न च शक्नोम्यवस्थातुं भ्रमतीव च मे मनः। निमित्तानि च पश्यामि विपरीतानि केशव॥
na ca śaknomy avasthātuṃ bhramatīva ca me manaḥ / nimittāni ca paśyāmi viparītāni keśava
He cannot stand. His mind spins. He sees only bad signs ahead.
Word by word (5)
- na ca śaknomi avasthātum
- — I cannot stand / I am unable to remain
- bhramati iva ca me manaḥ
- — my mind seems to whirl / reel · 'Bhramati' — to wander, to spin, to be confused. The mind is no longer stable. This is the mental dimension of the collapse accompanying the physical symptoms in V28-29.
- nimittāni ca paśyāmi
- — and I see omens
- viparītāni
- — inauspicious / adverse / reversed · Traditional: bad omens (crows calling, trembling earth, etc.) that signal catastrophe. Modern reading: Arjuna's perception has inverted — he sees defeat rather than victory in what lies ahead.
- keśava
- — O Kesava — Krishna (one with beautiful hair / slayer of Keshi demon)
'I cannot stay on my feet. My mind is reeling. And O Kesava — all the signs I see point to disaster.'
A modern analogy
The feeling before a very bad diagnosis, or the moment you realize a relationship is ending, or when you see financial ruin approaching — when the body won't hold still and the mind won't focus, and everything you look at seems to confirm the worst. This is Arjuna's state: dizziness, spinning thoughts, and a perceptual field organized entirely around catastrophe.
Take with you
- When the mind whirls, it loses the capacity for discernment — this is why the Gita cannot be learned in crisis without prior practice.
- Nimittāni (omens) were taken seriously in ancient India — but here they may also represent Arjuna's distorted perception: seeing disaster everywhere because his mind is already overwhelmed.
- The inability to stand — both literally and metaphorically — is the body saying: the current frame cannot hold this moment.
Verse 30 completes the triad of crisis (V28-30): physical collapse, instrumental failure, mental instability. The whirling mind ('bhramatīva me manaḥ') is the final piece — Arjuna has lost the capacity for clear reasoning. This is crucial: the Gita's teaching will begin only after this loss is complete. Krishna will not offer wisdom to a half-attentive warrior but to someone whose ordinary resources have been fully exhausted. The seeing of 'adverse omens' (nimittāni viparītāni) is interesting. In the Mahabharata tradition, armies would interpret natural signs before battle. What Arjuna sees as adverse omens may be real, or it may be that his compromised perception is interpreting everything as ominous. In the whirling mind, perception is not neutral — it is shaped by the emotional state generating it.
Advaita lens
The whirling mind (bhramatīva manaḥ) represents the fully activated manas (lower mind) in its most agitated state — tossed between memories, fears, desires, and grief. The Advaita teaching will eventually show Arjuna that above this tossing mind is the steady witness (sākṣin) — the Atman that observes without being whirled. The teaching is needed precisely because the manas cannot save itself.
Modern parallels
Cognitive psychology identifies 'cognitive load overload' as the state where working memory is saturated and higher-order reasoning collapses. The mind doesn't stop functioning — it starts spinning. Intrusive thoughts, inability to sequence, perceptual distortion — all classic signs. Arjuna's whirling mind is a 3000-year-old description of what neuroscience now calls acute stress response.
Public-domain translations (3) compare all →
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Even the striving wise man's mind is forcibly stolen by turbulent senses. This is honest — not shameful.
Restless, turbulent, strong, unyielding — O Krishna, restraining the mind is as hard as restraining the wind.
Arjuna sees his own people ready to die — and his body breaks before his mind can argue.
Peaceful, fearless, vowed to brahmacharya, mind on Krishna — yoked in practice, with the Supreme as the final goal.
Seeing the opposing army, a worried prince rushes to his teacher for reassurance.
Duryodhana catalogues the Pandava heroes — naming his fears, one by one.