So Arjuna says no why I will get infamy I am doing this out of virtue and people will honor this, so Krishna says no people will not think like that which is described in next verse.

BG 2.35

bhayad ranad uparatam

mamsyante tvam maha–rathah

yesham ca tvam bahu-mato

bhutva yasyasi laghavam

SYNONYMS

bhayat — out of fear; ranat — from the battlefield; uparatam — ceased; mamsyante — they will consider; tvam — you; maha–rathah — the great generals; yesham — for whom; ca — also; tvam — you; bahu–matah — in great estimation; bhutva — having been; yasyasi — you will go; laghavam — decreased in value.

TRANSLATION

The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will consider you insignificant.

 

bhayad ranad uparatam, that ranad uparatam you ran away why because of Bhaya, you are there in the battle field and you are chickened out 

mamsyante tvam maha–rathah, all these great warrior maha–rathah what will they say they will say you ran out because you are a coward.

yesham ca tvam bahu-mato, those who are bahu-mato, those who has thought that you are a very great person.

bhutva yasyasi laghavam, they will say you are nothing great you are an ordinary person. So they will consider you insignificant. 

 

Our action are seen by people our motivation is not seen and people perception will be based on action at least till they are not close to us. And based on their consciousness they will ascribe ok when I have done like this or when people whom I know have done this kind of action…ok when they are afraid they ran away from battlefield, that is what happens to most people.

So there are three things: 

Our action are seen by the world and based on that they have perception…

Perception -> based on action.

Action -> Seen to exemplary

Motivation -> not known or seen by world 

So our action should be such that they don’t lead to wrong perceptions. That is why actions has to be exemplary that is why sometimes when we act in unusual way we have to explain why we are acting in a particular ways, then it doesn’t lead to false perceptions 

So Krishna is saying people will look your action not motivation or heart.

So this is a common human tendencies it is called, attribution error = > attribution means attribute to ascribe a cause to determine so whenever there are action we attribute motivation for those actions e.g. someone is eating a lot so this person is glutton this person is greedy, if someone is sleeping for a long time this person is lazy so like that we see action and we ascribe motivation to that and like that we usually do an attribution error. So what happens we generally give ourselves benefit of doubt, if I over eat I am hungry if that person eat he is greedy, so how the same action when I eat it is hunger when someone else do it, it is greed. If I over sleep I am tired if they over sleeps they are lazy, so this is human tendency we have to learn to avoid this attribution error, so we should not give motivation to actions without understanding circumstances otherwise we can lead to lot of misunderstandings, we should learn to give benefit of doubt to others e.g. Once a (first) devotee didn’t got sweet and there was another devotee (second) was having sweet and he was still asking for sweet then the first devotee thought see this devotee he has got the sweet and still he is asking for sweet whereas I didn’t got it, later when sweet came the first devotee understood that the second devotee was asking sweet for the first devotee and not for himself. So when first devotee saw second devotees asking for sweet since actually first devotee  wants sweet so based on his level of consciousness he assume that second devotee wants sweet for himself, so based on our level of consciousness we perceive every other person and based on action here first devotee is attributing motivation. So we have to be careful when we see action we should not attribute motivation by default. We have to actually investigate and try to understand the circumstances then we will understand properly so as devotees we should be careful but people in general in this world are not going to be careful like this so as far as possible we should also behave in such a way that we are not creating a situation where other’s misunderstood us. bhutva yasyasi laghavam.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said in CC, Sanyasi alpa cidra serva loke gaye. A small dot on a white cloth is noticeable to everyone. Similarly if there is a small flaw in Sanyasi or in a leader everyone sees that. So as a devotee we should not behave in way that will lead to attribution error among people and when we see others acting we should not assume that there are ulterior motives involved, we should be open to actually find out what it is.