कच्चिन्नोभयविभ्रष्टश्छिन्नाभ्रमिव नश्यति।अप्रतिष्ठो महाबाहो विमूढो ब्रह्मणः पथि॥
kaccin nobhaya-vibhraṣṭaś chinnābhram iva naśyatiapratiṣṭho mahā-bāho vimūḍho brahmaṇaḥ pathi
Word by word
The verse says
Fallen from both, without any standing place, confused on the road to the infinite — does he not perish, Krishna, like a torn-off cloud?
In plain words
The fear, stated in one image.
Chinnābhram iva — like a cloud broken off from the rest.
It drifts, it thins, and then there is nothing there.
Where you've felt this · in grief
You leave the career your family understood, and the new thing does not work out either. Now you are explainable to nobody, including yourself. That is the specific fear in this verse, and it is not about money.
Going deeper
Ubhaya-vibhraṣṭaḥ — fallen from both. That is the shape of the fear, and it is very precise.
Not failure at one thing. The loss of both: the ordinary life he stepped away from, and the other one he did not reach. A person who never started still has the first. A person who arrived has the second. This one has neither.
The torn cloud is exact for that condition. A cloud in the mass is part of something. Separated, it does not become an independent thing; it simply disperses.
And apratiṣṭhaḥ — without a standing place — is the same word Arjuna used five verses ago about the practice itself. He has moved it from the method to himself.
This is the low point of the chapter, and the answer that follows is the warmest passage in the book so far. The two are placed together deliberately.