A declaration · reflective in mood · builds on earlier teachings
“Repeated delusion keeps pulling a person farther from the divine.”
Those deluded beings, born again and again into shadowed births, never reach me and sink into a lower state.
The verse in reading order — each Sanskrit word with its meaning beneath. Tap a word to focus on it.
Read literallyshadowed · birth · having entered · deluded ones · birth after birth · me · not reaching · indeed · O son of Kunti · then · go · lower · state
People trapped in delusion keep taking shadowed births again and again. Because they never turn toward the divine, they sink into still lower states.
Krishna speaks this verse, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the chapter titled "Daivasura Sampad Vibhaga" (The Divine and Demoniac Natures).
Verse 20 sits in Chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita — Daivasura Sampad Vibhaga, "The Divine and Demoniac Natures". The chapter has 24 verses in total.
A family feud passed from grandfather to father to son gets worse with each generation. Krishna describes a similar downward spiral for the deluded: repeated births in darkness, each one further from him.
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Born again and again into asuric wombs, the deluded fail to reach Krishna and sink lower.
What this verse means
People trapped in delusion keep taking shadowed births again and again. Because they never turn toward the divine, they sink into still lower states.
Context & commentary
Krishna has just described the dark nature of destructive people, and now he shows the end of that path: repeated rebirth in shadowed conditions, with no rise toward him.
What it looks like today
A family feud passed from grandfather to father to son gets worse with each generation. Krishna describes a similar downward spiral for the deluded: repeated births in darkness, each one further from him.
“Cruelty repeated over lifetimes leads further down, away from Krishna.”
Explore related themes: delusion (19 verses)