THE EIGHTH TEACHING
THE INFINITE SPIRIT
Arjuna
What is the infinite spirit, Krishna?
What is its inner self, its action?
What is its inner being called?
What is its inner divinity?
1
Who is within sacrifice, Krishna?
How is he here in the body?
And how are men of self-control
to know you at the time of death?
2
Lord Krishna
Eternal and supreme is the infinite spirit;
its inner self is called inherent being;
its creative force, known as action,
is the source of creatures' existence.
3
Its inner being is perishable existence;
its inner divinity is man's spirit;
I am the inner sacrifice
here in your body, O Best of Mortals.
4
A man who dies remembering me
at the time of death enters my being
when he is freed from his body;
of this there is no doubt.
5
Whatever being he remembers
when he abandons the body at death,
he enters, Arjuna,
always existing in that being.
6
Therefore, at all times remember me
and fight;
mind and understanding fixed on me,
free from doubt, you will come to me.
7
Disciplined through practice,
his reason never straying,
meditating, one reaches
the supreme divine spirit of man.
8
One should remember
man's spirit as the guide,
the primordial poet,
smaller than an atom,
granter of all things,
in form inconceivable,
the color of the sun
beyond darkness.
9
At the time of death,
with the mind immovable,
armed with devotion
and strength of discipline,
focusing vital breath
between the brows,
one attains the supreme
divine spirit of man.
10
I shall teach you,
in summary,
about the state
that scholars of sacred lore
call eternal,
the state ascetics enter,
freed from passion,
which some men seek
in the celibate life.
11
Controlling the body's gates,
keeping the mind in the heart,
holding his own breath in his head,
one is in disciplined concentration.
12
Invoking the infinite spirit
as the one eternal syllable OM,
remembering me as he abandons his body,
he reaches the absolute way.
13
When he constantly remembers me,
focusing his reason on me,
I am easy to reach, Arjuna,
for the man of enduring discipline.
14
Reaching me, men of great spirit
do not undergo rebirth,
the ephemeral realm of suffering;
they attain absolute perfection.
15
Even in Brahma's cosmic realm
worlds evolve in incessant cycles,
but a man who reaches me
suffers no rebirth, Arjuna.
16
When they know that a day of Brahma
stretches over a thousand eons,
and his night ends in a thousand eons,
men understand day and night.
17
At break of Brahma's day
all things emerge from unmanifest nature;
when night falls, all sink
into unmanifest darkness.
18
Arjuna, the throng of creatures
that comes to exist dissolves
unwillingly at nightfall
to emerge again at daybreak.
19
Beyond this unmanifest nature
is another unmanifest existence,
a timeless being that does not perish
when all creatures perish.
20
It is called eternal unmanifest nature,
what men call the highest way,
the goal from which they do not return;
this highest realm is mine.
21
It is man's highest spirit,
won by singular devotion, Arjuna,
in whom creatures rest
and the whole universe extends.
22
Arjuna, I shall tell you precisely
the time when men of discipline
who have died
suffer rebirth or escape it.
23
Men who know the infinite spirit
reach its infinity if they die
in fire, light, day, bright lunar night,
the sun's six-month northward course.
24
In smoke, night, dark lunar night,
the sun's six-month southward course,
a man of discipline
reaches the moon's light and returns.
25
These bright and dark pathways
are deemed constant for the universe;
by one, a man escapes rebirth;
by the other, he is born again.
26
No man of discipline is deluded
when he knows these two paths.
Therefore, Arjuna, be armed
in all times with discipline.
27
Knowing the fruit of virtue
assigned to knowledge of sacred lore,
to sacrifices, to penances,
and to acts of charity,
the man of discipline
transcends all this
and ascends to the place
of pure beginning.
28