Bhagavad Gita - Book 8, Volume 6

EVERYTHING IS TRANSIENT

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Appreciate and intranalyze the deeper meaning. Understand that whatever we see is transient. Nothing is permanent. It is like putting our hand in a river and trying to hold the water in our hand. What happens?

The river flows past, and our hand is empty. Once we realize this truth, our whole idea about time and space will change. We will see everything around us in a different way and understand the futility of the rat race.

The seven layers that the spirit travels through at the time of death. The first four layers are related to the physical body-mind system. They store emotionally laden memories: patterns related to desires, guilt and pain experienced during that lifetime. The fifth layer is experienced during deep sleep and when leaving the body. The sixth layer is associated with happy memories and the seventh layer is beyond sorrow and happiness; it is the Ultimate consciousness.

Even attachment to happy memories brings us back into the cycle of birth and death. It is not enough if we transcend pains and sufferings alone. Understand that happy incidents are also temporary and try to move beyond them.

FOCUS YOUR

THOUGHTS ON THE DIVINE

The abode where one will not
return to refers to the state of the
being when it transcends joys and
sorrow. Kṛṣṇa again and again talks
about focusing one's thoughts on
the Divine.

The only way to think of the Divine
at the time of our death is by
thinking about Him all the time. At
that time, we suddenly cannot
think of God. In such pain and
suffering, we suddenly can't think
of God if we have always been
thinking about money and food in
our life. It is impossible. That is
why Kṛṣṇa insists upon continuous
devotion to the Supreme - bhaktyā
labhyas tv ananyayā (8.22).