Chapter 9, Verse 7
सर्वभूतानि कौन्तेय प्रकृतिं यान्ति मामिकाम् | कल्पक्षये पुनस्तानि कल्पादौ विसृजाम्यहम् ||९-७||
sarvabhūtāni kaunteya prakṛtiṃ yānti māmikām . kalpakṣaye punastāni kalpādau visṛjāmyaham ||9-7||
Meaning
9.7 All beings, O Arjuna, go into My Nature at the end of a Kalpa; I send them forth again at the beginning of (the next) Kalpa.
Word-by-Word Meaning
Explanation & Commentary
Krishna now lifts the view to a cosmic scale. At the close of each kalpa — an immense cosmic cycle — all beings dissolve back into prakriti, his creative Nature, returning to an unmanifest, seed-like state. Then, as a new cycle dawns, he sends them forth again. Creation breathes in and out across vast ages, a rhythm of emanation and reabsorption.
This grand vision reframes our anxieties about endings. What appears to us as final destruction is, in truth, a return to source — a resting, not an annihilation. The same divine power that withdraws the universe also releases it anew. For the seeker, this is freeing: nothing is ever truly lost, and our small fears of dissolution dissolve before the patient, recurring pulse of the cosmos itself.
💡 Key Takeaway
Creation moves in vast cycles of dissolution and renewal — what looks like an ending is a return to source, never true loss.
Related Verses
प्रकृतिं स्वामवष्टभ्य विसृजामि पुनः पुनः | भूतग्राममिमं कृत्स्नमवशं प्रकृतेर्वशात् ||९-८||
prakṛtiṃ svāmavaṣṭabhya visṛjāmi punaḥ punaḥ . bhūtagrāmamimaṃ kṛtsnamavaśaṃ prakṛtervaśāt ||9-8||
9.8 Animating My Nature, I again and again send forth all this multitude of beings, helpless by the force of the Nature.
मयाध्यक्षेण प्रकृतिः सूयते सचराचरम् | हेतुनानेन कौन्तेय जगद्विपरिवर्तते ||९-१०||
mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sacarācaram . hetunānena kaunteya jagadviparivartate ||9-10||
9.10 Under Me as supervisor, Nature produces the moving and the unmoving; because of this, O Arjuna, the world revolves.