Mantra 3

Devilish are the worlds covered over by dense darkness, which are reached by those who have killed their Self. The regions experienced by the destroyers of the Self, i.e., those who are ignorant of the Self, are devilish or godless, because they are destitute of purity and light, devoid of sattva-guna, cut off from the knowledge of Truth. They are devilish because experiences, there are extremely painful and antagonistic to the Divine Presence. People who reject the Divine Self and love the undivine matter, which is subjectively called the body and objectively the world, have such experiences as are characterised by extreme repentance for having committed the evil of not knowing the Self. The asuras or the devils are those who have deserted the One Immutable Being.

In this sense all individuals are asuras in different degrees, because they experience the material sheaths or the bodies. These realms of these unfortunate beings are enveloped by dense darkness in the night of the Self. A desire that is a desertion of Truth takes a form later which gives very unpleasant experiences to the desirer, because his experience is opposite to Absolute-Experience. Such people grope in spiritual darkness or blindness, which is the mother of sorrow. Into such dark regions do these who are untrue to their Self enter. They get bad births. A bad birth is a condition of life where craving is the ruler, where mistake is the governing law, where confusion and delusion are the factors controlling life, where evil is perpetrated and intense sorrow is experienced. This is the fruit of not knowing Truth and catching untruth, the result of the wandering of the jiva in the waterless desert of samsara, the effect of eating the forbidden fruit, the fruit of mental and sensuous contacts which sow the seed of the torture of transmigration.

A world or a region is called a loka, which means etymologically a condition of experience where everything that is sown is reaped, whether sweet or bitter. A person can experience the fruits of his actions even in this very life. Only extremely powerful actions that give rise to such intense results as cannot be experienced by this present body are reserved for future births. Many times a very intense desire is fulfilled at once. Mild desires are fulfilled later on. Therefore a world of experience is not so much an independently real objective mass of matter as a field of experience where individuals find the required atmosphere to manifest and experience the results of their thoughts and actions.

Destroying the Self means not to be aware of the Self, to feel it as non-existent and consequently reject it. Since, however, it is not possible to reject the Self completely, - for it is not essentially different from him who rejects it, - this rejection takes the form of sense-contacts accelerated by mental desires. Sensuousness being an undivine condition the experiences consequent upon it are devilish and tormenting. The mantra teaches therefore that knowledge of the Self is absolutely necessary in order to transcend the recurring pains of birth, life and death.

Mantra 4

The atman is motionless, one alone, swifter than the mind. It is not overtaken by the senses, because it is prior to them. It is ahead of them. Others run fast to overtake it, but it is before them even while sitting. On the basis of this Self does hiranyagarbha make actions possible.

The Self is motionless, because it is eternal. It is one, because duality is non-eternal. Individuality and motion mean changing from one condition to another, which means death. The Self, being permanent, is free from individuality and motion. Because the Self is omnipresent it exists wherever the mind goes and is even beyond the province of the mind. The mind may run with the greatest speed to any place or time, but the Self is already there, it being the very implication of the existence and activity of the mind. The senses cannot overtake the Self because the senses have got two defects. One is that they always run away from the Self, and the other is that they cannot work except on the basis of the Self. The Self is prior to every conception and function. Even before we begin to think properly consciousness is already there, because, without it, even thinking is not possible. The external instruments of sense are very quick in their activities of reaching their respective objects, but they cannot reach even an aspect of the true Self, because they are less than the mind which again is less than the Self. The whole meaning of the mantra is that there is nothing but the atman and hence there is no question of reaching it through any activity of the mind and the senses. This atman can be known not by struggling through the senses but by pacifying the senses and withdrawing the mental functions. The actions of the ego cannot win final victory, because the ego is not true to the Self.

The Self is like ether, everywhere, and therefore its characteristics as described in this Mantra stand for this one main characteristic, viz., Omnipresence, which explains every other attribute belonging to the Self. The Self is free from all the dharmas of samsara, being not subject to any transformation. It is one, ever changeless, and appears to be many only to the deluded mind, because of its conjunction with diverse bodies. It is present already at the destination of the mind and the senses, even before they reach it. It goes beyond all functions and their results even without itself performing any function and ever resting in itself.

On the basis of this Self, the creator, hiranyagarbha, makes possible the manifold activity of the universe. Hiranyagarbha is the active agent who grounds Himself in the Absolute Self in the execution of cosmic functions. The Absolute, when it is translated into the creative principle of the cosmos, becomes the dynamic and omniscient organiser and master thereof. In short, hiranyagarbha is the Absolute set into action. The meaning of all this is that every function of the universe is carried on properly, merely through the very existence of the Absolute, even if it does not perform any act. 

Mantra 5

It moves, and it moves not. It is far, and it is near. It is inside all this, and also outside all this. The movement of the atman is like the movement of the sun with reference to a perceiver. The sun does not really move; only the clouds move. It is the mind that shifts its centres of thought, and consciousness appears to follow it because of its omnipresent nature. The mind cannot move outside the reality of the atman. Its motion is within Truth, but, because it works in terms of forms or particular centres, it moves and changes itself. And because the atman-consciousness is reflected through the mind, the reflection appears to move when really the medium it is that moves. In itself, the atman does not move, because it is eternal. It is very far, because it is infinite and without boundaries. Also it appears to be very far to the ignorant, because it is not possible to know it even in crores (tens of millions) of births through any worldly means. It is very near, because it is the heart of all. It is nearer than even the mind. It is the central existence of every being here; there is nothing nearer than the atman. It is inside all this, because it is the subtlest principle immanent in everything. It is outside everything, because it is the supreme transcendental being outside all names and forms. It is not exhausted in this universe. In the Purusha Sukta it is said figuratively that 3/4th of God is outside the universe.

The atman is intense knowledge, without internal or external restrictions.

Mantras 6 and 7

Who sees all beings in his own Self and the Self in all beings, - he does not shrink away from anything, i.e., does not get disgusted with anything. In whom, the knower, all beings have become the Self, - to him, who beholds unity, where is delusion, where is sorrow? The person who has established himself in the Absolute Self sees everything situated in himself, because he is the support and the possibility of all beings. This realisation comes to him through absolute renunciation which means the transcendence of all particular forms and diving into the general substance which enters into the very fibre of the particularities. Because of this knowledge of the oneness of all beings there is no reason for him to get disgusted with any form or to be attached to any form. He knows that he lives in all bodies and that it is his spirit that works the life of the different individuals. He is the cosmic life in which all individual lives are included. Because of his separation from the body, the senses and the mind, he has got a full knowledge of and a control over all these objective functions. He controls the whole universe, because he has no attachment to it. Knowledge and power are the results of supreme renunciation. The sage with Self-realisation experiences himself as the undifferentiated witness of all changes and modifications. He is the unchanging Being who underlies all beings. Hence he knows everything that changes. And everything has his Self as the basis. He neither loves nor hates anything. Special attitudes and relationships are developed towards objects only when they are believed to be other than the Self. The differenceless atman does not allow of any such distinction within its undivided existence. When an object is considered to be as much real as the subject or at least to have some reality, the value of the subject is limited, whereby the state of Absoluteness is denied. If the Absolute is at all possible, duality can never be possible. Absolute-Experience is non-relational. This knowledge destroys all delusion and sorrow. Such objective experiences as grief and delusion have no meaning in the state of Absolute Unity. Pleasure and pain, confusion and mistake, are all the results of ignorance and desire which are possible only in the case of an individual. The Absolute Being can have no such individual experiences. The cause of misery, together with all its effects, is completely rooted out in the state of the Absolute. This is the experience of the sage.