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 jacket you were not going to buy. You go back to it over three or four evenings. By Friday it has stopped being something you might buy and become something 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 a sticking. The sticking becomes kāma, wanting one specific outcome. And wanting that meets an obstacle becomes krodha, anger. Anger, in this analysis, is not a separate problem at all. It is desire with something in its way.
That has a practical consequence. You intervene early or not at all. By the time anger has arrived, four steps have already happened and none of them are still reachable.
And notice this is a description, not a rule. Krishna does not say dwelling is forbidden. He says this is what it does.