Purport

This Shloka is one of the very important Slokas to emphasize the significance of Dharma. Bhagvan Shri Krishna very clearly declared that those who do not follow Dharma as caught into the cycle of birth and death.

Taking the reverse meaning, this concludes Dharma is the only way to be liberated from this cycle of birth and death.

Here this has to be noted that "Dharma" is a wide word and hence this Shloka might include a wide range of explanation. But limiting the meaning to the context where a human achieves liberation from the bounds of the cycle of death of birth. In that context, Dharma means the teaching, process or methods which lead to the liberation of the human soul from the bonds of the mortal world. Following the guidelines as described in Vedas, Shrimad Bhagvad Gita or Ramayana, etc hence is called Dharma.

Those who know the secret of Dharma understands the truth that this physical body is but a temporary existence and not absolute. As Shrimad Bhagvad Gita describes, the attachment with this physical world causes the soul to acquire the physical body and return back to this world to fulfill his past desires. A wise human knows this fact and always indulge in those actions which liberate the soul from the bounds of the physical world. Doing so he follows Dharma.

But others who take this physical body as absolute reality and deeply attach himself with this physical world goes away from the guidelines as described in Dharma. Such humans return back to this mortal world in one form or another again and again.