Chapter 8: Akshara Brahma Yoga – Comprehending the Imperishable Reality: Verse 17
सहस्रयुगपर्यन्तमहर्यद्ब्रह्मणो विदु: ।
रात्रिं युगसहस्रान्तां तेऽहोरात्रविदो जना: ॥
sahasra-yuga-paryantamaharyad-
brahmaṇo vidu:
rātriṃ yuga-sahasrāntāṃ
te’horātra-vido janā: – 8.17
Those people who know the Creator Brahmā’s day as extending to a thousand yugas and his night also as ending after another thousand yugas, alone know the real day and night.
Chapter 8: Akshara Brahma Yoga – Comprehending the Imperishable Reality - Verse 17
Ma Gurupriya
Krishna wants the seeker to comprehend how fleeting like lightning is the world, including the promised heavens, including Brahmā’s world. Therefore, he takes the seeker to the magnitude represented by Brahmā, the Creator!
Time is incalculably long. It is the one that displays the world, in conjunction with place and objects. Human life coming within these is gauged by day and night, their multiples, which lead to parārdhas (the number of mortal days corresponding to half the life-time of Brahmā), concepts very hard to grasp. Brahmā’s life meets its end after 72,000 kalpas, or 311 trillion human years. Then another Brahmā follows and the hierarchy continues. Nothing is permanent.
Such reflections expose the transient nature of existence, making it not worth seeking. How fleeting then is our life with its delights! These delights are like the sumptuous meal served to one being taken to the gallows!
