Declaring this well-thought-out conclusion of the Rishis, the Self-dedicated thinkers of India, the Lord says “WHATEVER OBJECT ONE REMEMBERS WHILE LEAVING THE BODY, THAT ALONE IS REACHED BY HIM” — be it a dog or a god.

“As you think so you become” is a theory which is obvious to every intelligent man even without an explanation from any philosopher. Thoughts guide all actions, and at any given moment the run of thoughts in an individual is governed and ordered by the channel of thinking, which he himself has ploughed in his bosom with his conscious and wilful thoughts and actions in the past. Naturally, therefore, a mental equipment that has been struggling during its existence in an embodiment to detach from all its identifications with that embodiment, and to fix itself in the contemplation of the Real and the Eternal, would be creating new channels of divine aspirations (Adhyatma Samskaras). The time of death, when the occupant of the body has packed up to quit, is not the moment to decide or to plan the travel. At such a moment, instinctively, its thoughts would run through its habitual channels, and the flight of thoughts at that moment would determine the direction of the ego’s pilgrimage.

THEREFORE:

O Son of Kunti, smaran, thinking of; bhavam, any entity, any particular deity; yam yam va api, which ever it may be; tyajati, one gives up; the kalevaram, body; ante, at the end, at the time of the departure of life; eti, he attains; tam tam eva, that very one, that very entity which is remembered-none else; having been sada, always; tadbhava-bhavitah, engrossed in its thought. Engrossment in it is tad-bhavah; one by whom that is remembered as a matter of habitual recollection is tadbhava-bhavitah. Since the last thought is thus the cause of acquiring the next body-