The eighth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is Akshara Brahma Yoga. In this chapter, Krishna reveals the importance of the last thought before death. If we can remember Krishna at the time of death, we will certainly attain him. Thus, it is very important to be in constant awareness of the Lord at all times, thinking of Him and chanting His names at all times. By perfectly absorbing their mind in Him through constant devotion, one can go beyond this material existence to Lord's Supreme abode.
arjuna uvāca .
kiṃ tad brahma kimadhyātmaṃ kiṃ karma puruṣottama .
adhibhūtaṃ ca kiṃ proktamadhidaivaṃ kimucyate ||8-1||
Simple English
Primary Translation
Arjuna said: O Supreme Person, what is that Brahman? What is the individual self? What is action? What is said to be the physical realm? And what is the divine realm?
O Madhusudana, who is the one present in the sacrifice here in this body, and how? And at the time of death, how are you to be known by those of concentrated minds?
Krishna said: The supreme Brahman is the imperishable. The individual self is called the entity present in one's own being. The offering that brings about the arising of beings is called action.
अधिभूतं क्षरो भावः पुरुषश्चाधिदैवतम् |
अधियज्ञोऽहमेवात्र देहे देहभृतां वर ||८-४||
adhibhūtaṃ kṣaro bhāvaḥ puruṣaścādhidaivatam .
adhiyajño.ahamevātra dehe dehabhṛtāṃ vara ||8-4||
Simple English
Primary Translation
What exists in the physical realm is the perishable. What exists in the divine realm is the Person. O best of the embodied, I myself am the one present in sacrifice in this body.
O son of Kunti, whatever being one thinks of when leaving the body at the end, one reaches that very being, having been always absorbed in that thought.
O son of Prtha, by meditating with a mind engaged in the yoga of practice that does not wander to anything else, one reaches the supreme divine Person.
One who meditates on the omniscient, the ancient, the ruler, subtler than the subtle, the ordainer of all, of inconceivable form, bright as the sun, beyond all darkness,
at the time of death, with an unmoving mind, endowed with devotion and the strength of yoga, fixing the vital breath between the eyebrows, that person reaches the supreme divine Person.
I will speak briefly of that imperishable goal which the knowers of the Vedas call by that name, into which the striving ones free from attachment enter, and aspiring for which people practise celibacy.
sarvadvārāṇi saṃyamya mano hṛdi nirudhya ca .
mūdhnyā^^rdhāyātmanaḥ prāṇamāsthito yogadhāraṇām ||8-12||
Simple English
Primary Translation
Having controlled all the gates of the body, having confined the mind in the heart, having fixed one's own vital breath at the top of the head, settled in the steadiness of yoga,
Having reached me, the great souls who have attained the highest perfection do not come back to rebirth, which is the home of suffering and is impermanent.
With the arrival of day, all manifested things come forth from the unmanifest. With the arrival of night, they dissolve back into what is called the unmanifest.
O son of Prtha, that same multitude of beings, coming into existence again and again, dissolves helplessly at the arrival of night and comes forth again at the arrival of day.
O best of the Bharatas, I will now speak of the time at which yogis who depart reach the state of non-return, and also of the time at which they return.
Fire, light, daytime, the bright fortnight, the six months of the northern solstice: following this path, those who know Brahman go to Brahman when they die.
These two paths of the world, the bright and the dark, are considered eternal. By one a person goes to the state of non-return; by the other a person returns again.
Having known this, the yogi goes beyond all the results of meritorious deeds declared in the Vedas, in sacrifices, in austerities, and in charitable gifts, and reaches the supreme primordial state.