tacked on the end, and they are a prediction rather than a judgement.
Cala - shaky. Adhruva - not going to last.
Krishna does not say this kind of discipline is wicked. He says it will not survive, because the thing holding it up is other people's attention, and that moves.
Where you've felt this · in creative work
Nandini starts learning the sitar and tells everybody. For four months she is remarkable about it. Then two people she wanted to impress stop asking how it is going, a difficult week arrives, and the sitar ends up on top of the cupboard. She did not lose interest in music. The thing she was actually running on stopped being supplied.
Going deeper
Shaky and short-lived is a prediction rather than an insult, which is what makes this verse useful instead of preachy.
The practice described is real. The person is genuinely doing the thing. What is wrong with it is structural: the fuel is other people's regard, and that supply is not under your control. It arrives, it thins, it goes somewhere else. The practice does the same.
Nothing here says the person is a fraud. Most of us have started something partly for how it would look. You are simply being told what happens next, which is worth knowing in advance.
And it points at the only repair available. Not purer motives, which cannot be installed by deciding to have them. A reason to continue that nobody else is involved in - something you would still be doing in a year when nobody asked.