Sanskrit
अन्तकाले च मामेव स्मरन्मुक्त्वा कलेवरम् । यः प्रयाति स मद्भावं याति नास्त्यत्र संशयः ॥
antakāle ca mām eva smaran muktvā kalevaram yaḥ prayāti sa madbhāvaṃ yāti nāsty atra saṃśayaḥ
Translation
And he who, casting off the body, goeth forth thinking upon Me only at the time of the end, he entereth into My being: there is no doubt of that.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
This is the doctrine the rest of the chapter builds around: whatever occupies the mind at the exact moment of death determines the state one goes to next. It’s stated first as an absolute — “there is no doubt of that” — before verse 6 generalizes it beyond Krishna specifically to any object of final thought, and verse 7 turns it into a practical instruction rather than a claim. The hour of death is treated as the single most consequential instant of a life, and BG 8.6 will make the mechanism impersonal: it is not that Krishna rewards the thought of him, but that mind at death fixes the next state, whatever it is fixed on.
Study deeper
Word by word
- antakāle ca mām eva smaranअन्तकाले च मां एव स्मरन्
- and at the final hour, remembering Me alone (anta-kāle + ca + mām + eva + smaran)
- muktvā kalevaramमुक्त्वा कलेवरं
- giving up the body (muktvā + kalevaram)
- yaḥ prayāti sa madbhāvaṃयः प्रयाति स मद्भावं
- who departs, he to My being (yaḥ + prayāti + saḥ + mat-bhāvam)
- yāti nāsty atra saṃśayaḥयाति नास्त्य् अत्र संशयः
- goes — of this there is no doubt (yāti + na + asti + atra + saṃśayaḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Krishna doesn’t open the death-moment teaching with the general law — he opens with the specific, flattering case of thinking of him. Only in the next verse does the claim widen to any object of final thought at all. Starting with the exception you’d want to believe, before admitting the neutral rule underneath it, is a way of making an uncomfortable generality easier to accept.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're introduced to an uncomfortable general truth, notice if you first heard a flattering special case — the general rule is often harder to accept once you see it stripped of the version that favored you.
Professional
- When presenting a general policy that also happens to cover your favorite exception, be aware that opening with the exception can obscure how the rule actually behaves for cases you'd rather not examine as closely.
Family & Social
- When you explain a household rule to a child using yourself as the flattering example first, follow up quickly with how it applies more generally — the specific example can otherwise be mistaken for the whole rule.
Ask yourself
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