SLOKA OF THE DAY:

Bhagavad Gita As It Is -
Chapter 8 Text 23
yatra kale tv anavrttim
avrttim caiva yoginah
prayata yanti tam kalam
vaksyami bharatarsabha

yatra--at which; kale--time; tu--and; anavrttim--no return; avrttim--return; ca--also; eva--certainly; yoginah--different kinds of mystics; prayatah--having departed; yanti--attain; tam--that; kalam--time; vaksyami--I shall describe; bharata-rsabha--O best of the Bharatas.

TRANSLATION

O best of the Bharatas, I shall now explain to you the different times at which, passing away from this world, the yogi does or does not come back.

JOURNAL:

Due to my christian background I was a taken aback by this sloka. In the christian world one certainly does not get to heaven by dying at the right time. Those who gain heaven do so by God's mercy. Then, as I read Srila Prabhupada's purport my idea of God's mercy changed. Here is what he writes:

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 Krsna'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, jnana-yoga and hatha-yoga must leave the body at a suitable time and thereby be assured whether or not they will return to the world of birth and death.

Who can know how God works? Can this idea of dying at the right time just be Krishna's mercy on those of us who will not become devotees of the personal aspect of God? Of course it can. God can do anything He likes, including letting into heaven the largest number of souls possible. In the end, our ideas of who deserves entrance are meaningless.