Chapter 16Verse 21

Three habits of mind are singled out as the ones most likely to unravel a person from within. Worth noticing early, before they take hold.

Krishna names three things as the doors to wrecking yourself from the inside: craving, anger, and greed. His advice is blunt. Give up all three. They're worth catching early, before they set in.

The verse calls these gates, which is precise. They're entrances, the points where self-destruction gets in, not the destruction itself. Lust here is the wider sense of compulsive craving, anger is the reactive heat, and greed is the accumulating grip that's never satisfied. The Gita treats them as linked and as the common root of most of the harm people do to themselves and others. Naming them as a short, specific list is meant to make them easier to watch for.

Look back at the decisions you most regret and there's usually one of these three underneath: wanting something badly enough to override your judgment, acting in heat, or grabbing and holding past the point of sense. This verse isn't asking for instant purity. It's saying that if you learn to recognize these three early, when they're a flicker rather than a fire, you catch most of the serious mistakes before they happen.