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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 2 Mantra 7

Mantra

yoni̍m a̱nye pra̍padya̱nte̱ śa̱rīra̍tvāya̱ dehi̍naḥ |
sthāṇu̍m a̱nye’nu̍samya̱nti̱ ya̱thā ka̍rma ya̱thā śru̍tam ||

anye dehinaḥ = some Selves [after death]; śarīratvāya = in order to become embodied; yonim prapadyante = take refuge in wombs; anye = others; anusamyanti = follow, enter into; sthāṇum = the stationary things like plants etc; yathā karma = each in accordance with the deeds done; yathā śrutam = and in accordance with their knowledge, awareness.

Some souls enter the womb to have a body, others to the plants, just according to their deeds (karma) and according to their knowledge.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

‘Sthanum’ means ‘immovable’; hence, it may mean either the vegetable kingdom or it may also mean the inert world of stones and slabs. It is often claimed in an unwarranted optimism that a being having been born once into the human form will not, whatever be the atrocities he might commit during his life time, go down so much in the ladder of evolution as to reach the bottom most level of mere stones!’ There are even spiritual preceptors who also support this optimistic view to encourage their disciples, and emphatically assert that, having once come to take the incarnation as man, that individual will not, on any score, degrade himself into such a low level as that of the animal life or will ever come to exist as the inert rocks. This false optimism is smothered here by the opening statement of the Upanishad in this Mantra.

In the 6th Mantra of the 1st Valli (Section) we had already a clear indication of the Law of Karma and the Doctrine of Reincarnation, when Nachiketas stated, like corn the mortals’ decay and like corn they are born again. In this Mantra also the Sruti speaks, definitely, supporting the Law of Karma and the Doctrine of Reincarnation.

The ego center, after the death of the body, remains intact in the form of an idea until it comes again to fix the relationship with another form. That which helps the “floating ego” to choose its next rendezvous is the sum total of the reaping it has to make with the “new form” in the new field of things and circumstances. Indeed, there is no philosophical concept so tight in logic and so true in reason as the Law of Karma which isa special blessing enjoyed only by the Hindu community. Unfortunately, as a result of our criminal neglect of the study of our own scriptures if we have come to read in the Law of Karma only a repetition of the sapless philosophy of the Law of Destiny, it is, indeed, not the fault of the Upanishad seers. If properly understood, Law of Karma gives into our individual hands the privilege and the might to carve out our own destinies to be lived by us in the days to come.

Yatha Karma (according to Karma) — According to the quality of the actions performed in the past we shall have a future existence in a form and in a set of circumstances necessary to reap the required quality of reactions in the form of experiences.

Yatha Srutham (according to knowledge) — The future lives are dependent not only upon the actions committed in the past but also by the degree of the Knowledge of the Reality we have gained in and through our living their reactions. Refer for amplification Brigadaranyakopanishad 3.2.13.

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