नेहाभिक्रमनाशोऽस्ति प्रत्यवायो न विद्यते।स्वल्पमप्यस्य धर्मस्य त्रायते महतो भयात्॥
nehābhikrama-nāśo ’sti pratyavāyo na vidyatesvalpam apyasya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt
Word by word
The verse says
On this path nothing you begin is wasted, and nothing goes backwards. Even a very little of it protects you from a very great fear.
In plain words
One of the kindest verses in the book.
Nothing is lost. No effort here is wasted, and no attempt sets you back.
And then the promise that has kept people going for two thousand years: even a little of this protects you from great fear.
Where you've felt this · in health
You give up on the practice after three weeks. Years later you come back, and you are not starting where you first started. Something stayed. You cannot point to what, and it is clearly there.
Going deeper
Two technical words carry this verse, and both are reassurances.
Abhikrama-nāśa — loss of what is begun. In ritual, an action performed incorrectly or left incomplete was worthless; the whole rite failed. Krishna says this path does not work that way.
Pratyavāya is stronger, and it is the one that would have alarmed Arjuna's contemporaries. It means the negative consequence that follows a botched ritual — not merely no benefit, but active harm. Krishna says that does not apply here either.
So he is explicitly lifting this out of the logic of ritual, where precision is everything and a mistake is dangerous.
Then svalpam api — even a very little. Which cuts against any reading of the Gita as a book for spiritual athletes. Partial effort is not worthless here. It is the only kind most people ever manage, and the text says so approvingly.
The mahato bhayāt — great fear — is usually read as the fear of death and rebirth. It can also be read plainly, as the fear a man feels sitting in a chariot unable to move.