"So, Nachiketas, one has to follow the path of the good," said Yama. Now, here the good does not necessarily mean an ethical instruction that Nachiketas was being given. "Here is a good person." When we make a statement like this, we mean that in conduct, in character, in behaviour, the person is socially adaptable to conditions; therefore, we say, "Here is a good person." But the goodness that we are referring to here, in the context of the Upanishadic teaching, is a spiritual good; it is not a conditioned good. Conditioned good means that under certain circumstances one has to behave in this way, and under other circumstances one may have to behave in another way. If this is the mandate of ethics and morality, all the ethical and moral instructions stand relative to circumstances. But the metaphysical good, the spiritual good, the ultimate transcendental good is that which is good for the soul. It is not good for some time only, or for some people only, or for certain conditions only. For all conditions, for all times and for all individuals, it is good.

This is the soul, and Nachiketas was asking what happens to the soul. A vague answer to this question comes forth in the Katha Upanishad. A complete, satisfying answer has to be found in some other Upanishads, like the Chhandogya and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. Tentatively Yama tells Nachiketas that when the body is shed, one takes rebirth. One can become anything, according to the thoughts and the feelings entertained by the person during the tenure of this life. Your thoughts and feelings will congeal into a solid substance, as it were, of the personality which you will assume in the next incarnation. The process of incarnation is actually the process of the evolution of things. As I mentioned to you some time earlier, the evolutionary process is the process of the cessation of one condition to bring about the birth of the subsequent condition. Something has to die in order that something may be born. If nothing dies, nothing will be born. There will be no transformation and improvement of any kind if death does not take place. So many parts of the body have died in order that we could become this adult personality that we are now. If evolution is something worthwhile, death also is worthwhile. Unless some previous condition dies, the new condition cannot be born. So, everyone will be reborn because of the fact that the birth of a body, such as this body of ours which is now with us, is the instrument manufactured by this psychological organ within us for the fulfilment of its needs, desires and wants.

Our desires have no end. You cannot count your desires. Though today, at this moment, you may feel that your desires are half a dozen, when these half-a-dozen desires are fulfilled, you will find that another half a dozen will project themselves forth, and there will never be an end of this. Infinite are the desires of man because of the infinitude that is hidden in the recesses of the being of man. Inasmuch as longings and desires and needs of the mind are infinite, a finite body cannot be a suitable instrument for the fulfilment of all these desires. An infinite series of incarnations may be necessary in order that infinite desires may be fulfilled through the instrumentality of these instruments. What are the instruments? This body. What kind of body will you assume in the next birth? It will be exactly commensurate with the thoughts and desires that you entertain at this moment.

Yam yam vapi smaran bhavam tyajaty ante kalevaram, tam tam evaiti (Gita 8.6) is the famous doctrine, the teaching of the Bhagavadgita. Whatever thought enters your mind at the moment of departure, at the time of death, that will concretise itself and will be extracted out of your personality, like butter being sucked out of milk. Are you entertaining a hope that, "At the last moment I will entertain a suitable thought so now I can think whatever I like"? No; the last thought is the fruit of the tree of the life you have lived in this world. You cannot have one kind of tree and another kind of fruit. Whatever kind of life you have lived through this body in the sojourn of your existence in this world, that will become solid substance of the thought that will occur to your mind at the time of departure from this body. So, do not be foolish enough to imagine that, "Now I can be living a merry life. There is no need of bothering as to what will happen to me, because the time for passing has not come. Many years are there for me. I shall think a good thought at the time of going."

Two mistakes are committed in this kind of imagination. Firstly, it is not true that many years are there, ahead of us. No one can say that. So, no one should entertain the idea that, "After fifty years only I shall have the need to think of a good thought, because it is said that the last thought determines my future." Who tells you that you will be living for another fifty years? It may be another fifty minutes, or even less.

