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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 13

Mantra

ni̱tyo’ni̍tyānāṁ ce̱tana̍ś cetanānā-
me̱ko ba̍hūnāṁ yo vi̱dadhā̍ti kāmān |
tam ā̍tmastham ye̱’nu̍paśyanti dhīrā-
ste̱sāṁ śāntiś śā̱śvatī̍ netareśām ||

nityaḥ = the eternal; anityānāṁ = amongst the transient; impermanent; cetanaḥ = the conscious; cetanānām = amongst the conscious [all beings from Brahma downwards]; ekaḥ = the one; bahūnām = amid the many; yaḥ = who; vidadhāti = arranges diversely; kāmān = the desires, the desirable things;  tam ātmastham = Him residing in the individual Self; ye dhīra = those wise persons who; anupaśyanti = perceive,  realize; teṣāṁ = to them; śāntiḥ śāśvatī = eternal peace; na itareṣām = not for others [who are non-discriminating].

He, the Eternal among non-eternals, the Intelligence in the intelligent, who, though one, fulfils the desires of many, those wise men who perceive Him as dwelling in their own Self, to them belongs Eternal Peace and to none else.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

The method of assertion and denial adopted by the Sruti in the previous Mantra is again repeated here when she reasserts, to them belongs the Eternal Peace and to none else.

What is to be realized in us as the Self is discussed here and, in the discussion, we are provided with enough material to understand intuitively the very Nature of the Soul, which, you will remember, was the pointed query of the Brahman seeker to his Master, Lord Death, we may say that in no Mantra in the entire scriptural literature of the Hindus is there a passage to equal the Mantra under discussion in its completeness and directness of statement touching almost all the important factors, that language can express regarding the Nature of the Soul!

The world is a flux; a constant change of appearances, a transient play of names and forms. Even our very physical form is constantly changing hour by hour, through all the years of its existence. The medical science of the modern world declares that the constitution of every human body changes completely, as it were, once in every seven years; at every moment old cells are dying away and are being replaced by new ones. We come in contact with men and circumstances, and moment to moment we are ever changing in our physical habits, mental makeup, intellectual ideas and spiritual values. Nobody can stop the process of growth.

If this constant change were to give us the idea of a continuity there must be some constant denominator that is ever constant. In the picture house the ever-changing play of light and shade thrown out from the films gives the audience a sense of continuity because of the constant factor, the screen behind it; without the screen the audience would have seen no story at all! “Waves, ripples, bubbles, froth and foam can all have their eternal dance to give us the idea of a continuous surge only when there is the constant, unchanging, placid, depths of the oceans beneath them. The delusory ideas of a snake, a rod, a crack in the earth is all possible only when there is the unchanging truth behind all, the rope.

Similarly, no world of flux could be possible without a base that is unchangeable and unchanging; no river can flow without a bed!

Chetanas’-chetananam (Intelligence in the intelligent) – Again, if a piece of iron burns your fingers you know that the iron has no heat of its own and so must have borrowed it from fire. Similarly, if the body mind intellect equipment, which is itself nothing but matter, shows at moments an intelligence almost divine, we can easily presume that it has earned its intelligence from the Self, which is of the nature of Pure Intelligence.

Vidadhati kaman (who fulfils the desire of man) – Here again the Law of Karma is obviously hinted at in a broad statement that the Self or the Supreme Consciousness is the power behind the Law of Karma, according to which each individual comes to live his allotted share of experiences in his individual life.

The one who is thus Eternal and of the nature of Pure Intelligence and who is the Force behind the immutable Law of Karma, is not a mere transcendental Vitality Divine who reigns somewhere in heavens like the mortal king or the president of a country dwelling in the capital far away from the villages along the frontiers!! Vedanta is the highest achievement of wisdom.

The Truth declarations of the Rsis represent in themselves the superhuman daring with which they must have plunged into the very womb of life to scoop it and discover for themselves the palpitating soul of one’s own life, the True Seat of all activities, the Permanent and Eternal Factor, behind the ever-changing madness, which, in its continuity, gives the solid delusion called the ‘Jagat’.

Naturally, there have never been and there shall never be a text book more sacred and noble as the Bible of the Hindus, the Upanishads. If some undeveloped and unintelligent foreign intruders have raised the cry of calumny against these Mantras as “blabbering of a humanity in childhood”, etc., we in our greater understanding shall only repeat what Christ said when he was condemned by a foolish generation, “Lord, forgive them; they know not what they do”.

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