Verse
5
Antakaale cha maameva
Smaranmuktwaa kalevaram;
Yah prayaati sa madbhaavam
Yaati naastyatra samshayah.
And whosoever, leaving the
body, goes forth remembering Me alone at the time of death, he attains My
Being; there is no doubt about this.
Sri Krishna says this because the shape that the mind
takes at the time of death will be the shape into which it will enter after
death. Thus, the pattern of our future life in the other world is laid at the
time of our passing from this body, depending on the state of thinking in which
the mind is lodged.
“Whoever contemplates on Me only” — you
may ask what this ‘Me’ is. The Supreme Being is a total blend of all the
aspects of possible concepts — the adhyatma, adhibhuta, adhidaiva,
etc. It is a timeless conceptualization of an eternal possibility and that is
the kind of ‘Me’ on which we have to concentrate.
The Universal Being is telling us: “Concentrate
on Me.” The Universal Being shall reveal itself completely in the
Eleventh Chapter. Now it is preparing the way for it. It is gaining momentum;
the tempo of the teaching is gradually rising.
The heat is rising, as it were, in the very manner of the
exposition, until it reaches the culmination in the Visvarupa Darshana.
Therefore, it is this Universal Visvarupa, the Total Existence, that
is the object of our concentration. “That is Me, and on Me
(that type of ‘Me’) you concentrate yourself.”
We should attempt to bring our mind to that point of meditation
when we depart from this body. That is the antakala, or the end
period of our life. If we think that any moment is the end period of our life,
it will be good on our part to be meditating like this always.
There is no loss in getting engaged in this meditation day in and day out. We
will not lose anything by thinking of God.
One may ask , “How do I know when I will pass away? Should
I think that I will pass away just now, and collect myself in tremendous
earnestness? Or should I be at ease with myself because I may not die so
quickly, because I have a long tenure of life—for ten, twenty, thirty or forty
years more, as the case may be?
So are you telling me that I can postpone this meditation to later for
consideration, and now I can be merry in this world?” Not so is
the case.
We cannot expect to have that blessing of concentration at the time of passing
from this body unless we have cultivated that habit even earlier throughout our
life.
If we have lived a dissipated, indulgent life during our normal tenure here,
our span of life, do we think some butter will come by churning water? Butter
comes only by churning milk.
So,
in essence, this verse has to be understood thus:-
For one to remember Him and Him alone, the
one who has been described as Adhi-daiva / Adhi-atma in earlier verse, one must
have taken up spiritual sadhana from early stage in life and with intense
purushartha, one must have evolved to such an extent that, while his body
leaves, there is no possibility of any thought other than the thought / focus / contemplation on the highest Supreme Source.
If one is evolved to such an extent as
explained above, so that, already the concept of Body, Mind, Intellect, Samsara
(in essence, individual ego) has been transcended, then, very soon, may be upon
death or in the early life in the next birth, such an evolved soul is sure to
reach HIM (Attain liberation / freedom from this samsara, freedom from the
cycle of birth and death).
Love.
