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 gave up the morning walks after three weeks, eleven years ago. You start again this spring and you are not beginning where you began the first time. Something stayed. You cannot point at what it is, and it is plainly 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 unfinished 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 harm that follows a botched ritual - not merely no benefit, but active damage. Krishna says that does not apply here either.
So he is deliberately lifting this out of the logic of ritual, where precision is everything and a mistake is dangerous.
Then: even a very little of this practice protects you from great fear. That 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 great fear is usually read as the fear of death and rebirth. It can also be read plainly, as the fear of a man sitting in a chariot unable to move.