Bhagavad Gita Chapter 8, Verse 15 (BG 8.15) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

8.15 माम् to Me? उपेत्य having attained? पुनर्जन्म rirth? दुःखालयम् the place of pain? अशाश्वतम् noneternal? न not? आप्नुवन्ति get? महात्मानः Mahatmas or the great souls? संसिद्धिम् to perfection? परमाम् highest? गताः having reached.Commentary Birth is the home of pain or seat of sorrow arising from the body. Study the Garbhopanishad. There the nature of pain? i.e.? how the child is confined in the womb? and how it is pressed during its passage along the vaginal canal and the neck of the womb or uterus? is described. Further it is much affected by the PrasutiVayu (the vital air which is responsible for the delivery of the child).Mahatmas (great souls) are free from Rajas and Tamas.Having attained Me This denotes KramaMukti or gradual liberation. The devotees who pass along the Devayana through the force of their Upasana? attain to Brahmaloka (the world of Brahma the Creator) or Satyaloka (the world of truth? the highest of the seven worlds) and there enjoy all the divine wealth and glory of the Lord and then attain to Kaivalya Moksha (final liberation) through the knowledge of Brahman? along with Brahma during the cosmic dissolution.Mahatmas or great souls who have attained Moksha do not come again to birth. Those who have not attained Me? take birth again in this world.

Commentaries

Contemporary scholarly and practical interpretations for modern seekers.

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Modern

# BG 8.15 — Commentary on Liberation from Rebirth Here is evaluated the fruit obtained by the wise person through direct realization of the Self: those great souls who attain Me do not return to birth in this world of suffering. According to the philosophers who contemplate ultimate truth, rebirth itself is the root of all sorrow. Sri Krishna too speaks of rebirth here as a realm of suffering and impermanence. There is a noteworthy point in the history of Indian philosophy: in its earliest phase, immortality was regarded as life's supreme goal; yet later, freedom from rebirth came to be accepted as the true aim. Among all experiences, death appears to human consciousness as the most terrifying. This is why the seeker's initial effort and anxiety were wholly directed toward liberation from this inevitable death. Yet as knowledge deepened through careful observation and evaluation of life's events, and as thought matured, the sages of spiritual wisdom soon discovered this truth: those who understand that death is but one among life's experiences lose their terror of it. The unbroken existence of life cannot be severed by death. The rishis, contemplating truth with utmost impartiality and detachment, arrived through reason and direct experience at this conclusion: all suffering begins with birth. Therefore, life's true goal must be freedom from rebirth. The dream of rebirth and its inevitable suffering belong only to false ego-sense, to the individual soul. The unborn Self, through identification with inert conditions, assumes the sense of individual existence. Just as electricity expressed through a bulb manifests as light, and when the bulb breaks, that functional light merges back into its causal electricity—while electricity itself remains singular, unique, and uniformly present in all bulbs of the world—similarly, the Self limited by the conditioning of the inner instrument is called the individual soul. It alone must endure all the suffering of birth, growth, disease, decay, and death. When the conditioning dissolves, when identification with it ceases, the individual realizes: "I am the Self, consciousness itself." The Self-realized person knows there is no real relationship between himself and mind or intellect. Just as the waking person has no actual connection with the wife and children seen in a dream, so too, upon awakening to one's true nature as the Self, the ego-sense (the individual soul) dissolves entirely with its limited, sorrowful existence. Such great souls have no need to return to this world and experience suffering through rebirth. The person who, throughout life, has practiced continuous Self-inquiry, thereby learning to master the senses, and who has established the mind in the heart and the life-force in the intellect—such a person directly experiences the infinite, eternal nature of the Self as his own being. Thereafter, he does not take birth again in any particular body, nor does he futilely seek endless happiness in limited objects. Then, are there those who do not attain the supreme goal and return again to the world? To this the Lord speaks—