A Song of Fortune - A Classical Gita: Chapter 8

(1) Arjuna said: 'What about God, this soul for oneself and fruitful activities; what oh greatest personality, about the material manifestation and what to say about, what one calls, the lesser gods in this? (2) Who is that lord of sacrifice, how does he live within the body, and, demon slayer, how can the ones of self-control know you at the time of their death?'

(3) The one of all opulence⁷ said: 'God is the imperishable One in the beyond called the soul or true self that is eternal, and from which the living beings become visible in a creative activity which one calls karma, the workload or the working for a result. (4) The lesser gods are the universal integrities, or divine personalities, of the different manifestations of nature that are constantly on the move - like the sun and the moon -, and the lord of the sacrifices I am, the one present within the embodied beings, my best. (5) He who at the time of his death quitting the physical body remembers me, will beyond any doubt reach my nature. (6) The nature of whatever one all remembers, giving up this body in the end, will, oh son of Prithâ, always lead to a state similar to the one that was remembered. (7) Keep therefore at all times, even when you're in the fray, to the remembrance of me, so that you, free from doubt with your mind and intelligence of acceptance for me, are sure to attain me. (8) When one persistent in the uniting is connected with the unwavering of one's mind and intelligence, one reaches the supreme and divine, personal integrity which was kept in mind, oh son of Prithâ.

(9) He, the Supreme One, is the One knowing everything, the oldest, the controller, He's smaller than an atom, the One always thinking of everything, the Inconceivable Maintainer transcendental to all darkness with a form as luminous as the sun. (10) That person reaches the divine who, when his time has come, fixes his life force between his eyebrows, and, connected by the power of his yoga, in the full of his devotion has a mind that doesn't wander off, but keeps to the integrity of the universe, the Original Person in the beyond.

(11) Let me now explain to you in short what it means to be a celibate. It is a practice desired by those, belonging to the renounced order of life, who as great scholars conversant with the culture of knowledge exercise the mantra AUM. (12) One is in the position of uniting consciousness when one, self-controlled in relation to the sensory input and fixing the life force in the head, confines the mind to the heart. (13) Anyone may achieve that supreme state who, leaving the body for what it is, in the remembrance of me vibrates AUM, the one syllable of the spirit.

(14) For any yoga practitioner, who on a regular basis repeatedly, with a mind not going elsewhere, remembers me, oh son of Prithâ, I am, because of that constancy, easy to reach. (15) The great souls who reached me never start a new life in the temporary world which is so full of miseries, because they achieved the ultimate of perfection. (16) Arjuna, even from the highest worlds of the spirit one returns, but having reached me, oh son of Kuntî, one will never start a new life again. (17) Like it is with the common man who thinks in terms of days and nights, one day of God consists of a thousand cycles of creation⁸, while His night, so is understood, similarly takes a thousand cycles. (18) All living entities become manifest at the beginning of the day and with the fall of the night they are all annihilated, or drawn back into the unapparent, so one says. (19) Oh son of Prithâ, the complete of all living beings manifesting itself upon the arrival of every day and their automatically being annihilated when the night arrives, means that they repeatedly take birth. (20) But transcendental to that nature, which can be unapparent, there is another nature, eternal and unseen, which is never annihilated when all the manifest is annihilated. (21) That unseen nature is said to be infallible and is described as the ultimate destination from which one, having reached there, never returns: that is my supreme abode. (22) He, the Supreme and Original Person, oh son of Prithâ, within whom all of manifestation exists and by whom everything that is visible is pervaded, can only be reached by means of a service which is of a single-minded devotion.

(23) Oh best of the Pândavas, let me now describe to you the times of leaving this world at which the ones successful in uniting consciousness return or else do not return. (24) Those persons who, knowing of the Absolute, leave to the light of the fire, the light of the day, the light of the fortnight of a waxing moon, or the light of the six months when the sun runs high in the sky, all leave for God. (25) The one unified in consciousness though who leaves to the darkness of the night, the darkness of smoke, the darkness of the dark half of the lunar month, or the darkness of the six months when the sun runs low in the sky, will turn back to this world because he didn't reach beyond the order of the moonlight. (26) These are according to the scriptures the two ways of leaving the world; leaving to the light one does not return while one having departed to the darkness turns back. (27) The one who, unified in consciousness, knows of these different paths, isn't bewildered by any of them; therefore, Arjuna, be always connected in the âtmatattva of uniting consciousness. (28) All the yoga practitioners aware of this, reach beyond the results of pious work as derived from scriptural study, sacrifices, austerities and charity, and attain the original, supreme abode.'