Chapter III · Śloka 16
एवं प्रवर्तितं चक्रं नानुवर्तयतीह यः |
अघायुरिन्द्रियारामो मोघं पार्थ स जीवति ||
अघायुरिन्द्रियारामो मोघं पार्थ स जीवति ||
evaṃ pravartitaṃ cakraṃ nānuvartayatīha yaḥ |
aghāyur indriyārāmo moghaṃ pārtha sa jīvati ||
aghāyur indriyārāmo moghaṃ pārtha sa jīvati ||
One who does not follow in this world the wheel thus set in motion, whose life is sinful and who revels in the senses — that person lives in vain, O Pārtha.
The cakra, the wheel of interdependence, is the great image of this passage. To opt out of the sacrificial cycle is not freedom but a kind of living death — one becomes parasitic on a system one refuses to sustain.