“The Path of Return” is called the “Path of the Ancestor” (Pitryana), and is considered as presided over by the Moon, which represents the world-of-matter. Those who leave the world after spending their lifetime in doing good and performing rituals (karmas), unaccompanied by any worship (upasana), are those who go to the World-of-Ancestors (Pitrus), otherwise popularly known as Heaven. These denizens of Heaven, on having exhausted their merits, gained by them through their divine actions, will have to return into deserved embodiments, ordered by their individual vasana-balance that is ardently pressing for expression and fulfilment.
SMOKE, NIGHT-TIME, THE DARK FORTNIGHT, THE SIX MONTHS OF THE SOUTHERN SOLSTICE — These indications chalk out “the Path through the Moon” (Pitriyaana) to the world of the ancestors. The moon, as we said, represents the world-of-matter and is the presiding deity of the sense enjoyments. Such people do return after having attained through the grace of the Moon the Heavenly enjoyments for a period.
In short, these two stanzas indicate that, in his life-time, a seeker struggling to raise himself above the various matter-envelopments and his identifications with them, reaches the higher spiritual realms from where, in the stream of his spiritual progress, he reaches the Ultimate. But in case he be a courter of pleasures, ever singing at the temple of sensuality, then he falls on the path of realising those developed instincts, and comes back again into the field of action here — wherein he can again make or unmake himself.
IN CONCLUSION KRISHNA ADDS:
