Prayāṇa-kāla (प्रयाणकाल)
BG 8.5–BG 8.6: “whoever, at the end, leaving the body, departs remembering Me alone, reaches My being — and whatever state one calls to mind while giving up the body at the last, to that very state one goes, ever shaped by dwelling on it.” Death, in this account, does not reset the ledger; it draws out whatever the mind has been practising.
Why it is a teaching about now, not later
The Gita’s own conclusion is that you cannot count on producing the right state on demand at the end, so BG 8.7 says “therefore, at all times remember Me, and fight” — the death-instant is won or lost across the whole life that precedes it. Chapter 8 then adds cosmology: BG 8.23–BG 8.26, the “bright path” (light, day, the bright fortnight) from which yogis do not return, and the “dark path” from which one returns to rebirth. The bright/dark distinction is not about the calendar date of one’s death but about the orientation one carries into it.
Related
- Akṣara (अक्षर) — chapter 8’s frame; the imperishable is what remembrance at the last moment reaches
- Bhakti (भक्ति) — the death-remembrance the chapter recommends is devotional: the mind fixed on Krishna, held there by a lifetime’s habit
- Abhyasa (अभ्यास) — BG 8.8 names the method as constant practice (abhyāsa-yoga), the mind trained not to wander
Verses that reference this
They who know Me as the knowledge of the elements, as that of the Shining Ones, and as that of the Sacrifice, they harmonised in mind, know Me verily even in the time of forthgoing.
What is the knowledge of Sacrifice in this body, and how, O, Madhusûdana? And how, at the time of forthgoing art Thou known by the Self-controlled?