Vyasa is never tired of emphasizing the cardinal philosophical idea in Vedanta that an individualised ego continues identifying with a given physical body only so long as it needs that particular instrument for eking out its desired quota of experiences. Once it is over, it ‘kicks the bucket,’ as it were, and walks off — forgetting all its duties, its relationships and its vanities in that particular existence. At this moment of divorce from a given body it is logical to believe that its thoughts would be about the most predominant desire or aspiration in it — either gathered in its past embodiments, or acquired in its present life. The techniques of meditation and devotion constitute the art of tutoring the mind to keep in it an unflickering flame of aspiration, so carefully trimmed and fed that such a seeker, “AT THE TIME OF DEATH, MEDITATING ON ME ALONE, GOES FORTH LEAVING THE BODY.”This last powerful willing, determined by the last thought, decides its destinies in the future. An ego that lived all its life, in its ego-centric vanities, identifying Itself with merely the flesh and ever catering to its appetities, will be hoarding such sensuous vasanas that it must necessarily take a form, lower in the evolutionary scale, in order that

its acquired animal instincts may thereby be fulfilled to the maximum.

On the other hand, when an individual, in his discrimination, comes to recognise the futility of a lascivious life, and, therefore, aspires to release himself from the thraldom of the flesh, he surely moves higher up on the ladder of evolution when he retires from his present embodiment. Faithfully following this theory which is at once logical and reasonable, the Science of Life, as enunciated in Vedanta, declares that the last thoughts of a dying man order his future embodiments and their environments.

Therefore, Krishna insists here that one who leaves the physical structure with his mind completely turned towards the Self will, naturally, reach the Eternal and the Immortal, “THE SUPREME ABODE, reaching which there is no return” (VIII-21).

BUT THEN, ARE THERE NO ARGUMENTS THAT CAN CONCLUSIVELY PROVE THE STATEMENT? LISTEN:

Ca, and ; anta-kale, at the time of death; yah, anyone who; prayati, departs; muktva, by giving up; the kalevaram, body; smaran, while thinking; mam eva, of Me alone, who am the supreme Lord Visnu; sah, he; yati, attains; madhavam, My state, the Reality that is Vishu, Asti, there is; na, no; samsayah, doubt; atra, about this, in this regard, as to whether he attains (Me) or not. ‘This rule does not apply in relation to me alone.’ ‘What then?’