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Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 3 Mantra 4

Mantra

iha̍ ced aśa̍kad bo̱ddhu̱ṁ prā̱k śarī̍rasya vi̱srasaḥ |
tata̍s sa̱rveṣu̍ loke̱ṣu̱ śa̱rīra̍tvāya̱ kalpa̍te ||

cet = if; aśakat = one succeeds; boddhum = in knowing, realising; iha = here and now; prāk śarīrasya visrasaḥ = before the disintegration of the body. [if one does not succeed] tataḥ = then – because of that non-realization; sarveṣu lokeṣu = in the manifested or projected worlds of existence; śarīratvāya = for embodiment; kalpate = one is considered suitable or fit.

If here, (in this life) one is able to comprehend Him (Brahman) before the death of the body, he will be liberated from the bondage of the world; if one is not able to comprehend Him, then he has to take a body again in the worlds of creation.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

Ignorance can be ended only with Knowledge ignorance and knowledge cannot remain together in one place at the same period of time. Knowledge ends in Ignorance, as light ends in darkness.

The ignorance of our Real identity has made us identify ourselves with the mind, intellect, and body delusions and this is the start for our egocentric life of pains and limitations. There is no other achievement, more sacred and glorious that a human seeker can achieve within the duration of his existence as man, than the realization of his Real Identity with the Unlimited, Eternal, Absolute Self.

One identifying oneself with the Self during one’s lifetime here gains the Eternal Padavi of deathless perfections. Having realized this Real Nature, there cannot be, for such an individual, any more of the pains of birth and death. After having woken up from the dream, one need not run to the sideboard to snatch his rifle to shoot down the tiger that hunted him down, in his dream; After a dream ride when the dreamer wakes up, he need not run out to take his dream horse to water; Having woken up from the dream of the egocentric agonies into the waking state of the knowledge of the Self, the God-man will not and need no longer repeat the to and fro swinging between the arcs of birth and death.

If an individual fails to realize the Eternal Nature of his Self during his lifetime, he, after departing from his present manifestation will have to take up yet another form and come back to this wretched plane of limitations and finiteness. This is true, because, the ego-sense can ultimately end, we have found, only at the final shifting of our present identifications with our body, mind, and intellect to a real understanding, born of first-hand experience of the True Nature of our Eternal Selfhood, which is the Source of all Life in us. As long as an individual has not come to have this subjective realization of the Self, so long his ego-sense persists, so much so, when the “i-ness” and “my-ness” in him drop off their present physical body, they remain intact together as an ”idea-ego” which in time, associates itself with another form maintaining and developing its egoness with that chosen form.

Sruti here kindly warns all sincere seekers to strive hard in realizing this final Mission of Life which takes the individual from the mortal levels to the heights of Eternal Perfection. This Supreme Goal is the final fulfillment of the struggle of evolution. Man, alone is the sacred creature who has been endowed with the necessary equipments of a sensitive mind, a high reasoning capacity, with a judicious and trained application of which, he can deliberately hasten his own evolution. In Nature, no other creature has this divine freedom to speed up its own evolution.

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