अग्निर्ज्योतिरहः शुक्लः षण्मासा उत्तरायणम् ।तत्र प्रयाता गच्छन्ति ब्रह्म ब्रह्मविदो जनाः ॥
agnirjyotirahaḥ śuklaḥ ṣaṇmāsā uttarāyaṇamtatra prayātā gacchanti brahma brahmavido janāḥ
Fire and light and smoke or mist, the day and the night, the bright fortnight of the lunar month and the dark, the northern solstice and the southern, these are the opposites. By the first in each pair the knowers of the Brahman go to the Brahman; but by the second the Yogin reaches the “lunar light” and returns subsequently to human birth.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
AI translation
Essays on the Gita
Then there comes a more curious thought which the Gita has adopted from the mystics of the early Vedanta. It gives the different times at which the Yogin has to leave his body according as he wills to seek rebirth or to avoid it. Fire and light and smoke or mist, the day and the night, the bright fortnight of the lunar month and the dark, the northern solstice and the southern, these are the opposites. By the first in each pair the knowers of the Brahman go to the Brahman; but by the second the Yogin reaches the “lunar light” and returns subsequently to human birth. These are the bright and the dark paths, called the path of the gods and the path of the fathers in the Upanishads, and the Yogin who knows them is not misled into any error. Whatever psycho-physical fact or else symbolism there may be behind this notion,*—it comes down from the age of the mystics who saw in every physical thing an effective symbol of the psychological and who traced everywhere an interaction and a sort of identity of the outward with the inward, light and knowledge, the fiery principle and the spiritual energy,—we need observe only the turn by which the Gita closes the passage: “Therefore at all times be in Yoga.”8·27
Evening talks
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is truth in that; similar is the case with the _Uttarāyana_ and the _Daksināyana_.
