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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 15

Mantra

na ta̍tra sū̱ryo bhā̍ti na̱ candra̍-tārakaṁ ne̱mā vidyu̍to bhānti ku̱to’ya̍m agniḥ |
tam e̍va bhāntam a̱nubhā̍ti sarva̍ṁ ta̱sya bhā̱sā sa̱rvam ida̍ṁ vibhāti ||

tatra = there [in Brahman which is one’s own Self]; sūryaḥ = the Sun; na bhāti = does not shine; na = neither; candra-tārakam = the moon and stars; imāḥ vidyutaḥ = these flashes of lightening; na bhānti = do not shine; kutaḥ ayam agniḥ = how therefore, this fire [that is seen by us]; sarvaṁ anubhāti = everything that gives light or heat; tam eva bhāntam = That [Supreme being] indeed shines;  tasya = through his; bhāsā = effulgence; sarvam idaṁ vibhāti = all this shines.

The Sun does not shine there, nor does the moon, nor do the stars, nor the lightings shine and much less this fire. “When He shines, everything shines after him; by His light, all these shine”.

(Here ends Chapter Two, Section Five.)

by Swami Chinmayananda:

Even today, long after we have forgotten our own great Bible, the Upanishads, we are hearing this Mantra almost every day repeated in all temples and pujas, since no ritual is generally concluded without chanting this Mantra soon after the common and well known “Arathi”. None of the devotees, or the Pundits, has ever come to really understand the message of this stanza, except probably some, who have a surface knowledge of its mere word meaning!’ Our religion has become hollow and without any significance to us because of our unintelligent way of living our religion. A mere parrot like repetition of stanzas, in a language unknown to us, without seeking to understand its meaning, in itself will not and cannot give benefit at all. There are some Karmakandins and orthodox monsters who claim all powers to mantras and kirtans merely repeated, even if the one repeating them knows not their meaning nor understands their significances; Chinmaya cannot subscribe to this false, unintelligent, hypocritical nonsense. Were it true, why not applaud a gramophone box for the beauty of the song it had sung or the shoulders of your radio box congratulating it for the talk it has relayed to you?

Tatra (There) — Lord Death is indicating here the Realm of the Self which is the Land of the Knowledge Absolute. In that Plane of Divine God consciousness there. is no need for another agent of light to illumine it. All the sources of physical light are denied in the Realm of Truth with this Mantra, wherein Lord Death says that there is neither the sun nor the moon nor the stars nor the lighting; and as such where can be the light of fire: In short, there is in Light no other light other than Itself. In the sun, there is no need for a torch to illumine it !!

Anubhati (shines after) — Truth is the substratum for all the seeming activities of life, where life is extinct, the activities of the sense organs, mind and intellect are also at an end. And when these three entities in man have folded themselves up, and as it were rolled out, to that individual there is no more the sun, the moon, the lightning, or the light of fire. So long as life is in him, he recognizes all the sources of light in the physical world. Naturally, it is philosophically evident, and logically it can be maintained that the Giver of All light (for the sun and other sources of light) is none other than the Intelligence of the intellect, the Self. Hence, Lord Death says that all shines after It. By Its light all these shine.

Now that we know the real significance of the stanza, it must be possible for each of us to think for ourselves the voiceless depth of self-evident suggestions, in ordering this Mantra to be repeated at the close of every Hindu ritual and sacred religious ceremony. The importance of this stanza is again emphasized in the fact that the same stanza has been repeated in two more of the ten important Upanishads! Thus, we Have this Mantra in Mundakopanishad, 11.2.10 and Swethaswatara Upanishad, V1.14. Though, in slightly different words, we have the same transcendental idea that the Self is the source of all light, hinted at in the Bhagavat Gita.

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