Bg 8.1
arjuna uvāca
kiṁ tad brahma kim adhyātmaṁ kiṁ karma puruṣottama
adhibhūtaṁ ca kiṁ proktam adhidaivaṁ kim ucyate
Bg 8.2
adhiyajñaḥ kathaṁ ko ’tra dehe ’smin madhusūdana
prayāṇa-kāle ca kathaṁ jñeyo ’si niyatātmabhiḥ
Bg 8.3
śrī-bhagavān uvāca
akṣaraṁ brahma paramaṁ svabhāvo ’dhyātmam ucyate
bhūta-bhāvodbhava-karo visargaḥ karma-saṁjñitaḥ
Bg 8.4
adhibhūtaṁ kṣaro bhāvaḥ puruṣaś cādhidaivatam
adhiyajño ’ham evātradehe deha-bhṛtāṁ vara
Bg 8.5
anta-kāle ca mām eva smaran muktvā kalevaram
yaḥ prayāti sa mad-bhāvaṁ yāti nāsty atra saṁśayaḥ
Translation
Arjuna said: 1. What is that BRAHMAN? What is the ADHYATMA ? What is 'action' ? O best among men, what is declared to be the ADHIBHUTA? And what is ADHIDAIVA said to be?
2. Who, and how, is ADHIYAJNA here in this body, O destroyer of Madhu? And how, at the time of death, are you to be known by the self-controlled?
The Blessed Lord said: 3 . BRAHMAN is Imperishable, the Supreme; His essential nature is called Self-knowledge, the creative force that causes beings to spring forth into manifestation is called "work. "
4. ADHIBHUTA (or elements) constitutes My perishable nature, and the Indweller (or the essence) is the ADHIDAIVATA; I alone am the ADHIYAJNA here, in this body, O best of the embodied.
5. And whosoever, leaving the body, goes forth remembering Me alone, at the time of his death, he attains My being; there is no doubt about this.
Commentary
The new technical terms, used all of a sudden in the last two stanzas of the previous chapter (the Essential Being, the Essential Deity, the Essential Sacrifice etc.), which are to be known so that such Men-of-Wisdom "CONTINUE TO KNOW ME EVEN AT THE TIME OF DEATH STEADFAST IN MIND" (VII-30) confuse Arjuna.
The chapter opens with the seeker questioning his teacher with a view to get an exact definition for each new term used in His learned discourse. Not only does Arjuna ask for an explanation of the terms used, but he is also anxious to know how exactly one can realise the Self at the time of death, when one gains perfect self-control as a result of one's constant spiritual practices in life.
THE LORD EXPLAINS EACH TERM EXHAUSTIVELY IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:
IMPERISHABLE IS THE SUPREME BRAHMAN --- The term Brahman indicates the one changeless and imperishable subjective Essence behind the phenomenal world. It becomes the Self, the Conscious Principle which illumines the body, mind and intellect, during all their pilgrimages from birth to death through the infinite varieties of their vicissitudes.
ITS PRESENCE IN EACH INDIVIDUAL BODY IS CALLED ADHYATMA --- Though the Self is formless and subtle, and therefore, all-pervading, Its glory and might, power and grace, are felt, experienced and lived by each physical structure; and this Self, expressing Itself through a given embodiment, as though conditioned by it, is called the Adhyatma. Shankara brings it out very clearly when he explains the term as, "THE PRINCIPLE THAT GRACES ALL BODIES AS THEIR ESSENTIAL SELF."
Work is not only the turn-over; the turn-over can be ordered and brought about by sheer labour. The term 'work' connotes something deeper, subtler, diviner. The creative urge that is behind every active intellect, which ultimately fulfils itself in the creation of things and beings, that subtle spiritual strength is called "karma"; all else is mere sweat and toil, dust and blood, heaving and sobbing, smiling and singing, hoarding and wasting.
