Verse 37

In plain words

How does knowledge destroy sin? To answer that, an example is given:

Just as a well-kindled, blazing fire burns fuel and firewood down to ashes, Arjuna, so knowledge itself, the fire of knowledge, burns all actions down to ashes — meaning it makes them seedless, incapable of bearing fruit again. That is the meaning. Of course, the fire of knowledge doesn't literally incinerate actions the way ordinary fire burns fuel. So what is really meant is: right vision is the cause that renders all actions seedless. And by implication: the one action that already set this particular body in motion — since its fruit is already unfolding — can only be exhausted by being lived through to its end. But every other action — whatever hasn't yet begun to bear fruit, whether done before knowledge dawned, or arising alongside it, or done across countless lifetimes before this one — all of that, every bit of it, knowledge burns to ashes.

Close to the Sanskrit

How does knowledge destroy sin? — thus, an illustration is stated:

Just as a well-kindled, blazing fire reduces fuel, firewood, to ashes, to the state of ash, O Arjuna, so knowledge itself, the fire of knowledge, reduces all actions to ashes — that is, renders them seedless. This is the meaning. For the fire of knowledge cannot, directly, reduce actions to ashes the way [an ordinary fire reduces] fuel to ashes. Therefore the purport is: right vision is the cause of the seedlessness of all actions. By implication: the action by which the body was set in motion, since its fruit has already begun to operate, is exhausted only by being lived out. So whatever actions have not yet begun to bear fruit — done before knowledge arose, and those coexisting with the moment of knowledge, and those done across countless past lives — all of those alone it reduces to ashes.

In plain words

“Brother-in-law! I know well all that went before your birth and all that came after it. Your birth is not ordinary; you were born with the divine wealth, and no one knows this but Me. Because of the infatuation that has arisen in you, you have deluded yourself within, thinking, “I am doing such great sinful deeds; I am killing kinsmen, gurus and elders,” and you keep reproaching yourself: ‘I am a sinner! I am a sinner!’ Well then! Can sinners, remaining sinners, not attain Jñāna? Even if sins were committed in the past, repentance will make them pure, will it not? Since Paramātma shows compassion to repentance, He will shatter them to pieces with Prema. Ratnākara, who until only yesterday and the day before committed many sinful deeds — was he not raised up? Did he not change into Vālmīki? Vālmīki's own story is the proof. What is gained merely by being freed from the heap of sins? You may say, ‘But there remain the meritorious karmas, do there not?’ You madman! People have no freedom to shed the fruit of sinful karma, but a man is free to give up the fruit of meritorious karma. When he wishes, he can renounce it. As a blazing forest fire reduces every kind of wood to ash, the fire of Jñāna reduces all karmas, meritorious and sinful, to ash. So, to attain such holy Jñāna, one must be full of śraddhā.”