Message #48858

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Yogis not yet free from the world revolve back again (to the world) even from the high sphere of Brahma (union with God in samadhi). But on entering into Me (the transcendental Spirit) there is no rebirth, O son of Kunti (Arjuna) !

Elaborating on the previous verse, Krishna points out that merely reaching the abode of Brahman, Spirit, may not in itself assure complete liberation. Even though the yogi may attain in ecstatic meditation high states of God – union - merging the consciousness in Aum in the vibratory dominion of Brahma, experiencing His omniscience in omnipresent Kutastha or Christ Consciousness, and even reaching the highest Brahma sphere of Cosmic Consciousness - he cannot remain in those states but must revolve again to bodily consciousness if there persists within him any mortal desires or karmic bonds. If death occurs in this imperfect state, he will be reborn on earth or in some high astral realm with a new opportunity and the spiritual potential to free himself.

In meditation, the yogi gradually ascends his consciousness and life force upward through the spinal centers of divine awakening, experiencing expanded Self - realization with each higher step. He who attains union with the triune manifestation of Brahma as the Cosmic Aum vibration or Holy Ghost in the medulla, as the Krishna or Christ Consciousness in the Kutastha center, and as Cosmic Consciousness in the thousand petaled lotus in the cerebrum, still will have to return to limited mortal consciousness if he has not broken all karmic bonds, desires, and attachments and consciously ascended from all three bodily encasements physical, astral, and causal. The more the yogi is able at will to gain the elevated states of consciousness, and the longer he is able to hold on to them in meditation and after meditation, the more he diminishes his binding karmic reflexes and dream delusions. When these are vanquished, the yogi dissolves the body - conscious ego into the soul and takes his soul, with its astral and causal bodies, out of the physical body ; he then takes his soul and causal body out of the astral body ; and, finally, his soul ascends from the causal form and merges into the transcendental Spirit, from which there is no compulsory return to the vale of distressing dualities.

The sanskrit word lokas in this verse may also be rendered as "worlds." With that interpretation, the verse translates as follows, and leads into the succeeding verses :

All worlds, from the high sphere of Brahma (to the gross earth), are subject to (the finite law of) recurrence. But those devotees, O Arjuna ! who become merged in Me are freed from rebirth.
The law of recurrence is inexorably operative not only for all mortal beings, but also for all finite worlds including the sphere of Brahma - that portion of Spirit that is immanent in creation as the Dreaming Creator - Preserver - Destroyer during each cycle of cosmic manifestation. Man escapes from that law when he "comes to Himself" or remembers his essential divinity and becomes irrevocably united to the transcendental Absolute.

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda - The Bhagavad Gita  God talks with Arjuna  8:16