Death & Immortality

What dies, what cannot die — 106 verses, starred ones first.

1. 2.20 ★ Unborn. Undying. Ancient. Eternal. Not slain when the body is slain — this is what you are.
2. 2.54 ★ Arjuna asks: what does the truly wise person look like? How do they speak, sit, and move?
3. 3.35 ★ Your own imperfect path beats another's perfect path. Death in your own dharma is better. Another's dharma brings fear.
4. 8.5 ★ Whoever at death remembers Me alone — leaving the body — attains My very Being. Of this, there is no doubt.
5. 14.27 ★ Krishna declares: 'I am the ground of Brahman — the Immortal, the Immutable, eternal Dharma, and perfect Bliss.'
6. 1.28 ☆ Arjuna sees his own people ready to die — and his body breaks before his mind can argue.
7. 2.13 ☆ Your body changed from childhood to age without 'you' dying — changing bodies is no different.
8. 2.22 ☆ You've changed your clothes a thousand times — this is all that death is.
9. 4.1 ☆ I taught this imperishable yoga to the sun-god at the dawn of time — it has been passed down through kings ever since.
10. 6.37 ☆ O Krishna — the faithful yogi who fell short of yoga's perfection through wandering mind: what is their destination?
11. 6.41 ☆ After worlds of merit, the fallen yogi is reborn in a pure and prosperous family — conditions for resuming practice.
12. 7.10 ☆ Know Me as the eternal seed of all beings — I am the intelligence of the intelligent, the splendour of the splendid.
13. 7.13 ☆ Deluded by the three guṇa-constituted states, all this world does not recognize Me — beyond them, imperishable.
14. 7.29 ☆ Taking refuge in Me for liberation from old age and death — they know Brahman, Adhyātma, and all of Karma.
15. 7.30 ☆ Those who know Me as Adhibhūta, Adhidaiva, and Adhiyajña — they know Me even at death, with unified minds.
16. 8.2 ☆ Who is Adhiyajña in this body, and how are You known at the time of death, O destroyer of Madhu?
17. 8.3 ☆ Brahman is the Imperishable; Adhyātma is its presence in each body; Karma is the cosmic offering sustaining all beings.
18. 8.6 ☆ Whatever state of being one remembers at death — to that state one attains, shaped by one's constant thought.
19. 8.16 ☆ All worlds up to Brahma's realm are subject to return — but those who attain Me, O Arjuna, are not reborn.
20. 8.20 ☆ Beyond that unmanifest is another Unmanifest — eternal, not dissolved when all beings dissolve: My supreme abode.
21. 14.5 ☆ Sattva, rajas, tamas — three guṇas born of Prakṛti — bind the indestructible ātman in every body.
22. 18.20 ☆ Sāttvic jñāna: seeing ONE imperishable being in ALL — undivided among the divided.
23. 1.9 Men are ready to die 'for my sake' — and Duryodhana names this fact without apparent weight.
24. 1.33 The people who shaped him — teachers, father-figures, sons — are on the field, ready to die.
25. 1.41 The dead depend on the living — break the chain of care and the ancestors fall.
26. 1.45 Better to die with clean hands than to win with blood on them.
27. 2.12 You have always existed. You will always exist. There was no time before you, and there will be no time without you.
28. 2.15 The person unmoved by pleasure and pain is fit for liberation — equanimity is not coldness but freedom.
29. 2.18 Bodies end — the soul does not. Therefore: fight.
30. 2.24 The soul: uncut, unburned, unwet, undried — eternal, all-pervading, immovable, ancient.
31. 2.26 Even if the soul were not eternal — even then, grief is not the answer.
32. 2.27 Birth means death is certain. Death means birth is certain. Grief over the unavoidable serves no one.
33. 2.28 Before birth: unmanifest. After death: unmanifest. The life between is the brief visible part — what is there to grieve?
34. 2.34 Dishonor lasts longer than death — and for the one who has been honored, disgrace is worse than dying.
35. 2.37 Die and win heaven. Conquer and enjoy the earth. Either way you gain — so rise and fight.
36. 2.43 Elaborate rituals for pleasure and power lead to rebirth — not liberation. The cycle continues.
37. 2.72 This is the Brahmic state. Attain it and you are never again deluded. Even at death — liberation.
