A declaration · expansive in mood · builds on earlier teachings
“What seems like ending is only a return before another beginning.”
O son of Kunti, at the end of a cosmic cycle all beings enter my nature; at its beginning, I send them forth again.
The verse in reading order — each Sanskrit word with its meaning beneath. Tap a word to focus on it.
Read literallyall beings · O son of Kunti · nature · go to · my · at the end of a cosmic cycle · again · them · at the beginning of a cosmic cycle · I send forth · I
At the end of a vast cycle, every being dissolves back into Krishna's nature. When the next cycle begins, he brings them forth again.
Krishna speaks this verse, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the chapter titled "Raja Vidya Raja Guhya Yoga" (The Royal Knowledge).
Verse 7 sits in Chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita — Raja Vidya Raja Guhya Yoga, "The Royal Knowledge". The chapter has 34 verses in total.
You watch the family shop close after three generations and feel it as an ending with no return. Krishna sets such endings inside a larger rhythm, where whole worlds are gathered in and sent out again.
Did you like this verse?
At the end of a kalpa all beings enter Krishna's nature, and at its start he sends them out again.
What this verse means
At the end of a vast cycle, every being dissolves back into Krishna's nature. When the next cycle begins, he brings them forth again.
Context & commentary
Krishna widens the frame beyond one war: worlds themselves rise and dissolve in cycles, and every being is gathered back and sent out again. That cosmic rhythm steadies Arjuna's panic.
What it looks like today
You watch the family shop close after three generations and feel it as an ending with no return. Krishna sets such endings inside a larger rhythm, where whole worlds are gathered in and sent out again.
“You are held inside a larger order, even when everything seems to end.”
Explore related themes: prakriti (31 verses), manifestation (11 verses), omnipresence (11 verses)