The Lord has already explained that there are two goals in life which men seek: the extrovert life of satisfying the ego and gaining its flickering joys among the sense-objects — each experience of which soon sours itself to become sorrow; and the Divine Mission of seeking the Imperishable by ending the ego in a re-discovery of its own real Nature as nothing other than the Eternal Consciousness, the Changeless Substratum of the whole universe.

These two goals, it has been indicated, differ from each other inasmuch as the former ensures a return again to a finite embodiment, to live the consequent ego-centric life of limitations, and the latter promises a goal, having reached which, there is no return. The Realised One comes to experience and enjoy the Infinite Beatitude of the Bliss Absolute as his own Real Self.

If thus, there are two goals to be gained, there must necessarily be two different paths guiding the two types of seekers to their respective destinations. In the stanza under review, the Lord promises that he will explain to “the Chief of the Bharata family,” both the “Path of return” and the “Path of no-return.”

There is a pun on the word ‘Kale’ used here; it shows both the TIME of departure and the PATH pursued by the different types of seekers at the end of their present manifestations.

THE PATH PURSUED BY THOSE WHO HAVE NO RETURN IS AS FOLLOWS:

Bharatarsabha, O best of the Bharata dynasty; vaksyami, I shall speak; tu, now; tam, of that; kalam, time; prayatah, by departing, by dying; (-these words are to be which time; yoginah, the yogis; yanti, attain; anavrttim, the State of Non-return, of nonrebirth; ca eva, and also; of the time by departing at which they attain its opposite, avrttim, the State of Return. By ‘Yogis’ are implied both the yogis (men of meditation) and the men of acitons (rites and duties). But the men of action are yogis by courtesy, in accordance with the description, ‘through the Yoga of Action for the yogis’ (3.3). The Lord speaks of that time: [This is Ast.’s reading.-Tr.]