Bhagavad Gita Chapter 8, Verse 5 (BG 8.5) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

The great sage Vyasa does not tire of emphasizing this fundamental principle of Vedanta: that any living being remains identified with a particular body only so long as that body serves as a useful and necessary instrument for obtaining the experiences it desires. Once this purpose is fulfilled, the being forever abandons that body. Thereafter, there remains neither duty nor relationship nor any sense of possession toward that body. At the moment of departing from the body, the mind of the living being will dwell upon that subject for which it harbored a strong desire or aspiration—whether that desire arose in this birth or any other. Such understanding is rational and logical. The practice of meditation and devotion is the art of concentrating the mind, wherein one maintains an unbroken flow of consciousness toward the object of meditation. Such a practitioner, at the final hour, relinquishes the body while meditating upon Me alone. This final, powerful desire of the living being before death determines its future destiny. The being that has lived its entire life in ego and selfishness, identifying itself with the body and occupied only in fulfilling base desires, will—being possessed of worldly inclinations—take on a body in which its animal tendencies can be satisfied to the greatest extent. Conversely, when a practitioner recognizes through discrimination the futility of a sensual life and becomes eager to free itself from those bonds, then after abandoning the body, that practitioner certainly attains a higher state of evolution. According to this rational and intelligible principle, Vedanta declares that the final desire of a dying person determines his future body and environment. Therefore, the Lord says here: The person who, at the final hour, remembers Me and departs from the body attains My form. This certainty applies not only to Me, but rather—