The verse and its meaning · Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 2 · The Steady Mind

The Slide to Ruin

Bhagavad Gita 2.63

क्रोधाद्भवति संमोहः संमोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः। स्मृतिभ्रंशाद् बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति

Meaning · English

From anger comes clouded judgement. From clouded judgement, the memory goes astray. When memory is bewildered, the intellect is destroyed. And when the intellect is destroyed, a person is ruined.

Krishna gives Arjuna a staircase going down, one step at a time. Three words carry it. Sammoha is a clouding, a fog over judgement, the state where you cannot see a situation as it is. Smriti is memory, and here it means more than facts: it is holding on to what you know matters, your teachings, your promises, your own better self. Buddhi is the intellect, the faculty that weighs things and decides. Krishna says anger first fogs the judgement. In the fog, memory goes astray, so what you once knew to be right is no longer in front of you. With nothing to weigh against, the intellect fails. Then the person is ruined, because nothing is left inside to steer. Krishna says this to show why the earlier steps matter: the fall is gradual, and each step looks small from the one before. Shankara reads the ruin as losing the very purpose of a human life. Ramanuja reads it as falling away from the steady self-knowledge that the earlier verses build. Madhva also takes it as a warning about falling from the path. The verse asks the listener to recognise the first step, the fog, while there is still memory to find the way back.

A fuse board in an old house, where one tripped circuit overloads the next. First the porch light goes, then the hall, then the kitchen, until the whole house is dark. Anger is the first trip, and each faculty after it goes out in turn.

1. Tonight, recall one moment from this week when you were angry. Write down in a line or two what you said or did. 2. Ask yourself what you knew to be true or important that you could not recall at the time. Name it plainly. 3. Next time you feel heat rising, stop for the length of three slow breaths and silently say one thing you care about, such as a person's name or a promise you made. 4. Notice, for that one day, whether the fog lifts a little.

A woman stands on a railway platform at night. Her train has been cancelled, and she snaps at the clerk, who can do nothing about it. Her voice rises. She forgets that her brother, whom she called an hour ago, said he would drive to fetch her. She forgets that her ticket can be refunded at the window beside her. All she can see is the clerk's face and her own grievance. The verse follows this narrowing step by step. First the judgement fogs, so the clerk looks like the enemy. Then memory slips, and the brother and the refund are gone. Then the mind has nothing to weigh, and she decides to storm off into the dark. Ordinary experience bears this out: people in a rage cannot recall what they know perfectly well when calm. Seeing the fog as it forms, and reaching for one remembered fact, is the whole opening the verse gives. It does not promise that the train will come, that the anger will never rise, or that the loss of an evening will feel small. It describes where the road leads, so the first step can be caught.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: How Anger Begins · Bhagavad Gita 2.62
• Next: Grace for the Unbound · Bhagavad Gita 2.64
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