That which does not perish is the Imperishable, the undecaying, which the knowers of the meaning of the Veda speak of, by the scripture 'this is that Imperishable, O Gārgī, of which the knowers of Brahman speak' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.8.8); they speak of it by way of setting aside every particular characteristic, 'not gross, not minute' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.8.8) and the rest. Further, it is that which the strivers, the renouncers given to effort, who are free of passion, enter, fully enter, when right vision is attained. And that Imperishable which, wishing to know it, they live the life of chastity (brahmacarya) under a teacher: that footing of yours, the footing named the Imperishable, the goal worth reaching, I shall declare to you in brief, in summary. In the Praśna Upaniṣad it is asked, 'Sir, among men, he who should meditate to the end of life on the syllable Om, which world does he thereby win?', and the answer begins, 'O Satyakāma, this, both the higher and the lower Brahman, is what Om is', and goes on, 'but he who meditates on the supreme Puruṣa by this very syllable Om in its three measures is led up by the Sāman chants to the world of Brahman' (Praśna Up. 5.1, 2, 5). And in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, beginning 'other than dharma, other than adharma', it is said, 'the footing which all the Vedas proclaim, which all austerities declare, and wishing which men live the life of chastity, that footing I tell you in brief: it is Om' (Kaṭha Up. 1.2.14-15). By such passages the meditation on Om, conveyed for those of dull and middling intelligence either as the word that names the supreme Brahman or as a symbol of it, like an image, as a means to the realisation of the supreme Brahman, is said to bear the fruit of liberation in due time. That very thing is the matter here too: the meditation on Om, which is the means, in the manner described, to the realisation of the supreme Brahman set forth here as 'the seer, the ancient, the instructor' (Gītā 8.9) and as 'the Imperishable which the knowers of the Veda speak of' (Gītā 8.11), a meditation joined with yogic concentration and bearing the fruit of liberation in due time, together with whatever else bears upon it, is now to be told. With this aim the following passage is begun.

The imperishable, which the knowers of the Veda speak of as having such qualities as being not gross, which the men of restraint free of passion enter, and which, wishing to attain, they practise continence, that abode I shall declare to you in brief. 'Abode' (pada) is that by which one goes, one is reached; that imperishable abode, My own nature, to be known from all the Vedanta, how it is to be worshipped, that I shall declare in brief. This is the meaning.

Krishna unfolds that very object of meditation, with 'what the knowers of the Veda call the imperishable' and the rest. 'Pada' is what is reached by the seekers of release, from the root 'pad', meaning to go (Dhatupatha 4.63), and from the scripture, 'that is the supreme pada of Vishnu' (Rigveda 1.2.6.5; Katha Upanishad 3.9). And the Naradiya says, 'you are sung as pada, because you are reached by the sages'.