ब्रह्मण्याधाय कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा करोति यः।लिप्यते न स पापेन पद्मपत्रमिवाम्भसा॥
brahmaṇyādhāya karmāṇi saṅgaṃ tyaktvā karoti yaḥlipyate na sa pāpena padma-patram ivāmbhasā
Word by word
The verse says
Whoever acts placing his actions in the infinite, having given up attachment, is not stained by wrong — as a lotus leaf is not wetted by water.
In plain words
The image everybody remembers from this chapter.
The leaf sits in the water. It is not above it, not protected, not somewhere else.
The water simply does not soak in.
Where you've felt this · with money
Your colleague has handled other people's money for thirty years — invoices, payroll, the petty cash tin. Not a rupee has ever stuck to him. He is not resisting temptation every morning. It never became his to want.
Going deeper
The lotus is a good image because of what it does not say.
It does not say the leaf avoids the water, or floats clear of it, or is somehow too pure for it. The leaf is in the pond, touching water on every side, and the water beads and runs off.
So the verse is not describing distance. It is describing a surface that nothing adheres to, which is the opposite of the withdrawal Arjuna asked about at 5.1.
Brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi — placing his actions in the infinite. The actions are not stopped or reduced. They are put somewhere else, and what they no longer do is accumulate against the person performing them.
And there is something practical in the picture for anyone who has stayed clean in a situation that stained other people. It was rarely white-knuckle resistance. It was usually that the thing never got a grip in the first place.