38. 3.15 Action arises from Brahman, Brahman from the Imperishable. The all-pervading ultimate is present in every act of yajna.
39. 3.39 Desire is the eternal enemy of the wise — insatiable as fire. Feeding it only makes it burn more.
40. 4.6 Though unborn, imperishable, Lord of all — I come into being through My own Māyā. Divine birth is free, not compelled.
41. 4.9 Whoever truly knows My divine birth and action — leaving the body, they do not return. They come to Me.
42. 4.13 Four varnas arise by guna and karma — not by birth. Though creator, I remain the non-doer, imperishable.
43. 4.31 Those who eat yajna's remnants reach eternal Brahman. Without offering, not even this world is theirs.
44. 5.3 The eternal renunciant neither desires nor hates — free from all opposites, easily freed from bondage.
45. 6.38 Fallen from both worlds, without support — does the wandering yogi simply perish, like a torn cloud, O mighty-armed?
46. 6.42 Or: born into a family of wise yogis — rarer still, the most auspicious birth this world can offer.
47. 7.24 The unwise regard Me — the unmanifest — as manifest, not knowing My supreme, imperishable, and unsurpassed state.
48. 7.25 Veiled by yoga-māyā, I am not manifest to all — this deluded world does not recognize Me, the Unborn, the Imperishable.
49. 8.1 What is Brahman, Adhyātma, Karma, Adhibhūta, and Adhidaiva, O Puruṣottama?
50. 8.4 Adhibhūta is perishable nature; Adhidaiva is the Puruṣa; Adhiyajña — I Myself — am the sacrifice in this body.
51. 8.10 At the hour of death — mind fixed in yoga, devotion, prāṇa between the eyebrows — one attains the supreme divine Puruṣa.
52. 8.11 That which Vedic knowers call the Imperishable — that Brahmacharins seek, ascetics enter — I will declare it briefly.
53. 8.12 Close all nine gates, hold mind in heart, fix prāṇa in the head — the body's yoga posture for final departure.
54. 8.15 The great-souled who reach the highest perfection and come to Me are not reborn in this home of pain and impermanence.
55. 8.19 This same multitude of beings, born again and again, helplessly dissolves at Brahma's night and re-emerges at dawn.
56. 8.21 The unmanifest is called the Imperishable — the Supreme Goal from which none returns. That is My highest abode.
57. 8.24 Fire, Light, Day, waxing fortnight, six months of Northern sun — taking this path, Brahman-knowers reach Brahman.
58. 8.26 These two paths — bright and dark — are eternally established: by one none returns, by the other one returns.
59. 9.2 Royal knowledge, royal secret — supreme purifier, directly known, easy to practice, of imperishable nature.
60. 9.3 Those without faith in this teaching do not attain Me — they return to the path of rebirth fraught with death.
61. 9.18 I am the Goal, Lord, Witness, Abode, Refuge, Friend — and the Origin, Dissolution, Seed imperishable.
62. 9.19 I give heat, withhold and release rain — I am immortality and death, being and non-being, O Arjuna.
63. 9.31 Quickly he becomes righteous and attains eternal peace — declare it, O Kuntī's son: My devotee is never destroyed.
64. 10.4 Intellect, wisdom, patience, truth, calm, restraint, joy, pain, birth, death, fear, fearlessness — all arise from Me.
65. 10.12 You are Parabrahm — supreme abode, great purifier, eternal, divine, unborn, all-pervading — the Primordial God!
66. 10.34 I am all-seizing Death, and the birth of those to come; among feminine: Fame, Prosperity, Speech, Memory, Forbearance.
67. 11.4 If You think me capable of seeing it, O Lord of Yogins — show me Your imperishable, all-pervading Self.
68. 11.10 With countless mouths, eyes, celestial ornaments and weapons — the eternal God whose face turns all ways.
69. 11.18 You are the Imperishable, the Supreme — Refuge of all, undying Guardian of Eternal Dharma, Ancient Puruṣa.
70. 11.29 As moths rush to the flame for their own destruction, so these worlds rush into Your mouths to perish!
71. 11.37 Why should they not bow? Greater than Brahmā — You are the Infinite Imperishable, Being, Non-Being, the Supreme Beyond!
