अपि चेत्सुदुराचारो भजते मामनन्यभाक्।साधुरेव स मन्तव्यः सम्यग्व्यवसितो हि सः॥
api cet su-durācāro bhajate mām ananya-bhāksādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ samyag vyavasito hi saḥ
Word by word
The verse says
Even if someone whose conduct has been very bad worships me with nothing else beside, he is to be counted among the good — for he has decided rightly.
In plain words
This is one of the most argued-over lines in the book.
Not he will be forgiven. Not he may improve. Sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ — he is to be considered good, now.
And the reason given is the decision itself, not anything that has happened yet.
Where you've felt this · in community
Your neighbour, who everybody on the street had written off years ago, starts turning up at six in the morning to sweep the temple steps. Nobody asked him to. Nobody quite believes it either. Opinions on the street take about two more years to shift, and he keeps turning up the whole time.
Going deeper
Two readings of this verse have been defended for centuries and both are serious.
The inclusive reading takes it at face value. A person's past does not sit between them and the divine. The turning is what counts, and it counts immediately, because a life is judged by its direction rather than by its worst day. On this reading the verse is one of the great statements of mercy in world literature.
The objection is equally clear. A verse that declares a person good on the strength of their devotion, regardless of what they have done, can be used to excuse almost anything — and it has been. If devotion converts bad conduct into good standing, the people harmed by that conduct have quietly disappeared from the account.
Two things in the Sanskrit narrow it, and they matter. Ananya-bhāk — with nothing else beside. Not devotion alongside the old life, but devotion that has displaced it. And samyag vyavasitaḥ — he has resolved rightly, which describes a decision that has actually been made rather than a feeling that has been had.
The next verse does the rest of the work, and the two should never be read apart.