Devanagari
यत्र काले त्वनावृत्तिमावृत्तिं चैव योगिन: ।
प्रयाता यान्ति तं कालं वक्ष्यामि भरतर्षभ ॥ २३ ॥
Verse text
yatra kāle tv anāvṛttim
āvṛttiṁ caiva yoginaḥ
prayātā yānti taṁ kālaṁ
vakṣyāmi bharatarṣabha
Synonyms
yatra
—
at which
;
kāle
—
time
;
tu
—
and
;
anāvṛttim
—
no return
;
āvṛttim
—
return
;
ca
—
also
;
eva
—
certainly
;
yoginaḥ
—
different kinds of mystics
;
prayātāḥ
—
having departed
;
yānti
—
attain
;
tam
—
that
;
kālam
—
time
;
vakṣyāmi
—
I shall describe
;
bharata-ṛṣabha
—
O best of the Bhāratas.
Translation
O best of the Bhāratas, I shall now explain to you the different times at which, passing away from this world, the yogī does or does not come back.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
23. O best of Bharata’s lineage, I will now explain about the paths by which the yogīs return or do not return.
Translation (Baladeva Vidyabhusana)
23. O best of Bharata, I will now explain about the paths by which the yogīs return or do not return.
Purport
The unalloyed devotees of the Supreme Lord, who are totally surrendered souls, do not care when they leave their bodies or by what method. They leave everything in Kṛṣṇa’s hands and so easily and happily return to Godhead. But those who are not unalloyed devotees and who depend instead on such methods of spiritual realization as karma-yoga, jṣāna-yoga and haṭha-yoga must leave the body at a suitable time in order to be sure of whether or not they will return to the world of birth and death.
If the yogī is perfect he can select the time and situation for leaving this material world. But if he is not so expert his success depends on his accidentally passing away at a certain suitable time. The suitable times at which one passes away and does not come back are explained by the Lord in the next verse. According to Ācārya Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, the Sanskrit word kāla used herein refers to the presiding deity of time.
Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
“You have said in verse 21 that anyone who attains You does not come back, but You have not mentioned about any particular path that the devotee must traverse. Since the devotee is beyond the guṇas, his path is also beyond the guṇas, not a sattvic path such as going through the sun planet. But I am asking about the path taken by the yogīs, jṣānīs and karmīs. I will speak about the path (kālam) [Note: Kāla usually means “time,” but in this context means “path.”] of return and no return that they traverse when they have died.”
Purport (Baladeva Vidyabhusana)
The Lord has said that the devotees do not return to this world and those averse to the Lord return. By which paths do the devotees and those following kāmya karmas (yoginaḥ) travel so that they do not return or return? Kāla means the deities presiding over kāla. Since agni or dhūma are not related to time, the word kāla is still used (in a more general sense) because of the majority of words in the sequence including ahara and the other sequence including ratri are related to time. [Note: On the path of liberation, day, the waxing moon, the uttarāyaṇa are related to time, and on the path of return, the night, the waning moon and the dakṣināyaṇa are time related. Fire, light and smoke are not related to time.] Moreover, it should be understood that the word kāla refers to the path protected by the series of devatās starting wiht fire and series of devatās starting with smoke.
Surrender Unto Me
This first part of this Section is for jnanis, karma‑kandis and all sorts of mystic yogis. They have to practice according to these very strict rules.