The Book of Religion by Devotion - Page 2

take the way of utmost blessedness.

The worlds, Arjuna!--even Brahma's world--
Roll back again from Death to Life's unrest;
But they, O Kunti's Son! that reach to Me,
Taste birth no more. If ye know Brahma's Day
Which is a thousand Yugas; if ye know
The thousand Yugas making Brahma's Night,
Then know ye Day and Night as He doth know!
When that vast Dawn doth break, th' Invisible
Is brought anew into the Visible;
When that deep Night doth darken, all which is
Fades back again to Him Who sent it forth;
Yea! this vast company of living things--
Again and yet again produced--expires
At Brahma's Nightfall; and, at Brahma's Dawn,
Riseth, without its will, to life new-born.
But--higher, deeper, innermost--abides
Another Life, not like the life of sense,
Escaping sight, unchanging. This endures
When all created things have passed away:
This is that Life named the Unmanifest,
The Infinite! the All! the Uttermost.
Thither arriving none return. That Life
Is Mine, and I am there! And, Prince! by faith
Which wanders not, there is a way to come
Thither. I, the PURUSHA, I Who spread
The Universe around me--in Whom dwell
All living Things--may so be reached and seen!

* * * * * [15]

Richer than holy fruit on Vedas growing,
Greater than gifts, better than prayer or fast,
Such wisdom is! The Yogi, this way knowing,
Comes to the Utmost Perfect Peace at last.

HERE ENDETH CHAPTER VIII. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA,
Entitled "Aksharaparabrahmayog,"
Or "The book of Religion by Devotion to the One Supreme God."

[15] I have discarded ten lines of Sanskrit text here as an undoubted interpolation by some Vedantist