72. 12.1 Which devotees are best in yoga — those who worship You with devotion, or those who worship the Imperishable Unmanifest?
73. 12.3 Those who worship the Imperishable Unmanifest — all-pervading, inconceivable, kūṭastha, immovable, eternal, stable...
74. 12.5 The trouble of those whose minds cling to the Unmanifest is GREATER — that viewless path is very hard for the embodied!
75. 12.7 I swiftly lift them from the ocean of death and saṃsāra — for those whose consciousness is fixed in Me, O Pārtha!
76. 13.9 Dispassion toward sense-objects, no ego, and clearly seeing birth-death-age-disease as painful — this is jñāna!
77. 13.13 The Knowable: Brahman — beginningless, beyond sat and asat — knowing this alone grants immortality.
78. 13.22 Puruṣa in prakṛti enjoys guṇas — attachment to guṇas is the cause of birth in good and evil wombs.
79. 13.26 Others who simply worship as heard from others — they too cross beyond death, devoted to what they heard.
80. 13.32 Paramātmā: beginningless, nirguṇa, imperishable — dwelling in the body, yet neither acts nor is tainted.
81. 14.4 From all wombs all bodies arise — but the great Brahman is the womb and Krishna the seed-giving Father.
82. 14.7 Rajas — passion, thirst, attachment — binds the embodied one specifically through attachment to action.
83. 14.14 Dying with sattva dominant, one ascends to the pure spotless worlds of those devoted to the Highest.
84. 14.15 Dying in rajas, one is born among the action-attached; dying in tamas, one is born in irrational wombs.
85. 14.16 The fruit of sattvic action is pure; the fruit of rajas is pain; the fruit of tamas is ignorance.
86. 14.18 Sattva-abiders go upward; rajasic dwell in the middle; tamas-abiders sink downward — the cosmic gradient.
87. 14.20 Transcending the three guṇas, the embodied one is freed from birth-death-age-pain and attains immortality.
88. 15.1 Saṃsāra is an eternal inverted tree rooted in Brahman; knowing this tree root to tip is true Vedic wisdom.
89. 15.5 Free from pride, moha, attachment and desire, the dvandva-unbound, undeluded ones reach the imperishable goal.
90. 15.7 The jīva is an eternal fragment of Me — drawing the 6-sense apparatus (5 senses + mind) toward itself in Prakṛti.
91. 15.8 Like wind carrying fragrance, the jīva takes its 6-sense apparatus from body to body through each birth and death.
92. 15.14 I am Vaiśvānara — the digestive fire in every living body — digesting all four kinds of food with prāṇa and apāna.
93. 16.11 Immeasurable anxieties till death, sense-pleasure as the highest value, firmly certain that 'this is all there is.'
94. 16.18 Taking refuge in ego, power, arrogance, kāma, krodha — they hate Me in their own bodies and in others.
95. 16.19 Those who hate Me — cruel, vilest among humans — I continually cast into āsurī wombs, the inauspicious.
96. 16.20 In āsurī wombs, deluded birth after birth — never reaching Me — they go to still lower destinations.
97. 17.2 Śraddhā of the embodied is threefold — born of svabhāva (one's own nature): sāttvikī, rājasī, tāmasī. Hear this.
98. 17.25 Uttering 'Tat,' without fruit-desire, mokṣa-seekers perform yajña, tapas, and various acts of dāna.
99. 18.11 No embodied being can abandon ALL action; the true tyāgī is the karma-phala-tyāgī — the fruit-abandoner.
100. 18.12 Three-fold karma-fruit (evil/good/mixed) accrues after death to non-tyāgīs — never at all to genuine renouncers.
101. 18.40 No being — neither on earth nor among the devas in heaven — is free from these three guṇas born of Prakṛti.
102. 18.56 Even doing all actions always, with refuge in Me — by My grace one attains the eternal imperishable abode.
103. 18.58 With mind in Me, by My grace you will cross all obstacles; but from egotism if you will not hear, you will perish.
104. 18.62 Take refuge in THAT with all your being, O Bharata — by His grace: supreme peace and the eternal abode.
105. 18.70 Whoever studies this sacred dialogue — by him I shall have been worshipped by jñāna-yajña; such is My conviction.
106. 18.75 Through Vyāsa's grace, I heard this supreme secret Yoga directly from Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, speaking Himself.