Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 3 Mantra 9

Mantra

na sa̱ndṛśe̍ tiṣṭhati̱ rūpa̍m asya̱ na cakṣu̍ṣā paśyati̱ kaśca̱n-ainam̎ |
hṛ̱dā ma̍nī̱ṣā mana̍sā̱’bhiklṛ̍pto̱ ya e̍tad vi̱dur a̱mṛtā̱s te bha̍vanti ||

asya rūpam = His [Brahman’s or the Atman’s] form; na tiṣṭhati = does not exist; saṁdṛśe = as an object of vision or perception; na kaḥ cana = nobody; paśyati = perceives; enam = this {Self or Brahman] cakṣuṣā = with the physical eye or the other senses; hṛdā = by the heart; manīṣā = by the intellect, intuitive vision; manasā = by mind; abhiklṛptaḥ = when it is revealed or apprehended; ya etat viduḥ = those who know this fact; te = they; amṛtāḥ bhavanti = become deathless.

His form is not to be seen. No one beholds Him with the eye. By controlling the mind, by the intellect, and by incessant meditation, He is revealed. Those who know this (Brahman) become immortal.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

That the Self is beyond the fields of the sense-organs and the mind and the intellect has by now been very often repeated by the Smthi in different Mantras. If none of these instruments of cognition, feeling, and understanding is available for the seeker in realizing the Supreme, the ill-informed aspirant is apt to feel despaired and may throw up all his attempts to live the Life Divine, saying that the goal promised by the Smrthis is an im­possibility. Hence, this Mantra is explaining to us the last leap with which the seeker, during his meditation, crosses over the frontiers of his mind and intellect and reaches the Land of Truth.

Na Chakshushah Pashyati (None can sec Him with the eyes): Here the word eye is a representative word (Upalakshana) which in its true meaning in the Mantra indicates all the sense-­organs. The Upanishad is here clearly and pointedly making the daring statement that God will not present Himself to his devotees, for them to “see” Him with their naked limited sense-organs of vision. All visions are delusory hallucinations of the mind, however satisfying and gloriously divine they may seem to be.

The only method by which a seeker can realize his Self is through the faculty of intuition which is now lying dormant in man’s intellect. The intellect resides, according to the poetic Sruthi, in the cave-of-the-heart, aud from its glorious seat of activities, controls the workings of the mind. When the mind is silent, the intellect gains an inner peace. An intellect, thus, in complete peace itself dies away or disappears leaving behind, a newly born potency ill us called intuition. It is with this intuition that a seeker comes to realize his Self. Intuition is nothing but ” the capacity to know the knowledge “. And knowing the Self is but the Self-becoming aware of Itself.

For purposes of emphasis, Sruthi is again repeating that the one who has, during his sojourn here, come to rediscover himself to be nothing other than the Pure Consciousness, presiding in him as his own Self, shall himself become Immortal, and thus get away from the whirl of births and deaths.

Previous…                                                                                                           Next…