THE ADHIBHUTA IS THE PERISHABLE EXISTENCE --- As a contrast to the Imperishable (Akshara) is the 'perishable-equipment' (Kshara), the world of prakriti, through which the potential dynamism, vigour and glory of the Infinite Self express themselves. Between the Kshara and Akshara, there is as much difference as between a steam-engine and the steam, a running car and the horse-power in the petrol, a singing radio and the electric current that makes it possible for the radio to sing. In short, by the term 'perishable' (kshara) the whole world of phenomena of the Universe is indicated. Subjectively, the equipments of cognition, feeling, and perception constitute, in the main, the destructible or the perishable factors in us.
ADHIDAIVA IS THE INDWELLER --- The term Indweller (Adhidaiva) is used to indicate the "special faculty" that presides over each apparatus of knowledge and activity in the living creatures (the Purushah). The presiding deities of the sense-organs, of the mind, and of the intellect, are called the Devatas, which are nothing other than the faculty of vision in the eyes, the faculty of audition in the ears, the power of smelling in the nose, and so on.
Adhiyajna, HERE IN THIS BODY, I ALONE AM --- We have already seen that the Yajna here means the "act of perception, feeling, or thought." As in the Yajna, here also oblations --- the sense-objects --- are poured into the Yajna-altar --- the sense-organs --- when the Devata --- the particular faculty in it --- gets propitiated and invoked, and as a blessing from it we gain the "fruit" thereof, viz., the knowledge of the perception. In this Adhiyajna, in the subjective Yajna-act of perception, it is quite evident that the One Vital Factor that dominates the entire activity is the Self, the Principle of Life.
By giving these definitions, the Lord is on the whole suggesting with a subtle under-current of the implications, that the Eternal Self alone is the Real, and that all else are delusory super-impositions upon it. Therefore, to know the Self is to know everything and having known the Eternal as one's own Real Nature, one is free to act or not to act, and to play or not to play, in any of the fields of the not-Self.
An individual who lives in the Awareness of this Knowledge, ever-conscious of the play of the Self at all levels of his personality --- physical, mental and intellectual --- such an individual, naturally, comes to experience himself as a Divine Witness, observing the very process of death that clips off layer by layer his self-chosen connections with the not-Self!
Vyasa is never tired of emphasizing the cardinal philosophical idea in Vedanta that an individualised ego continues identifying with a given physical body only so long as it needs that particular instrument for eking out its desired quota of experiences. Once it is over, it 'kicks the bucket,' as it were, and walks off --- forgetting all its duties, its relationships and its vanities in that particular existence. At this moment of divorce from a given body it is logical to believe that its thoughts would be about the most predominant desire or aspiration in it --- either gathered in its past embodiments, or acquired in its present life. The techniques of meditation and devotion constitute the art of tutoring the mind to keep in it an unflickering flame of aspiration, so carefully trimmed and fed that such a seeker, "AT THE TIME OF DEATH, MEDITATING ON ME ALONE, GOES FORTH LEAVING THE BODY."
This last powerful willing, determined by the last thought, decides its destinies in the future. An ego that lived all its life, in its ego-centric vanities, identifying Itself with merely the flesh and ever catering to its appetities, will be hoarding such sensuous vasanas that it must necessarily take a form, lower in the evolutionary scale, in order that its acquired animal instincts may thereby be fulfilled to the maximum.
On the other hand, when an individual, in his discrimination, comes to recognise the futility of a lascivious life, and, therefore, aspires to release himself from the thraldom of the flesh, he surely moves higher up on the ladder of evolution when he retires from his present embodiment. Faithfully following this theory which is at once logical and reasonable, the Science of Life, as enunciated in Vedanta, declares that the last thoughts of a dying man order his future embodiments and their environments.
Therefore, Krishna insists here that one who leaves the physical structure with his mind completely turned towards the Self will, naturally, reach the Eternal and the Immortal, "THE SUPREME ABODE, reaching which there is no return" (VIII-21).
