Bhagavad Gita 18.66 is Chapter 18, Verse 66, in Moksha Sanyasa Yoga (Liberation). Below are the Sanskrit text, a transliteration, a plain-English translation and an explanation.
sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja ahaṁ tvā sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
"Abandoning all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins; do not grieve."
What This Means:
Give up all other paths and duties - surrender completely to Krishna alone. He will free you from all sins and karmic consequences. Don't worry.
Going Deeper:
This is the 'charama shloka' - the ultimate verse. 'Sarva dharman parityajya' - abandoning all dharmas (plural) - not immorality but transcending even righteous duties when complete surrender is achieved. 'Mam ekam' - Me alone. 'Sharanam vraja' - go to refuge. 'Aham tva mokshayishyami' - I will liberate you. 'Sarva papebhya' - from all sins. 'Ma shucha' - don't grieve. This is unconditional grace.
How To Apply This:
When all else fails, when you don't know what's right, when you're overwhelmed - surrender completely. Let go and let God. Liberation is promised.
Where this verse sits
This is the last of the three verses, 18.64 to 18.66, that Krishna adds after his teaching is complete, calling them the most secret word of all, spoken because Arjuna is dear to him. Verse 65 asks for a mind fixed on Krishna, devotion, worship and reverence, and promises that Arjuna will come to him. Verse 66 goes further, and the tradition calls it the charama shloka, the final verse, the summit of the Gita's teaching for the devotional schools.
What the words say
Sarva-dharman parityajya, 'abandoning all dharmas', is the phrase every commentator has to explain. Shankara reads it as the renunciation of all actions, together with their results, that belongs to the person of knowledge. Ramanuja offers two readings: that the dharmas to be given up are duties performed as one's own means rather than as worship of the Lord, or, alternatively, that they are the expiatory rites one would otherwise need for the sins that obstruct devotion, which taking refuge makes unnecessary. Later Sri Vaishnava teachers built on the verse their doctrine of prapatti, surrender as the sole means, and it remains the founding text of that practice. Mam ekam sharanam vraja is 'come to me alone for refuge'. Aham tva sarva-papebhyo mokshayishyami, 'I will free you from all sins', is the promise. Ma shuchah, 'do not grieve', closes the circle: it answers the grief of 1.47 and the rebuke of 2.11.
A common misreading
'Abandon all dharmas' is not a licence for self-serving misconduct, and no commentator reads it so. What it asks a person to leave behind is where the commentators part: Shankara's renunciant gives up action itself; Ramanuja's readings keep one's duties and give up ownership of them, reliance on one's own merit, or the need for expiation; Vishvanatha Chakravarti, in the Gaudiya line, reads the surrender as leaving even prescribed duties behind for exclusive devotion. Arjuna's own response is to fight, which the devotional readings take as surrendered service rather than as duty kept for its own sake. The verse also does not cancel the rest of the Gita. It is offered after the whole teaching, to someone who has heard it, as the ground on which all of it stands. Read that way, it is less an instruction than a reassurance: whatever is left undone, do not grieve.
Key Sanskrit Terms: