Chapter 8 · question

The Yoga of the Imperishable Brahman

Akṣara Brahma Yoga

  1. 8.1 What is Brahman, Adhyātma, Karma, Adhibhūta, and Adhidaiva, O Puruṣottama?
  2. 8.2 ☆ Who is Adhiyajña in this body, and how are You known at the time of death, O destroyer of Madhu?
  3. 8.3 ☆ Brahman is the Imperishable; Adhyātma is its presence in each body; Karma is the cosmic offering sustaining all beings.
  4. 8.4 Adhibhūta is perishable nature; Adhidaiva is the Puruṣa; Adhiyajña — I Myself — am the sacrifice in this body.
  5. 8.5 ★ Whoever at death remembers Me alone — leaving the body — attains My very Being. Of this, there is no doubt.
  6. 8.6 ☆ Whatever state of being one remembers at death — to that state one attains, shaped by one's constant thought.
  7. 8.7 ★ Therefore remember Me at all times and fight — mind and intellect fixed on Me, you will come to Me without doubt.
  8. 8.8 Whoever meditates on the supreme divine Puruṣa with undivided mind — through practice-yoga — goes to Him.
  9. 8.9 Meditate on the Ancient Seer — omniscient, subtler than the atom, sustainer of all, sun-colored, beyond darkness.
  10. 8.10 At the hour of death — mind fixed in yoga, devotion, prāṇa between the eyebrows — one attains the supreme divine Puruṣa.
  11. 8.11 That which Vedic knowers call the Imperishable — that Brahmacharins seek, ascetics enter — I will declare it briefly.
  12. 8.12 Close all nine gates, hold mind in heart, fix prāṇa in the head — the body's yoga posture for final departure.
  13. 8.13 ☆ Uttering OM — the single syllable of Brahman — departing while meditating on Me, one reaches the highest goal.
  14. 8.14 ☆ I am easily attained by the ever-steadfast yogi who constantly remembers Me daily with single-pointed mind.
  15. 8.15 The great-souled who reach the highest perfection and come to Me are not reborn in this home of pain and impermanence.
  16. 8.16 ☆ All worlds up to Brahma's realm are subject to return — but those who attain Me, O Arjuna, are not reborn.
  17. 8.17 Those who know Brahma's Day as a thousand yugas and his Night as a thousand yugas — they know day and night truly.
  18. 8.18 At Brahma's dawn, all beings emerge from the unmanifest; at his dusk, they merge back into that same unmanifest.
  19. 8.19 This same multitude of beings, born again and again, helplessly dissolves at Brahma's night and re-emerges at dawn.
  20. 8.20 ☆ Beyond that unmanifest is another Unmanifest — eternal, not dissolved when all beings dissolve: My supreme abode.
  21. 8.21 The unmanifest is called the Imperishable — the Supreme Goal from which none returns. That is My highest abode.
  22. 8.22 The Supreme Puruṣa — in whom all beings abide, by whom all is pervaded — is attained by undivided devotion alone.
  23. 8.23 At the time of departure, yogis travel one of two paths — one from which they do not return, one from which they do.
  24. 8.24 Fire, Light, Day, waxing fortnight, six months of Northern sun — taking this path, Brahman-knowers reach Brahman.
  25. 8.25 Smoke, Night, dark fortnight, six months of the Southern sun — by this path the yogi attains the moon and returns.
  26. 8.26 These two paths — bright and dark — are eternally established: by one none returns, by the other one returns.
  27. 8.27 Knowing both paths, no yogi is deluded. Therefore, O Arjuna, be steadfast in yoga at all times.
  28. 8.28 Transcending Vedic merit, sacrifice, austerity, and charity — the yogi knowing this reaches the primordial Supreme.