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
arjuna uvāca
kiṁ tad brahma kim adhyātmaṁ kiṁ karma puruṣottama
adhibhūtaṁ ca kiṁ proktam adhidaivaṁ kim ucyate
Bg 8.2
adhiyajñaḥ kathaṁ ko ’tra dehe ’smin madhusūdana
prayāṇa-kāle ca kathaṁ jñeyo ’si niyatātmabhiḥ
Bg 8.3
śrī-bhagavān uvāca
akṣaraṁ brahma paramaṁ svabhāvo ’dhyātmam ucyate
bhūta-bhāvodbhava-karo visargaḥ karma-saṁjñitaḥ
Bg 8.4
adhibhūtaṁ kṣaro bhāvaḥ puruṣaś cādhidaivatam
adhiyajño ’ham evātradehe deha-bhṛtāṁ vara
Bg 8.5
anta-kāle ca mām eva smaran muktvā kalevaram
yaḥ prayāti sa mad-bhāvaṁ yāti nāsty atra saṁśayaḥ
Translation
Arjuna said: 1. What is that BRAHMAN? What is the ADHYATMA ? What is 'action' ? O best among men, what is declared to be the ADHIBHUTA? And what is ADHIDAIVA said to be?
2. Who, and how, is ADHIYAJNA here in this body, O destroyer of Madhu? And how, at the time of death, are you to be known by the self-controlled?
The Blessed Lord said: 3 . BRAHMAN is Imperishable, the Supreme; His essential nature is called Self-knowledge, the creative force that causes beings to spring forth into manifestation is called "work. "
4. ADHIBHUTA (or elements) constitutes My perishable nature, and the Indweller (or the essence) is the ADHIDAIVATA; I alone am the ADHIYAJNA here, in this body, O best of the embodied.
5. And whosoever, leaving the body, goes forth remembering Me alone, at the time of his death, he attains My being; there is no doubt about this.
Commentary
The new technical terms, used all of a sudden in the last two stanzas of the previous chapter (the Essential Being, the Essential Deity, the Essential Sacrifice etc.), which are to be known so that such Men-of-Wisdom "CONTINUE TO KNOW ME EVEN AT THE TIME OF DEATH STEADFAST IN MIND" (VII-30) confuse Arjuna.
The chapter opens with the seeker questioning his teacher with a view to get an exact definition for each new term used in His learned discourse. Not only does Arjuna ask for an explanation of the terms used, but he is also anxious to know how exactly one can realise the Self at the time of death, when one gains perfect self-control as a result of one's constant spiritual practices in life.
THE LORD EXPLAINS EACH TERM EXHAUSTIVELY IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:
IMPERISHABLE IS THE SUPREME BRAHMAN --- The term Brahman indicates the one changeless and imperishable subjective Essence behind the phenomenal world. It becomes the Self, the Conscious Principle which illumines the body, mind and intellect, during all their pilgrimages from birth to death through the infinite varieties of their vicissitudes.
ITS PRESENCE IN EACH INDIVIDUAL BODY IS CALLED ADHYATMA --- Though the Self is formless and subtle, and therefore, all-pervading, Its glory and might, power and grace, are felt, experienced and lived by each physical structure; and this Self, expressing Itself through a given embodiment, as though conditioned by it, is called the Adhyatma. Shankara brings it out very clearly when he explains the term as, "THE PRINCIPLE THAT GRACES ALL BODIES AS THEIR ESSENTIAL SELF."
Work is not only the turn-over; the turn-over can be ordered and brought about by sheer labour. The term 'work' connotes something deeper, subtler, diviner. The creative urge that is behind every active intellect, which ultimately fulfils itself in the creation of things and beings, that subtle spiritual strength is called "karma"; all else is mere sweat and toil, dust and blood, heaving and sobbing, smiling and singing, hoarding and wasting.
