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 selfcontrolled?
(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, certainly you
will 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, that 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 that 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 yogîs 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