Ashtavakra Gita

Recognize that action itself is only appearance; give up the notion that there is anything at all left to do

Extends the actor image into a stronger metaphysical claim — that action itself, not merely one's attachment to it, is ultimately only how things appear from an unenlightened viewpoint.

Where the previous teaching addressed how to hold one's roles lightly, this passage from chapter 10 goes a step further and questions the reality of doing itself. From the standpoint the Gita is building toward, action belongs to the level of appearance, bodies, and the world of change — it is not something the unchanging self ever truly performs or needs to complete. Recognizing this dissolves the pressure to accumulate more spiritual accomplishment, since the entire category of "things left to do" was a feature of the mistaken viewpoint, not of the self actually addressed by the teaching. This is a sharper version of the doership argument raised in chapter 9, now applied specifically to spiritual striving.

Ashtavakra Gita