CHAPTER 8:
THE YOGA OF THE IMPERISHABLE SPIRIT
On salvation
(1) Arjuna said: 'What is that
Spirit, what about the soul of oneself and what are fruitive
activities; what about, o Supreme One, the material manifestation and
what to say about what one calls the godly ? (2)
Who is
the Lord of sacrifice and how does He live within the body, o slayer of
Madhu and how, when ones time has come, can You be known by the
self-controlled?
(3) The Supreme Lord said: 'The
indestructible Spirit is the transcendental eternal of nature that is
called ones own soul, it produces the material bodies of the living
entities and creation is what is called fruitive activity. (4)
The
constantly changing material nature is the original person of the godly
spoken about and the Lord of sacrifice for sure I am in this body of
the embodied, o best one. (5) At the end of ones time it is also surely in the remembrance
of Me that he, who goes to quit the body, will achieve My nature. Of
that there is no doubt. (6) The nature of whatever one is all remembering, giving this
vehicle of time up in the end, similar surely always will lead, o son
of Bhârata, to the state which is essential to it. (7)
Therefore
go on remembering Me at all times and fighting with your mind and
intelligence surrendered to Me, you will certainly attain
Me without
doubt. (8) Persistently uniting the mind and intelligence in the
connectedness of yoga without deviating one achieves the Supreme
Original Person of transcendence, o son of Prithâ, whom one is
constantly thinking of.
(9) He is the one who knows all,
who is the oldest, the controller, smaller than an atom and is always
thinking of everything; He is the inconceivable maintainer whose form
is luminous like the sun and who is transcendental to all darkness. (10)
One who,
at the end of his time fixes his mind in devotion connected by the
strength of yoga and as well for sure establishes the life air between
the eyebrows, achieves that transcendental Original Person of the
divine.
(11) I will now explain in short
to you the practice of the celibate desired by those who enter the
renounced order of life as sages conversant with the Vedas in
exercising the pranava. (12) Controlling the gates of the senses, confining the mind to
the heart and also fixing the soul's life-air in the head, one is
situated in the yogic position. (13) Vibrating AUM, the one syllable of the spirit, anyone who
remembers Me leaving behind this body achieves the supreme goal. (14)
For the
one who is always fixing his mind in remembering Me regularly, I am
easy to attain, o son of Prithâ, for he is regularly engaged in
the unification. (15) Born again, achieving Me, the great souls who attain the
ultimate perfection never reach where the temporary and miserable is
found. (16) Up to the highest place one
returns again to the world, o Arjuna, but having found Me, o son of
Kuntî, one is never born again.
(17) A thousand ages are included
in a day to those who know of the Absolute while the night that
similarly takes a thousand ages is there to the people understanding by
day ànd night. (18) All living beings manifest themselves from the unmanifest at
the beginning of that day, but at the fall of the night they are surely
all taken in to that which is called the unseen. (19) The totality of all beings that repeatedly take this birth
is annihilated on the arrival of the night and out of their own, o son
of Prithâ, they reappear on the arrival of the day. (20)
But
transcendental to that there is another unseen nature to the unmanifest
that upon the annihilation of all manifestation is never annihilated. (21) It is said that that unseen is infallible and it is known as
the ultimate destination from which, gaining it, one never returns -
that is My supreme abode. (22)
The
original person is He in the beyond, o son of Prithâ, who can
only be achieved by unalloyed devotion, within whom all of
manifestation exists and by whom everything we can see is pervaded.
(23) I shall now describe, o best
of the Bhâratas, that time at which different kinds of mystics
having departed attain and for sure to that time do or do not return. (24) Those persons who know the Absolute and leave during the
fire of daylight with a waxing moon during the six months when the sun
passes the north, reach the Supreme Spirit. (25) The mystic who achieves to the light of the moon during the
smoke of the night as also with a waning moon and the six months of the
sun passing through the south, comes back. (26)
According
the Vedas there are these two ways of light and darkness in passing
from this world by which one either does not return or does return
again. (27) Of knowing any of these
different paths, o son of Prithâ, the yogi is never bewildered;
therefore always get unified in yoga, o Arjuna. (28) The yogis who know all of this surpass the fruit of pious
work as won by Vedic study,
through sacrifices,
austerities and also surely by giving in charity and achieve the
original, supreme abode.'
Spoken by Anand Aadhar Prabhu
to the text offered below