ज्ञेयः स नित्यसंन्यासी यो न द्वेष्टि न काङ्क्षति।निर्द्वन्द्वो हि महाबाहो सुखं बन्धात्प्रमुच्यते॥
jñeyaḥ sa nitya-sannyāsī yo na dveṣṭi na kāṅkṣatinirdvandvo hi mahā-bāho sukhaṃ bandhāt pramucyate
Word by word
The verse says
Know him as a permanent renouncer who neither hates nor craves. Free of the pairs, Arjuna, he is easily released from what binds him.
In plain words
Renunciation gets redefined here, and the new definition has nothing to do with what you own.
No hating, no craving. That is the whole test.
A person meeting it is already a renouncer, whatever their address.
Where you've felt this · in family life
Your aunt gave away most of what she owned at sixty, and she mentions it about once a month. Your uncle gave away nothing and has not wanted anything new in twenty years. Only one of them is still keeping count.
Going deeper
This is the move that makes the rest of the chapter possible, and it is worth slowing down on.
Nitya-saṁnyāsī — a permanent renouncer. Not someone who performed an act of renunciation once, but someone in whom the two movements have stopped.
The test is stated as two verbs: he does not hate, he does not crave. Both are ways of being pulled by something outside you, and a person can perform every outward renunciation available while both are still running at full strength.
So the category has been quietly moved. Renunciation is no longer a thing you do to your possessions. It is a condition of the person doing anything at all.
Which means the question Arjuna asked has already started to dissolve. If the real renouncer might be someone fully occupied with work, the fork he was standing at was never a fork.