Public domain translation by Sir Edwin Arnold (1885), via Project Gutenberg. Presented unabridged.
Arjuna.<br/> Who is that BRAHMA? What that Soul of Souls,<br/> The ADHYATMAN? What, Thou Best of All!<br/> Thy work, the KARMA? Tell me what it is<br/> Thou namest ADHIBHUTA? What again<br/> Means ADHIDAIVA? Yea, and how it comes<br/> Thou canst be ADHIYAJNA in thy flesh?<br/> Slayer of Madhu! Further, make me know<br/> How good men find thee in the hour of death?
Krishna.<br/> I BRAHMA am! the One Eternal GOD,<br/> And ADHYATMAN is My Being's name,<br/> The Soul of Souls! What goeth forth from Me,<br/> Causing all life to live, is KARMA called:<br/> And, Manifested in divided forms,<br/> I am the ADHIBHUTA, Lord of Lives;<br/> And ADHIDAIVA, Lord of all the Gods,<br/> Because I am PURUSHA, who begets.<br/> And ADHIYAJNA, Lord of Sacrifice,<br/> I--speaking with thee in this body here--<br/> Am, thou embodied one! (for all the shrines<br/> Flame unto Me!) And, at the hour of death,<br/> He that hath meditated Me alone,<br/> In putting off his flesh, comes forth to Me,<br/> Enters into My Being--doubt thou not!<br/> But, if he meditated otherwise<br/> At hour of death, in putting off the flesh,<br/> He goes to what he looked for, Kunti's Son!<br/> Because the Soul is fashioned to its like.
Have Me, then, in thy heart always! and fight!<br/> Thou too, when heart and mind are fixed on Me,<br/> Shalt surely come to Me! All come who cleave<br/> With never-wavering will of firmest faith,<br/> Owning none other Gods: all come to Me,<br/> The Uttermost, Purusha, Holiest!
Whoso hath known Me, Lord of sage and singer,<br/> Ancient of days; of all the Three Worlds Stay,<br/> Boundless,--but unto every atom Bringer<br/> Of that which quickens it: whoso, I say,
Hath known My form, which passeth mortal knowing;<br/> Seen my effulgence--which no eye hath seen--<br/> Than the sun's burning gold more brightly glowing,<br/> Dispersing darkness,--unto him hath been
Right life! And, in the hour when life is ending,<br/> With mind set fast and trustful piety,<br/> Drawing still breath beneath calm brows unbending,<br/> In happy peace that faithful one doth die,--
In glad peace passeth to Purusha's heaven.<br/> The place which they who read the Vedas name<br/> AKSHARAM, "Ultimate;" whereto have striven<br/> Saints and ascetics--their road is the same.
That way--the highest way--goes he who shuts<br/> The gates of all his senses, locks desire<br/> Safe in his heart, centres the vital airs<br/> Upon his parting thought, steadfastly set;<br/> And, murmuring OM, the sacred syllable--<br/> Emblem of BRAHM--dies, meditating Me.
For who, none other Gods regarding, looks<br/> Ever to Me, easily am I gained<br/> By such a Yogi; and, attaining Me,<br/> They fall not--those Mahatmas--back to birth,<br/> To life, which is the place of pain, which ends,<br/> But take the way of utmost blessedness.
The worlds, Arjuna!--even Brahma's world--<br/> Roll back again from Death to Life's unrest;<br/> But they, O Kunti's Son! that reach to Me,<br/> Taste birth no more. If ye know Brahma's Day<br/> Which is a thousand Yugas; if ye know<br/> The thousand Yugas making Brahma's Night,<br/> Then know ye Day and Night as He doth know!<br/> When that vast Dawn doth break, th' Invisible<br/> Is brought anew into the Visible;<br/> When that deep Night doth darken, all which is<br/> Fades back again to Him Who sent it forth;<br/> Yea! this vast company of living things--<br/> Again and yet again produced--expires<br/> At Brahma's Nightfall; and, at Brahma's Dawn,<br/> Riseth, without its will, to life new-born.<br/> But--higher, deeper, innermost--abides<br/> Another Life, not like the life of sense,<br/> Escaping sight, unchanging. This endures<br/> When all created things have passed away:<br/> This is that Life named the Unmanifest,<br/> The Infinite! the All! the Uttermost.<br/> Thither arriving none return. That Life<br/> Is Mine, and I am there! And, Prince! by faith<br/> Which wanders not, there is a way to come<br/> Thither. I, the PURUSHA, I Who spread<br/> The Universe around me--in Whom dwell<br/> All living Things--may so be reached and seen!
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Richer than holy fruit on Vedas growing,<br/> Greater than gifts, better than prayer or fast,<br/> Such wisdom is! The Yogi, this way knowing,<br/> Comes to the Utmost Perfect Peace at last.
HERE ENDETH CHAPTER VIII. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA,<br/> Entitled "Aksharaparabrahmayog,"<br/> Or "The book of Religion by Devotion to the One Supreme God."