ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते।सङ्गात् संजायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते॥
dhyāyato viṣayān puṃsaḥ saṅgas teṣūpajāyatesaṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho ’bhijāyate
Word by word
The verse says
Dwell on a thing and you start to hold on to it. Out of holding on comes wanting. Out of wanting, when it is blocked, comes anger.
In plain words
Krishna traces the whole thing back to its first move, and the first move is tiny.
You think about something. That is all. Not pursuing it, not grabbing at it — just letting the mind rest on it repeatedly.
From there: attachment, then wanting, then anger. Each step follows from the one before without anyone deciding.
Where you've felt this · with money
You look at a thing you were not going to buy. You keep looking at it over a few evenings. By the end of the week it has stopped being a thing you might buy and become a thing you are being denied.
Going deeper
This verse and the next form a single chain, and it is one of the most quoted passages in the book.
What makes it useful is where it starts. Not with lust or greed, but with dhyāyataḥ — dwelling, turning something over. That is a mild, almost innocent activity, and Krishna identifies it as the beginning of the whole sequence.
The mechanism is worth stating plainly. Repeated attention creates saṅga, a sticking. Sticking becomes kāma, wanting a specific outcome. And kāma that meets an obstacle becomes krodha, anger. Anger, in this analysis, is not a separate problem. It is desire with something in its way.
That has a practical consequence the Gita will draw out later. You intervene early or not at all. By the time anger has arrived, four steps have already happened and none of them are reachable.
And notice this is a description, not a rule. Krishna is not saying dwelling is forbidden. He is saying this is what it does.