The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ chapter eight
In this chapter the Gita alludes to the two paths, “northern”
and “southern,” that the soul may take after death. Verses
24–25 present in abbreviated form what the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad spells out in obscure detail:
Those who know this, who meditate upon Truth with faith
while living in the forest, go to the light, from light to day,
from day to the fortnight of the moon’s waxing, from the
waxing fortnight to the six months of the sun’s northern
journey, from those six months to the world of the devas,
from the world of the devas to the sun, from the sun to the
lightning. Then a spirit approaches them and leads them
to the world of Brahman. In that world they live for eternal
ages. They do not return again.
But those who conquer worlds through sacrifice, charity,
and austerity pass into the smoke, from the smoke into
the night, from the night into the fortnight of the waning
moon, from the fortnight of the waning moon into the six
months of the sun’s southern journey, from there into the
world of the ancestors, from the world of the ancestors into
the moon, . . . and from there to rebirth. (Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad vi.2.15–16)
“Northern and southern paths” refers to the path of the
sun, which seems to move northward after the winter solstice
and southward after the summer solstice. To die during the
period in which the sun is moving southward was considered
inauspicious; dying during the period after the winter
solstice, when the sun is moving back north, meant the soul
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