Chapter 11Verse 29 of 55

Bhagavad Gita 11.29

यथा प्रदीप्तं ज्वलनं पतङ्गा विशन्ति नाशाय समृद्धवेगाः | तथैव नाशाय विशन्ति लोकास्तवापि वक्त्राणि समृद्धवेगाः ||

yathā pradīptaṁ jvalanaṁ pataṅgā viśanti nāśāya samṛddha-vegāḥ | tathaiva nāśāya viśanti lokās tavāpi vaktrāṇi samṛddha-vegāḥ ||

Translation

As moths enter a blazing flame to their destruction with full speed, so the worlds enter your mouths to their destruction with full speed.

A second simile. As moths enter a blazing flame to their destruction at full speed, so the worlds enter your mouths to their destruction at full speed. Pradiptam jvalanam patanga, like moths to a kindled flame. The moth-to-flame image makes the prior river-to-ocean image starker. Where the river only joined the larger water, the moth perishes in the meeting. Nashaya samriddha-vegah, with full speed toward destruction. The worlds are the moths. The flame is Krishna. The verse holds nothing back. The vision is not only of the war that Arjuna must enter. It is of the principle by which all worlds finally enter the source they came from. The chapter has reached the heart of what the divine eye was given to show.

Reflection

Where have you mistaken your own ending for an exception to the general pattern?

Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Eleven

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