A core teaching · reflective in mood · a little context helps
“Clear seeing ends the pull of future pleasures.”
When your intellect crosses the swamp of delusion, you will grow dispassionate toward what has been heard and what remains to be heard.
The verse in reading order — each Sanskrit word with its meaning beneath. Tap a word to focus on it.
Read literallywhen · your · the swamp of delusion · intellect · will cross over · then · you will go · to dispassion · of what is to be heard · of what has been heard · and
When clear understanding rises above confusion, attachment to pleasures you have heard of or are still chasing naturally fades.
Krishna speaks this verse, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the chapter titled "Sankhya Yoga" (The Yoga of Knowledge).
Verse 52 sits in Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita — Sankhya Yoga, "The Yoga of Knowledge". The chapter has 72 verses in total.
For years a man dreams of the foreign posting everyone envies. When he finally sees the hours, the loneliness and the cost, the dream loses its glow, and he stops chasing what he had heard about.
Did you like this verse?
Krishna pictures delusion as a swamp; once your mind crosses it, promised pleasures lose their pull.
What this verse means
When clear understanding rises above confusion, attachment to pleasures you have heard of or are still chasing naturally fades.
Context & commentary
After explaining steady action, Krishna says that when the mind crosses the mud of delusion, craving for promised pleasures drops away on its own.
What it looks like today
For years a man dreams of the foreign posting everyone envies. When he finally sees the hours, the loneliness and the cost, the dream loses its glow, and he stops chasing what he had heard about.
“Clarity itself loosens craving. You do not have to force detachment when confusion ends.”
Explore related themes: vairagya (51 verses), buddhi (26 verses)