Never make the mistake of thinking that you will be fulfilled when your purpose is fulfilled. Your fulfillment is completely different from the fulfillment of your purpose. If you want to experience fulfillment, the space of completion, you have to work in a totally different dimension of your life. If you want completion of your being, listen to what Kṛṣṇa says here.

Kṛṣṇa is the first and the last Master who declared the truth as it is. There are two things to understand: Always, people who are active in the outer world know the techniques to achieve success in the outer world. People who are active in the inner world know the techniques to achieve success in the inner world. 

But Kṛṣṇa knows both! He is the only Master who is an enlightened man and a king as well. He knows how to achieve total success in the outer world and in the inner world. He shows you how to furnish your outer space with enriching, and how to keep your inner space empty with completion. That is life in totality.

The entire Gītā is only about this one idea: how to furnish your outer space with the ultimate luxuries and how to keep your inner space in the ultimate bliss.

Whether you are hiding something inside you from life or trying to hide something outside you from life, your own incompletions will destroy you. You don’t need a separate punishment.

Kṛṣṇa is the only one who has produced a formula for inner space and outer space together. He teaches you how to keep your inner space in eternal bliss and keep your outer space in ultimate luxury at the same time. You can’t expect this from a Buddha because Buddha gave up the outer space. He lived with just three pieces of clothing and he lived the life of a monk. So he taught us how to remain simple and blissful.

But Kṛṣṇa lived as a king. He wasn’t just like a king, he was a king. Only Kṛṣṇa can give a complete solution for practical spiritual living. Kṛṣṇa gives immediate solutions, permanent solutions, not long-term solutions. Only Kṛṣṇa’s solution is useful for people who are living a regular lifestyle. Here He says, ‘Not merely by abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from action. Nor can fulfillment come by giving up action.’ You can’t achieve freedom from action by moving away from work.

nakarmanāṅanārambhān naiṣkarmyaṁpuruṣo‘śnuteI

na ca sannyasanād eva siddhiṁ samadhigacchati II 3.4

Every step in your life, anything you try to protect by hiding only becomes more and more powerlessness and more and more suffering. You move out of your life more and more. Moving away from your spouse, business partner, family or any of the forces that exist in your life is not an intelligent decision. We always think moving away from people or actions to protect our habits and patterns is freedom. That is the biggest bondage! People who move away from life, work and people to save their pattern are in the worst bondage!

Abstaining from work or moving away from work cannot give you freedom from action. It puts you in the biggest bondage. To have freedom from action, your inner space needs to be purified. Your inner space should become empty to allow the natural space of completion in you. You need to remove the furniture of incompletions from your complete inner space. Renouncing furniture in the outer world is not going to help you. Only removing furniture from the inner world is going to enrich you.
Please understand, whether you are hiding something inside you from life or trying to hide something outside you from life, your own incompletions will destroy you. You don’t need a separate punishment.

Life is too powerful to cheat it with your logic. It functions with a simple, natural law of Existence, a natural dharma. The power of the natural law of Existence is such that nobody needs to teach you. By your very birth, if you start growing, you will get it!

The inauthentic idea that life has a purpose should be renounced. Life is a possibility, not purpose. That is why Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Just by renouncing, just by outer renunciation, authenticity in action, karma yoga can never be achieved.’

What is authenticity?

Building your own identity to the peak possibility and renouncing the identity built on purpose. What do you want to become? Every one of you, deep down, has a fantasy about becoming all-powerful, all-knowing, sarvajña. So now build that peak inner image, project the peak outer image, and take the responsibility to fulfill others’ image of you.

I tell you, authenticity in action is the strategy plan for your life. The quality of cunningness may be useful for a short time—a few days, a few years, a few lives, but not for all lives! If you learn and develop the quality of authenticity in action, it is the strategy planning for life after life. Authenticity will help you identify your real enemy. Your real enemy is not the powerlessness you experience in moving away or running after a purpose; it is ignorance of your purposelessness! One more thing, if you renounce the outer world, you will think about the outer world even more.

A small story:
An Enlightened Master and his disciple were walking near a river. They were supposed to cross the river to go to their monastery (ashram). On the way, a young lady was standing near a river. She wanted to cross the river but was afraid to do so.

She asked the Master, ‘Master, can you help me cross this river?’ He said, ‘Why not? Please come.’
He just lifted her, crossed the river, left her on the other bank, and continued walking towards the ashram. The disciple was observing the whole scene. He was not able to digest what he saw. He was angry. Maybe he was jealous!

After reaching the ashram he was not able to control himself and asked his master, ‘Master, you are a Sannyāsi (monk). How can you touch a woman, that too a young woman, and carry her through the river?’

The Master turned, smiled at him and said, ‘I left her long ago. Why are you still carrying her?’

Please understand, renouncing your identity in the inner space, or emptying your inner space and creating the space of completion and creation is the real thing to be achieved. That is yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam, authenticity in action! That is what Kṛṣṇa says here. Once you have renounced in the inner space, it doesn’t matter what you do in the outer world. Nothing will touch you.

source: chapter 2, Bhagavadgita Decoded verses, 3.1 – 3.4