Indian stream·Bhagavad Gita·Discourse 8: The Yoga of the Imperishable Brahman

Source context

Theme

the imperishable Brahman, the path of the dying soul, and the cosmic gates of light and darkness governing rebirth or liberation

Soul-faculty

Consciousness Soul

Steiner

• GA 146, 1913-06-05Steiner identifies the Bhagavad Gita's age as a stage in which souls rose passively toward Brahma, contrasting this with the active spiritual ascent demanded in the present intellectual age — directly engaging the cosmological ascent-doctrine of Discourse 8.
• GA 142, 1912-12-28Steiner treats the Bhagavad Gita as a harmonious interpenetration of three spiritual streams — Vedic philosophy, Samkhya, and yogic practice — providing the framework within which Discourse 8's teaching on the imperishable Brahman and the soul's post-mortem path must be read.

Cross-tradition

• Vedanta (Upanishadic)Cross-tradition congruence exists between Discourse 8's teaching on the two cosmic paths (devayana and pitriyana) and the Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads' doctrine of the two ways of the dead soul — the path of the gods leading to non-return and the path of the ancestors leading to rebirth.
• Pythagorean / Platonic cosmologyCross-tradition congruence exists between Discourse 8's gate-of-light / gate-of-smoke imagery governing the soul's ascent or return and Plato's Er myth (Republic X) describing cosmic gates through which souls pass after death.
• Kabbalah (Ein Sof doctrine)Cross-tradition congruence exists between Discourse 8's identification of Brahman as the imperishable substratum beyond all manifested existence and the Kabbalistic Ein Sof — the infinite, undifferentiated ground that precedes all emanation.

Discourse 8: The Yoga of the Imperishable Brahman

8:1Arjuna said: What is that Eternal, what Self-knowledge, what Action, O
Purushottama? And what is declared to be the knowledge of the Elements, what is called the knowledge of the Shining Ones?

8:2What is the knowledge of Sacrifice in this body, and how, O Madhusudana? And
how, at the time of forthgoing art Thou known by the SELF-controlled?

8:3The Blessed Lord said: The indestructible, the supreme is the Eternal; His
essential nature is called Self-knowledge; the emanation that causes the birth of beings is named Action;

8:4Knowledge of the Elements concerns My perishable nature, and knowledge of
the Shining Ones concerns the life-giving energy; the knowledge of Sacrifice tells of Me, as wearing the body, O best of living beings.

8:5And he who, casting off the body, goeth forth thinking upon Me only at the time
of the end, he entereth into My being: there is no doubt of that.

8:6Whosoever at the end abandoneth the body, thinking upon any being, to that
being only he goeth, O Kaunteya, ever to that conformed in nature.

8:7Therefore at all times think upon Me only and fight. With mind and Reason set
on Me, without doubt thou shalt come to Me.

8:8With the mind not wandering after aught else, harmonised by continual practice,
constantly meditating, O Partha, one goeth to the Spirit supreme, divine.

8:9He who thinketh upon the Ancient, the Omniscient, the All-Ruler, minuter than
the minute, the supporter of all, of form unimaginable, refulgent as the sun beyond the darkness,

8:10In the time of forthgoing, with unshaken Manas, fixed in devotion, by the
power of Yoga drawing together his life-breath in the centre of the two eyebrows, he goeth to this Purusha, supreme, divine.

8:11That which is declared indestructible by the Veda-knowers, that which the
controlled and passion-free enter, that desiring which Brahmacharya is performed, that path I will declare to thee with brevity.

8:12All the gates closed, Manas confined in the heart, the life-breath fixed in his
own head, firm in Yoga,

8:13"Om!" the one-syllabled Brahman, reciting, thinking upon Me, he who goeth
forth, abandoning the body, he goeth to the highest goal.

8:14He who constantly thinketh upon Me, not thinking ever of another, of him I am
easily reached, O Partha, of this ever harmonised Yogi.

8:15Having come to Me, these Mahatmas come not again to birth, the place of pain,
non-eternal; they have gone to the highest bliss.

8:16The worlds, beginning with the world of Brahma, they come and go, O Arjuna;
but he who cometh unto Me, O Kaunteya, he knoweth birth no more.

8:17The people who know the day of Brahma, a thousand ages in duration, and the
night, a thousand ages in ending, they know day and night.

8:18From the unmanifested all the manifested stream forth at the coming of day; at
the coming of night they dissolve, even in That called the unmanifested.

8:19This multitude of beings, going forth repeatedly, is dissolved at the coming of
night: by ordination, O Partha, it streams forth at the coming of day.

8:20Therefore verily there existeth, higher than that unmanifested, another
unmanifested, eternal, which, in the destroying of all beings, is not destroyed.

8:21That unmanifested, "the Indestructible," It is called; It is named the highest
Path. They who reach It return not. That is My supreme abode.

8:22He, the highest Spirit, O Partha, may be reached by unswerving devotion to
Him alone, in whom all beings abide, by whom all This is pervaded.

8:23That time wherein going forth Yogis return not, and also that wherein going
forth they return, that time shall I declare to thee, O prince of the Bharatas.

8:24Fire, light, day-time, the bright fortnight, the six months of the northern path—
then, going forth, the men who know the Eternal go to the Eternal.

8:25Smoke, night-time, the dark fortnight also, the six months of the southern path
—then the Yogi, obtaining the moonlight, returneth.

8:26Light and darkness, these are thought to be the world's everlasting paths; by the
one he goeth who returneth not, by the other he who returneth again.

8:27Knowing these paths, O Partha, the Yogi is nowise perplexed. Therefore in all
times be firm in yoga, O Arjuna.

8:28The fruit of meritorious deeds, attached in the Vedas to sacrifices, to austerities,
and also to almsgiving, the Yogi passeth all these by having known this, and goeth to the supreme and ancient Seat.

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