एतान्यपि तु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा फलानि च ।कर्तव्यानीति मे पार्थ निश्चितं मतमुत्तमम्॥
etāny api tu karmāṇi saṅgaṃ tyaktvā phalāni cakartavyānīti me pārtha niścitaṃ matam uttamam
Word by word
The verse says
But even these actions should be done with attachment and fruits let go. That, Arjuna, is my settled and highest view.
In plain words
And then the catch, which is the whole teaching compressed.
Yes, do them. But do them the same way everything else in this book is to be done: without clinging, without the claim on the result.
So the exemption he just granted is not an exemption at all. The good practices are not allowed to become a new place to be greedy.
Where you've felt this · in creative work
Hari has sung at the same temple for thirty years. This year he is asked to step back so a younger singer can lead. He agrees at once, and then finds he minds a great deal more than he expected. The singing was never the problem. Somewhere in thirty years it had quietly become his, and he did not notice until it was taken.
Going deeper
Good practices becoming a new place to clutch is the trap this verse closes, and it is a subtler trap than the obvious ones.
Most people can see that chasing money grips you. Fewer notice that chasing a reputation for generosity grips you in exactly the same shape, and the second is harder to spot because everyone around you approves.
Chapter 14 named this precisely when it said that even clarity binds, and it binds by attachment to knowing. The same logic runs here. The purity of the act does not protect you from the grip; it hides it.
Which gives you something to check that costs nothing. Take the thing you do that you are quietly proudest of, and ask what would happen if you had to stop doing it tomorrow. The size of the flinch is the measurement.