Bhagwad Gita - Post 44

Verse 21

Yadyad aacharati shreshthas

Tattadevetaro janah;

Sa yat pramaanam kurute

Lokas tad anuvartate.

Whatsoever a great man does, that other men also do; whatever he sets up as the standard, that the world follows.

The word Sreshtha means great personality expert in the conclusions of the Vedas. 

Whatever actions such a great person performs others will try to follow. Hence the great personalities should always act in an exemplary manner to set the standard for the world.

In this way they inspire everyone to perform prescribed Vedic actions according to the qualification of one's varna or caste in life and one's asrama or stage in life.

If a great leader of society becomes a karma sanyasi, and renounces work, it sets an errant precedent for others. 

The leader may be at the transcendental platform and therefore eligible to renounce work and engage completely in spirituality. 

However, others in society use their example as an excuse for escapism, to run away from their responsibilities. 

Sage Tulsidas says: “One who renounces worldly duties, without the concurrent internal enlightenment with divine knowledge, treads the quick path to hell.”

How an enlightened yogi teaches on "selfless action" even after he has crossed all definitions / prescriptions / rules regarding action, prescribed in Gita or any other treatise? 

Let us see:

Visitor: Our work-a-day life is not compatible with such efforts [for Self-realization].

Ramana Maharshi: Why do you think that you are active? Take the gross example of your arrival here. You left home in a cart, took train, alighted at the Railway Station here, got into a cart there and found yourself in this Asramam. When asked, you say that you travelled here all the way from your town. 

Is it true? Is it not a fact that you remained as you were and there were movements of conveyances all along the way? Just as those movements are confounded with your own, so also the other activities. They are not your own. They are God’s activities. (Source: The Core Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Roy Melvyn)

Visitor: So Karma yoga is kartrtva buddhi rahita karma – action without the sense of doership.

Ramana Maharshi: Yes. Quite so.  (Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 643)

Question: Without the sense of doer-ship — the sense ‘I am doing’ — work cannot be done.

Ramana Maharshi: It can be done. Work without attachment. Work will go on even better than when you worked with the sense that you were the doer.

Thus, if one fails to do this by neglect or omission one commits sin by omitting to help benefit the welfare of the world by their example and the consequence will be one will fall down from the path they achieved after many lifetimes.

Love.