अन्तकाले च मामेव स्मरन्मुक्त्वा कलेवरम्।यः प्रयाति स मद्भावं याति नास्त्यत्र संशयः॥
anta-kāle ca mām eva smaran muktvā kalevaramyaḥ prayāti sa mad-bhāvaṃ yāti nāstyatra sanśayaḥ
Word by word
The verse says
And whoever leaves the body at the very end while remembering me alone, goes to my own nature. Of this there is no doubt.
In plain words
This is the verse that has been used to frighten people, so read what it actually says.
It is a promise, not a threat. There is no punishment described here for getting the last moment wrong.
And the next verse immediately explains that the last thought is not a lottery. It is a report on how you have been living.
Where you've felt this · in family life
You are woken at two in the morning by a wrong number. Before you are properly awake you have already said something into the phone. Whatever came out is a fair sample of what you have been running on lately — patient, or short, or funny about it. Nobody composes themselves at two in the morning.
Going deeper
A great deal of fear has been built on this verse, and almost none of it is in the verse.
What is promised is continuity: whatever a person has been turned toward is what they arrive at. What is not here is any suggestion that a good life can be lost in a bad final second, or that anybody is being graded at the door.
Read alongside the line that follows, the sense is plainer still. The final thought is described as the product of a whole life's leaning, not as a separate test you might fail while distracted or in pain.
If you have ever been told that a dying person must be kept saying the right words or something terrible follows, this verse is not the authority for that. It says that what you have been becoming is what you become. That is a description of a long process, and it is already underway.