THE ADHIBHUTA IS THE PERISHABLE EXISTENCE --- As a contrast to the Imperishable (Akshara) is the 'perishable-equipment' (Kshara), the world of prakriti, through which the potential dynamism, vigour and glory of the Infinite Self express themselves. Between the Kshara and Akshara, there is as much difference as between a steam-engine and the steam, a running car and the horse-power in the petrol, a singing radio and the electric current that makes it possible for the radio to sing. In short, by the term 'perishable' (kshara) the whole world of phenomena of the Universe is indicated. Subjectively, the equipments of cognition, feeling, and perception constitute, in the main, the destructible or the perishable factors in us.
ADHIDAIVA IS THE INDWELLER --- The term Indweller (Adhidaiva) is used to indicate the "special faculty" that presides over each apparatus of knowledge and activity in the living creatures (the Purushah). The presiding deities of the sense-organs, of the mind, and of the intellect, are called the Devatas, which are nothing other than the faculty of vision in the eyes, the faculty of audition in the ears, the power of smelling in the nose, and so on.
Adhiyajna, HERE IN THIS BODY, I ALONE AM --- We have already seen that the Yajna here means the "act of perception, feeling, or thought." As in the Yajna, here also oblations --- the sense-objects --- are poured into the Yajna-altar --- the sense-organs --- when the Devata --- the particular faculty in it --- gets propitiated and invoked, and as a blessing from it we gain the "fruit" thereof, viz., the knowledge of the perception. In this Adhiyajna, in the subjective Yajna-act of perception, it is quite evident that the One Vital Factor that dominates the entire activity is the Self, the Principle of Life.
By giving these definitions, the Lord is on the whole suggesting with a subtle under-current of the implications, that the Eternal Self alone is the Real, and that all else are delusory super-impositions upon it. Therefore, to know the Self is to know everything and having known the Eternal as one's own Real Nature, one is free to act or not to act, and to play or not to play, in any of the fields of the not-Self.
An individual who lives in the Awareness of this Knowledge, ever-conscious of the play of the Self at all levels of his personality --- physical, mental and intellectual --- such an individual, naturally, comes to experience himself as a Divine Witness, observing the very process of death that clips off layer by layer his self-chosen connections with the not-Self!
Vyasa is never tired of emphasizing the cardinal philosophical idea in Vedanta that an individualised ego continues identifying with a given physical body only so long as it needs that particular instrument for eking out its desired quota of experiences. Once it is over, it 'kicks the bucket,' as it were, and walks off --- forgetting all its duties, its relationships and its vanities in that particular existence. At this moment of divorce from a given body it is logical to believe that its thoughts would be about the most predominant desire or aspiration in it --- either gathered in its past embodiments, or acquired in its present life. The techniques of meditation and devotion constitute the art of tutoring the mind to keep in it an unflickering flame of aspiration, so carefully trimmed and fed that such a seeker, "AT THE TIME OF DEATH, MEDITATING ON ME ALONE, GOES FORTH LEAVING THE BODY."
This last powerful willing, determined by the last thought, decides its destinies in the future. An ego that lived all its life, in its ego-centric vanities, identifying Itself with merely the flesh and ever catering to its appetities, will be hoarding such sensuous vasanas that it must necessarily take a form, lower in the evolutionary scale, in order that its acquired animal instincts may thereby be fulfilled to the maximum.
On the other hand, when an individual, in his discrimination, comes to recognise the futility of a lascivious life, and, therefore, aspires to release himself from the thraldom of the flesh, he surely moves higher up on the ladder of evolution when he retires from his present embodiment. Faithfully following this theory which is at once logical and reasonable, the Science of Life, as enunciated in Vedanta, declares that the last thoughts of a dying man order his future embodiments and their environments.
Therefore, Krishna insists here that one who leaves the physical structure with his mind completely turned towards the Self will, naturally, reach the Eternal and the Immortal, "THE SUPREME ABODE, reaching which there is no return" (VIII-21).
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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