Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 1 Mantra 15

Mantra

yatho̍dakaṁ śuddhe śu̱ddham ā̍siktaṁ tā̱dṛg e̍va bhavati |
e̱vaṁ mu̱ner vi̍jāna̱ta̱ ā̱tmā bha̍vati̱ gauta̍ma ||

yathā = just as; śuddham = pure; udakam = water; śuddhe = in pure; āsiktaṁ = poured; bhavati = becomes; tādṛk eva = of exactly the same quality; evaṁ = thus; muneḥ = the seer, one who meditates; vijānata = understanding; ātmā = the Self; bhavati = becomes; gautama = O Gautama.

As pure water poured into pure water becomes the same only, so the Atman of the thinker who knows this, becomes, O’ Gautama.

(Thus ends the Fourth Valli of the Second Chapter.)

by Swami Chinmayananda:

This concluding Mantra of the fourth section reasserts the oneness of the Divine Presence in man and the Totality of Divinity that pervades everywhere. Man minus his ego is God; God plus ego is man, Annihilation of the ego-sense in us is the becoming of God. When we totally detach ourselves from our misunderstandings and false values of a delusory life with the knowledge of the True and the Eternal, the ego evaporates away; leaving behind only the Absolute Truth, in all its purity and grandeur.

At this moment the individual realizes his own Real Nature as Pure Consciousness. With this Self- realization he experiences his oneness with the All-pervading and Immortal Truth. When pure water is poured into pure water there can only be pure water alone. Similarly, in realizing oneself to be the Eternal Factor, one at once realizes his own oneness with the One that alone is the One. The individual-Self is the Supreme Self.

In fact, even after such clear declarations, if we must misunderstand the true import of the Sruti and cry down the Vedas as full of contradictions and vague statements we must be the most unsympathetic readers and the most dull-witted students of our Bible.

Long years of utter neglect of scriptural studies and the lack of proper teachers for the educated have undermined the Sanathana culture. These have, to an extent, succeeded in distorting, if not destroying, the Hindu culture especially among the rich and the upper middle classes.

The above tragedies have made of us today what we are a nation of Hindus where rarely we meet a true Hindu!! Even the best of them aread to read, and try to understand their own Bible, the Upanishad. Upanishads are the very documents revealing the greatest scientific discoveries man had ever made of life and the values of life. “Without the Upanishads Hinduism is not a religion at all!

14-15. The perfect identity of the Individual Self with the Universal Self is emphasized through metaphors. Perception of this Unity leads to the One which is beyond Death.

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