18. Therefore, if, with faith in the Lord, you fight day and night, in the thoughts, word and deed, the last moment will be wonderfully perfect. Then all the divine powers will favor you. It is this lesson that is taught through images at the end of this Chapter. Understand this image. If at the time of one's death, fire burns, the sun shines, the moon waxes and the sun moves northward through the beautiful cloudless heavens, such a one merges in brahman. But if smoke piles up, and it darkens within and the moon wanes and the sun moves southward through the dark cloudy sky, such a one gets caught again in the vortex of birth and death.

19. Many people read this and get bewildered. If you want a holy death, you should seek the grace of fire, the sun, the moon and the sky. Fire is the symbol of karma and yajna, of work and sacrifice. Even at the end, the flames of yajna should keep burning. Justice Ranade used to say. "He is lucky who dies in the unremitting performance of duty. I shall be happy if I die while reading, writing or working." This is what is meant by saying that "fire is burning." If one is to keep working even at the moment of death, one must have the grace of fire (agni). That the intellect shines bright and undimmed until the last moment, is by the sun's grace. By the grace of the moon pure bhavanas (thoughts and feelings) wax and increase in the mind at the time of death.

The moon is the god of the mind, of bhavana. Like the moon of the bright fortnight, devotion, love, energy, benevolence, compassion and such pure bhavanas should wax and grow perfect in the mind. The grace of the sky means that the firmament of the mind is clear of the clouds of desire. Once Gandhiji said, "I keep shouting of the charkha day and night. I consider the charkha a holy thing.

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