8. Your assumption to yourself to any action, which has been done by the combination of many, amounts only to a conceit of your vanity, and exposes you not only to ridicule, but to frustrate the merit of your act. (So is the assuming of a joint action of all the organs and members of the mind, and the achievement of a whole army to one's self. So also many masters arrogate to themselves the merit of the deeds of their servants).
9. The yogis and hermits do their ritual and ordinary actions with attention of their minds and senses, and often times with the application of the members and organs of their bodies only, in order to acquire and preserve the purity of their souls.
10. Those who have not subdued their bodies with the morphia of indifference, are employed in the repetition of their actions, without ever being healed of their disease (of anxiety).
11. No person is graceful whose mind is tinged with his selfishness, as no man however learned and wise is held in honour, whose conduct is blemished with unpoliteness and misbehaviours.
12. He who is devoid of his selfishness and egotism, and is alike patient both in prosperity and adversity, is neither affected nor dejected, whether he does his business or not.
13. Know this, O son of Pandu as the best field for your martial action; which is worthy of your great good, glory and ultimate happiness. (War in a just cause is attended with glory).
14. Though you reckon it as heinous on the one hand and unrighteous on the other; yet you must acknowledge the super excellence and imperiousness of the duties required of your martial race, so do your duty and immortalize yourself.
15. Seeing even the ignorant stick fast to the proper duties of their race, no intelligent person can neglect or set them at naught; and the mind that is devoid of vanity, cannot be ashamed or dejected, even if one fails or falls in the discharge of his duty.
16. Do you duty, O Arjuna, with your yoga or fixed attention to it, and avoid all company (in order to keep company with the object of your pursuit only). If you do your works as they come to you by yourself alone, you will never fail nor be foiled in any. i.e. thy object thou canst never gain, unless from all others you refrain.
17. Be as quiet as the person of Brahma, and do your works as quietly as Brahma does leave his result (whether good or bad) to Brahma (because you can have no command over the consequence), and by doing so, assimilate thyself into the nature of Brahma (who is all in all).