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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 1 Mantra 2

Lecture

Mantra

parā̍caḥ kāmān a̱nuya̍nti bā̱lā̱-
ste̱ mṛ̱tyor ya̍nti vi̱tata̍sya pāśam
atha̍ dhī̱rā a̱mṛta̍tvaṁ vidi̱tvā̱
dhru̱vam a̍dhruveṣv iha na̱ prārtha̍yante

bālāḥ = the children, immature people; anuyanti = they pursue; parācaḥ kāmān = the external objects of desire; te = they; yanti = become entangled; pāśam = in the noose, snare; mṛtyoḥ = of death; vitatasya = spread far and wide everywhere; atha = hence; dhīrāḥ = those who are wise and discriminating; viditvā = having known; amṛtatvaṁ = the immortality; na prārthayante = do not aspire after or pray for; dhruvam = the abiding, stable, permanent; adhruveṣu = in that which is impermanent; iha = here is this samsāra.

The ignorant (child-like) pursue the external pleasures (and so) they fall into the snares of the widespread death. But the wise do not desire (anything) in this world, having known what is eternally immortal in the midst of all non-eternals.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

The forgetfulness of our real divine nature is Ignorance. This Ignorance (Avidya) manifests itself in the mental plane as desires. Prompted by these desires the mind whips the sense-organs to run their errands in the world of their objects which together are called by us as the Karmas or the actions. It is the “Ignorance” in the Plane of the Spirit that gets transformed into “desires” in the mental plane which itself is again expressed as “actions” in the outer world-of-objects. Ignorance, desire and action; these three are technically termed in Vedanta as the knots of the Heart (Hridayagranthi). It is this set of knots that causes the actions, and man, in order to reap the results of his actions, is compelled to take various new forms and independent lives, in varied circumstances of uncertain joys and endless Sorrows.

In these two Mantras we have a clear indication of two great obstacles that stand in our way to the realization of the Self: (1) the natural tendency of the sense organs to run outward eloping with the entire wealth of attention that man is capable of and (2) the desire for enjoyments of the objects of this world and the next.

The majority belongs to this type of existence. They are, viewed from the highest standards of spiritual perfection, mere children in their growth and evolution. They fail to recognize the possibility of an existence greater in scope and diviner in contents, where the sense organs stop their rambling into the pits-of-sorrow, wherein they generally revel as an ordinary man, living in his day-to-day delusions. Indeed, it is only too true when the Srutis classify such men as mere children.

Haunted by desires and goaded by the mind, the sense-organs vainly trot on the paths of their objects, seeking for a perfect joy, which is continuous and unbroken. Man can be satisfied only with the eternal. Finiteness always despairs man. Seeking the Infinite, in our ignorance, we exhaust ourselves among the sense objects. Tired and weary, fatigued and exhausted with the futile haunt, each of us falls prostrate soon to breathe our last! Hence, Sruti declares that such childish men who have hot come to an adults discrimination, will fall ultimately into the fruits of delusions, the widespread snares of death (finiteness).

Against these men of childhood, Sruti contrasts the wise men who live a life of sleepless discrimination and Knowledge. The wise maintain a vigilant discrimination between the Real and the unreal, the True and the false. They naturally escape from the suicidal urges of a deluded mind.  They do not covet the unstable, the perishable, the finite sense objects, for they want nothing but the Immortal and the Infinite.

Since the inner enemies are the ignorance, desire and action, the wise through an intelligent control of their actions earn for themselves a state of desire lessness, and since desires are manifestations of the deep-seated Ignorance, in the state of desire lessness there is naturally an end of all ignorance. When ignorance is ended, desire and action, which are but the same ignorance in different forms, are also ended. With the end of ignorance, Knowledge comes to shine forth. Avidya is ended in Gyan. And such Gyanis are here termed as the wise. Such men are those who, as Blake expresses in Auguries of Innocence, tried successfully:

“To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.”

They naturally would never yearn for the fleeting sense-objects of the world for their own sake, as any ordinary deluded Samsari; also at the same time they will not detest anything, because to them everything is but the glorious manifestation of the Divine Self.

“Desire promoted means normal vision is turned outward thirsting to acquire, striving to possess and hoping to enjoy. But the wise turns his vision inward and experiences the Eternal Essence in the bewildering finitude.”

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