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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 5

Mantra

na̱ prāṇe̱na nā̍pāṇe̱na̱ ma̱rtyo jī̍vati̱ kaśca̍na |
i̱tare̱ṇa tu̍ jīva̱nti̱ ya̱sminn etāv u̱pāśri̍tau ||

na prāṇena na apāṇena = neither through the function of exhaling nor inhaling; kaḥ cana martyaḥ = [does] any mortal being; jīvati = live; tu = but; itareṇa = by another (something else); jīvanti = [do] they live; yasmin = that upon which; etāu = these two (inspiration and expiration); upāśritau = are dependant.

Not by Prana, not by Apana does any mortal live; but it is by some other, on which these two depend, that men live.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

One who has followed the commentaries, and therefore the Mantras so far, should not find any difficulty at all in understanding the direct statement of the Sruti when she says that a man lives not because his body-mind-intellect-equipment is functioning well when the Pranas function, but that all signs of life’s activities met with in a living man, depend upon the glorious touch of the Self in him. The Pranas function only when life resides in the body.

Though the meaning of the stanza is clear and direct, the philosophical implications in the statement of the Sruti are rather new to the early students in the study of the Hindu Sastras.

The parts constituting an assemblage are in themselves not free. They constitute together and maintain themselves as such, only for the benefit of somebody else, who is not himself a part of the assembly. For example, let us take the case of a house. The walls, the rafters, the beams, the tiles, etc., are all necessary parts which constitute together the house. The house is not built for the walls, nor for the rafters, nor for the beans. They all together form an entire whole only for the sake of the Master of the house. Mr. Dass, the owner of the house, has all the freedom to walk in or walk out of his house at his own sweet will; not so, the bricks that constitute the walls!

Similarly, the indriyas, the limbs of the body, the mind and intellect are all parts of the body assembly which exists only for the same of the Purusha in it. The body in itself has no freedom to act as it lists, while the Purusha can walk out of the body in all freedom at the time of death. When once Mr.Dass had discarded his house, in time, it perishes in ruins; when the Atman leaves the body, the body perishes. The Source of Life is not the Pranas; the Pranas end and perish themselves, when the Atman, the Source of Life, discards its temple, the body.

In the terminology of sastra, they say that all actions physical, mental and intellectual, are Prana-Vrttis.

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Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 4

Mantra

a̱sya vi̱sraṁsa̍-māna̱sya̱ śa̱rīra̍sthasya̱ dehi̍naḥ |
dehā̍d vi̱mucya̍māna̱sya̱ ki̱m atra̍ pari̱śiṣya̍te |
e̱tad vai tat || 4 ||

asya dehinaḥ śarīrasthasya = of this embodied one i.e., the Self which is  in the physical body; visraṁsamānasya = as it gets loosened or  detached; vimucyamānasya dehāt = as it gets separated from the body; kim =  what; pariśiṣyate = remains; atra = here; etat vai tat = this verily is That.

When this Atman, who dwells in the body, departs from the body, what remains then? This verily is That.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

The Atman, upon whom all the indriyas depend and who is the controller and director of all the vital airs, is the king of this City of Eleven Gates, our body. Just as when the beloved king leaves the capital permanently to stay in a different chosen capital. All his subject people follow the king into the new capital, so too, when the Atman departs from a body, all the activities of that physical body seemingly departs with the Atman.

When once the Lord quits the body, however great the man might have been, while living, his body starts to decay and perish until ultimately it reaches the dust from which the materials of the body had come.

Kimatra Parisishyate (what remains then?) — When the Atman has departed from the body what remains in the body: With this question Sruti confronts us with the sacred Truth that there remains practically nothing upon which we may glorify that empty shell, the dead body!!

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