The salient implications of the Gita for the student of political philosophy is brought to fore here, in the form of more practical advice, namely that the ends never justify the means; that means are important and the end of enlightened action, not their results (4:20), and moral action requires sacrifice (4:25–30). Consequently, it is established that the end of the vita activa is “service” (4:23), and freedom is only possible when opinion has been replaced with knowledge and means are the determinants of action, not ends (4:41). These have valuable implications for the students of politics, especially for those with a passing familiarity of the works of the Stoics, who, too, held that the means have considerable significance enjoined to them, and how something is done is of sovereign importance (keeping in mind, of course, that the end of such an act is not in itself wrong or morally devious in some matter).

Krishna tells Arjuna, “the wise, ever satisfied, have abandoned all external supports. Their security is unaffected by the results of their action; even while acting, they really do nothing at all” (4:20). It can be deduced from Krishna’s previous teachings that the stationary state of inaction is neither possible nor desirable, for it leads to chaos, but here is an exhortation of similar authority and gravity to not act for the sake of acting, but instead act for the sake of the Self (contra the individual self). The wise ruler does what is right, not what is merely expedient or popular; a demagogue would be the worst sinner of all for he refuses to acknowledge the existence of eternal right and wrong, and dallies and dandies about, enthralled by wherever the vox populi aims its fleeting gazes and furtive glances toward. Notwithstanding this, because all beings have the capacity to be spiritual beings with knowledge of the soul, the ruler must not treat them with contempt, but with the benevolence and love of a father toward his family, with paternal love and care. When Krishna says that the wise ruler’s “security is unaffected by the results of their action” (4:20), it can be extended to ensure that the ruler ought to think of the summum bonum, and he must do what is possible to keep them secure, both materially and spiritually. The ruler’s obligations toward his subjects are multifarious and extensive, of serious consequence in both realms, the earthly and the divine, but the ruler ought to enjoin himself to the cosmic standard of justice, the universal norms of justice, avoiding the fate of the Athenians in the Melian dialogue at all costs. The conscientious ruler would not have the freedom to commit such a textbook mistake, where expediency is the basis of right and wrong, not the eternal standards of justice. When the wise act, they “really do nothing at all” (4:20) because they do not act on their own volition; the agency and legitimacy of their actions stems from the righteousness of their acts, not from the actions themselves. This ensures surrendering one’s agency and cognition to the wisdom of one’s ancestors (cf. 4:1–10), but more importantly, to knowledge of the self, of Brahman, of the ultimate reality which is the godhead of existence. A just regime or a wise man, in broad strokes, will look the same, ceteris paribus, across any cross-section of time, for both touch upon something which is eternal.

Now that the importance of how has been established, Krishna turns his attention to its elucidation: “… their minds are fixed in knowledge. They perform all work in the spirit of service, and their karma is dissolved” (4:23). The first part of the quote emphasises the importance of knowledge, which is a necessary precondition for action: knowledge of the sort that is eternal, of the studia humanitatis, even, which is the study of the eternally human. It deals with knowledge of the soul, too, for Krishna’s recommendation is to look inward, where one can find the deepest complexities of the self manifested in myriad forms. The “spirit of service” is important: the ruler must not take his task to like Octavian’s personal ‘ownership’ of Egypt as Emperor, for the ruler serves, not exploits brazenly and openly. The government serves the polis, and not the other way around, though this does not mean that there are no duties and responsibilities which mutually exist between the two.

What does this spirit of service require? The answer lies in 4:25–30; the gist of which is that the essential nature of service lies in sacrifice. What is right is not necessarily profitable for oneself immediately or shallowly, but seen in its appropriate significance and scope, it is discernible that the principle of sacrifice entails that the ruler not be motivated by a lust for territory or animus against a particular individual, but rather sacrifices both personal desires and the propensity to enrich oneself with what is the bounty of the res publica that must be kept at bay. Sacrifice is the key to understanding political philosophy, because if it is the determinant for measuring the goodness of a statesman, it entails the adoption of a middle path that is the road to salvation. The good statesman is concerned with the spiritual health of both himself and his polis, and he takes it upon himself not only to avoid wrongdoing, butt also to emphasise and imbue in the populace a love for virtue, promoting a standard that is neither extreme in its deprivation or its excesses. Sacrifice here is symbolic also of the lack of completely sovereignty: one must necessarily sacrifice the vanity of the self to the ultimate reality, the Brahman, for without this sacrifice of total sovereignty over the self and consequently over the polis, no state can achieve justice. This contemplation upon the inner self and what could be called the world of eternal forms (somewhat of a misnomer considering the Platonic implications) would ensure that the polis does not find complete expression of its values and opinions in its moral dictats, but rather draws them from elsewhere to find the highest possible good as the highest sovereign form of human association.

What, then, does freedom entail? In seeking to replace opinion with knowledge, and then acting on the basis of the knowledge: “Those established in the self have renounced selfish attachments to their actions and cut through doubts with spiritual wisdom. They act in freedom” (4:41). Freedom for the wise man is not the same as the vulgar conception of freedom often advanced in common discourse and tongues: that freedom is license, and that licentiousness lacks consequences. On the other hand, man cannot realise the knowledge of the self without being free, i.e., having the freedom to think and to know. Virtuosity cannot be compelled; neither can enlightenment. What, then, is the way forward? What can one do to live the best life?

For the ruler, this is not a particularly thorny issue. His obligation, first and foremost, must be to the welfare of the people, and toward the common good. He must gently guide the polis and its inhabitants to the right path, the path of service, sacrifice, and freedom without license. He does not rule with the coercive power of the state as his sole source of legitimacy, but instead removes all self from his actions and follows both human and divine laws, refusing to believe the illusion of state sovereignty, or, perhaps, as some international relations scholars would have you believe, of a state of anarchy.