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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 1 Mantra 14

Mantra

yatho̍dakam durge vṛ̱ṣṭam pa̱rvate̍ṣu vi̱dhāva̍ti |
e̱vaṁ dharmān pṛ̍thak paśya̱ns tā̱n evā̍nu-vi̱dhāva̍ti ||

yathā = just as; udakam = water; vṛṣṭam = pours down; durge = on an inaccessible place, on a height; vidhāvati = flows; parvateṣu = over hills, mountains; evaṁ = in this way; paśyan = viewing; dharmān = things; pṛthak = differently, seperately; anuvidhāvati = he runs after; tān = them; eva = only, even;

As water, when rained on a mountain-ridge, runs down the rocks scattering on all sides, so does he, who beholds the objects as different, run after them only (at all times).

by Swami Chinmayananda:

Here we are again face to face with one of the celebrated Mantras of this Upanishad which is often quoted by writers and orators.

The human mind is in fact a great dynamo of superhuman energies and Godly powers. Yet we find that the ordinary human being is a slave and a servant of his own mind rather than a master of it. In a way we may say that a similar tragedy has happened to man in the outer world too, especially in our Machine Age. The engines conceived of by man to work for him, have now become the very tyrants and iron-hearted masters at whose ever-revolving wheels, man is today a helpless slave.

This tragedy in the within has come to pass because man, in his delusions and ignorance, has lost his capacity to control the promptings of his heart and the lustful surging of his mind. The supreme wisdom and power which is in man gets scattered and flows in a thousand dripping rivulets down the Mount of Ignorance to get itself lost in its downward transit. This is indicated here in this Mantra by the beautiful analogy of water that has rained on the top of a rocky mountain. If only we could conserve the total waterfall on the top of the hill with a powerful and well-engineered dam and direct the flow of the water through one single determined channel we could get out of it a lot of useful work. Similarly, if man could through his discrimination, control wasteful flow of water, conserve it and direct it intelligently into the positive channels of right living and high thinking, he could easily get out of this very same inner equipment, the power and glory of a God upon earth.

But man will not and cannot bless himself unless and until he slowly learns to remove his ignorance of his own Real Nature with the sacred Knowledge gained through a personal experience of his own eternal Godliness.

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