Sanskrit
अन्तकाले च मामेव स्मरन्मुक्त्वा कलेवरम् । यः प्रयाति स मद्भावं याति नास्त्यत्र संशयः ॥
antakāle ca mām eva smaran muktvā kalevaram yaḥ prayāti sa madbhāvaṃ yāti nāsty atra saṃśayaḥ
Translation
And he who, casting off the body, goeth forth thinking upon Me only at the time of the end, he entereth into My being: there is no doubt of that.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
This is the doctrine the rest of the chapter builds around: whatever occupies the mind at the exact moment of death determines the state one goes to next. It’s stated first as an absolute — “there is no doubt of that” — before verse 6 generalizes it beyond Krishna specifically to any object of final thought, and verse 7 turns it into a practical instruction rather than a claim.