At the hour of departure, the time of death, joined with devotion, with an unmoving mind free of wavering, and joined as well with the power of yoga: the power of yoga is the steadiness of mind that arises from the accumulation of the impressions born of absorption. Having first mastered the mind in the lotus of the heart, then, by the upward-going channel, by the sequence of conquering the centres, having lodged the breath between the brows and set it firmly there, fully attentive and unheedless: such a knowing yogin reaches that supreme, that higher Puruṣa, marked as 'the seer, the ancient' and the rest, the divine one, of the nature of radiance. Once more the Blessed Lord makes a statement of the Brahman one seeks to attain by the means about to be told, the Brahman that is the thing qualified by such qualifications as 'what the knowers of the Veda call'.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Ramanuja's commentary treats verses 8.9 through 8.10 as a single passage; it is given in full at verse 8.9.

Krishna states, in a special way, what is to be done at the time of death by those joined with the yoga of breath-conquest and the rest, with 'at the time of departure'. Release does come about even for those who lack breath-conquest and the rest, if they are complete in knowledge, devotion, dispassion and the rest. For those who have breath-conquest, however, even if they are slightly incomplete in knowledge and the rest, but are skilled, release comes about somehow by the strength of that; this is the distinction. So it is said in the Bhagavata, 'those who, by drinking the nectar of your tales, O God, with devotion grown great and with a cleared mind, have gained the essence of dispassion and an awakening, have readily reached the unobstructed seat; while others, by the strength of the yoga of self-collectedness, having conquered the mighty prakriti, the steadfast enter you alone, the Person; theirs is the toil, while service of you is no toil' (Bhagavata 3.5.45-46). And in the Moksha-dharma, 'those worlds made firm in Him, who have taken to one-pointedness, this is the greater for them, that they enter that splendour' (Mahabharata 12.334.44). And the Vyasa-yoga says, 'release comes to those who are complete, through dispassion, knowledge and devotion, by rule; yet for the yogins joined with breath-conquest and the rest, because the mind is subdued, it is surely reached even somewhat earlier'.