Chapter 2 · Knowledge of the Self
Bhagavad Gita 2.62–63
The chain from brooding to ruin.
Shri Bhagavan
ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते ।
सङ्गात्सञ्जायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते ॥
dhyāyato viṣayānpuṁsaḥ saṅgasteṣūpajāyate / saṅgātsañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmātkrodho’bhijāyate
क्रोधाद्भवति सम्मोहः सम्मोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः ।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद्बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति ॥
krodhādbhavati sammohaḥ sammohātsmṛtivibhramaḥ / smṛtibhraṁśādbuddhināśo buddhināśātpraṇaśyati
Dwelling on things, a man grows attached to them. From attachment desire is born. From desire comes anger. From anger comes confusion. From confusion, memory fails. When memory fails, understanding is lost, and when understanding is lost, the man is lost.
हिंदी · विषयों का चिंतन करते रहने से मनुष्य को उनमें आसक्ति हो जाती है। आसक्ति से कामना जन्म लेती है, और कामना से क्रोध उत्पन्न होता है। क्रोध से मोह होता है, मोह से स्मृति भ्रमित हो जाती है। स्मृति के नष्ट होने पर बुद्धि नष्ट होती है, और बुद्धि के नष्ट होने पर मनुष्य नष्ट हो जाता है।
What it means
The chain from brooding to ruin.
Dwelling on objects breeds attachment; attachment breeds desire; desire, when thwarted, breeds anger. Anger brings delusion, delusion clouds memory, clouded memory destroys judgement, and with judgement gone the person is lost. Break the chain at the first link.
This is the Trust’s own reading, written for this site. The verse above it is the text.
Verses that share its vocabulary
Near it in the text’s own words.
- 18.52living in solitude, eating lightly, with speech, body and mind restrained, ever given to the yoga of meditation, and firmly taking refuge in dispassion;
- 3.37It is desire, it is anger, born of the guna of rajas. It devours everything and does great harm. Know this to be the enemy here.
- 5.23The man who can bear the force that rises from desire and anger here itself, before he is freed from the body, is a man of yoga, and he is happy.
- 5.26For those who have put desire and anger aside, who strive and hold their minds in check, and who have known the self, the peace of brahman lies close on every side.
- 16.12Bound by a hundred cords of hope, given over to desire and anger, they work to pile up wealth by unfair means, to spend on the pleasures they want.
- 16.18Leaning on ego, force, arrogance, desire and anger, these fault-finding people hate me where I stand, in their own bodies and in the bodies of others.
Chosen by shared uncommon vocabulary, weighted so that a rare word counts for far more than a common one. A reading aid, not a claim that these verses mean the same thing.