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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 6

Mantra

hanta̍ ta i̱daṁ pra̍vakṣyā̱mi̱ gu̱hyam bra̍hma sa̱nāta̍nam |
yathā̍ ca̱ mara̍ṇam prā̱pya̱ ā̱tmā bha̍vati̱ gauta̍ma ||

hanta = well, now again; gautama = O Gautama; te = to you; pravakṣyāmi = I will relate, tell; idaṁ = this; guhyam = secret, mystery; brahma sanātanam = of the eternal Brahman; maraṇam prāpya = after having attained death; yathā = how;  ātmā = the Self; bhavati = becomes, fares.

Well Now, O Gautama, I will explain the mysterious and ancient Brahman, and also what happens to the soul after Death.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

All that Lord Death has so far said seems to be but an introduction to enter the subject proper, viz., “what happens to the soul after death! Lord Death here kindly informs Nachiketas that he will be now initiated into the knowledge of what happens to the Jiva when it has once experienced the process of Death in its delusions, And, surely, we shall never have a better reporter than Lord Death Himself to explain to us “what happens to the Soul after the body has become cold and inert in the icy embrace of Death;

Atma (ego center) — In the Upanishad Mantras we often meet with the use of the word Atman to indicate sometimes the body, sometimes the mind, sometimes intellect and, yet at other times, the mind and mind conditioned, Pure Consciousness, the Jiva. Herce, in this particular Mantra, the word Atman is used to indicate the ego center and not the Self. For, if we were to assume that the word literally means its own special connotation it would mean that the Mantra here is contradicting the very philosophy of the Upanishads. Nothing ever happens to Pure Consciousness, the Truth, When Pure Consciousness presides over the functions of this body, with reference to the body, it is said to be the ‘individual Soul’, just as the all-pervading space with reference to the four walls of a room is said to be the “room space”.

In fact, the infinite space can never be conditioned or limited by the walls, which themselves stand in space. Similarly, Consciousness or Knowledge is homogeneous and one without a second. When the body perishes, the Divine Spark, or the Life Center, that presided over the body while it lived, undergoes no change but eternally remains the same. The death and the consequent departure from the dead body at the time of death, and the feeling of having entered a new form at the time of birth, are both the delusory ideas of the ego center.

The Supreme Self reflected in the mind intellect is, we have already seen, the Jiva or the ego. This ego idea leaves its ideas of ‘i-ness’ and ‘my-ness’ with the dead body, and after an uncertain interval of existence without a body, each ego center comes to develop its sense of ownership and possession with another body form.

Thus, when Lord Death says that He will explain “what happens to the Atman after death” He certainly means to explain to us what happens to the Jiva with all its vanities of “i-ness” and attachments of “my-ness”, when it leaves one body to perish and enters the womb to take up another birth.

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