Bhagavad Gita 2.11
श्रीभगवानुवाच । अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे । गतासूनगतासूंश्च नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिताः ॥
śrī-bhagavān uvāca | aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṃ prajñā-vādāṃś ca bhāṣase | gatāsūn agatāsūṃś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ ||
Translation
The deity said: You have grieved for those that should not be grieved for, and you speak words of wisdom. Learned men grieve not for the dead or for the living.
Reflection
What grief have you been holding that, looked at clearly, was grieving the wrong thing?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Two
Krishna's first teaching verse. Aśocyān anvaśocaḥ. You have grieved for the ungrievable. The error is not in the action you almost took. The error is in the grief itself. Prajñā-vādān, words of wisdom: Arjuna's speech in Ch 1 sounded like reasoning, full of moral architecture about family and duty. Krishna names it as the appearance of wisdom over the substance of grief. Shankara reads this as the structural reset: before Krishna will speak about right action, he will speak about the self, because the grief is grounded in misseeing the self. The teaching begins below the question, not above it.