Bhagavad Gita · Karma YogaChapter 3, Shloka 35 (3.35)

One of the Gita's most famous sayings. Svadharme nidhanaṃ śreyaḥ para-dharmo bhayāvahaḥ. Your own path — even with its flaws — is better than someone else's glittering path.

Shankaracharya: viguṇaḥ api vigata-guṇo 'pi anuṣṭhīyamānaḥ — one's own dharma, even when performed lacking in merits (perfection), is praśasyataraḥ — more praiseworthy — than sādguṇyena sampāditād api — another's dharma carried out with every merit. Sva-dharme sthitasya nidhanaṃ maraṇam api śreyaḥ para-dharme sthitasya jīvitāt — even the death of one established in their own dharma is better than the life of one established in another's dharma. Para-dharmaḥ bhayāvahaḥ narakādi-lakṣaṇaṃ bhayam āvahati — another's dharma brings the fear of hell and the like.

Acharya Ramanuja — karma-yoga versus jnana-yoga. Suśakatayā svadharma-bhūtaḥ karma-yogo viguṇaḥ api apramāda-garbhaḥ — because it is easy, karma-yoga, which is one's own dharma, even with its flaws, is free from error; duḥśakatayā para-dharma-bhūtāt jñāna-yogāt saguṇād api kiñcit-kālam anuṣṭhitāt sapramādāt śreyān — it is better than jnana-yoga, which, being difficult, is another's dharma, and even when practised with merits for some time is full of error. If in one's own dharma (karma-yoga) no fruit comes in this life and death arrives, even that is good — because in the next birth karma-yoga will begin again without obstacles. And jnana-yoga, which is hard for a person bound up with prakriti to take up on their own, is pramāda-garbhatayā bhayāvahaḥ — full of the possibility of error, and therefore fearsome.