The second mistake is regarding this idea that, "I shall think a good thought at the time of going." The last thought is nothing but the essence of all the thoughts entertained in this life. So, a person cannot be a good person at the time of dying and a bad person before. Whatever goodness you entertain in your thoughts and feelings will congeal itself, and whatever was in the milk, that alone will come out as butter. You cannot have butter from somewhere when the milk was another thing altogether. So Yama, in one sentence, in one place, says that, ordinarily speaking, everybody will take birth, if Self-realisation does not take place before passing. If you realise the Self before the end of this life, no birth will take place. Why? Because the need for birth will not arise.

Why do you take birth? It is because you have a necessity to fulfil the desires that you could not fulfil through this tabernacle. The desires were many and the body was feeble and finite, and an infinite number of desires cannot be fulfilled through a finite body, which is a feeble instrument. So, another body, another series of bodies have to be undergone. But in the realisation of the Self, which is universal in Its nature, desires get extinguished. This is the Nirvana that people speak of. Brahma nirvanam ricchati (Bhagavata 4.11.14): "Nirvana is the extinguishing of the flame of life." This flame, which is the transitory movement of the succession of human desire, vanishes, extinguished completely. This is Nirvana that is taking place. If there is even a single desire, rebirth is unavoidable for the fulfilment of that desire. If you have fulfilled all your desires in this birth itself and nothing more is left, that would be good for you.

Paryapta-kamasya kritatmanas tu ihaiva sarve praviliyanti kamah (Mundaka 3.2.2), says the Mundaka Upanishad. "All your desires melt here, in the light of the Self." No desire can stand before the blaze of the knowledge of the Self. As the cloud of mist cannot stand before the blaze of the sun, this muddle of the cloud of desires cannot stand before the light of the Self, which is the Atman. Therefore, "What happens to the soul after death?" is the question raised by Nachiketas. "Ordinarily, rebirth takes place," is the answer. And most people in the world are ordinary people only, because everyone has a desire of some kind or the other. Everyone is filled with egoism, a self-assertive nature; therefore, everyone will be reborn. Even if we are reborn, it is good to be born in more advanced circumstances. If you live like a tree, you may become a tree; if you live like an animal, you may become an animal; if you are humanitarian, you will be reborn as a very good human being. But why should you not live like an angel? You can live like a veritable god in this world and you will be reborn as an angel, a divinity in heaven. You will enter heaven, you will go to brahma-loka. But no entry of any kind will be there if the Self is realised.

Athakamayamanah, yo'kamo niskama apta-kama atma-kamah, na tasya prana utkramanti, atraiva samvili-yante brahmaiva san brahmapyeti (Brihad. 4.4.6), says Sage Yajnavalkya to King Janaka in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In the context of the transmigration of the soul, Yajnavalkya again mentions here that whatever your wish is, that will be fulfilled. Remember very well that every wish of yours, even the pettiest, has to be fulfilled. If you think that you want something, it shall come to you. If it is a very strong desire, it may be fulfilled in this life itself. If it is a mild desire, you may have to take time for the fulfilment of that wish. It may be the next birth, or after two or three births.

What happens to the person who has no desires? Now, I shall tell you about the man, the person who has no desires.Athakamayamanah yo'kamo: who has no desire of any kind; niskama: who is bereft of any desires; apta-kama: who has fulfilled all desires; atma-kama: who loves only the Self. Only he who has love for the Universal Self can be said to have fulfilled all desires; every other person has some extraneous desire. What happens to such a person when he departs from the body? Na tasya prana utkramanti: He will not depart. We generally say the soul departs. In the case of a Self-realised soul, no departure takes place. It sinks then and there into the Absolute, like a bubble in the ocean. When the bubble in the ocean bursts, it does not travel some distance; it dissolves itself into the bosom of the sea there and then. Na tasya prana utkramanti: There is no space and time movement for the soul of that great soul. Atraiva samviliyante: They become one with the very Existence, then and there, here and now. They neither have to go to heaven, nor to brahma-loka, nor to the Garden of Eden. The question of going arises only because of the concept of space and time. A timeless Eternity, which is the true essence of the soul of a person, does not travel to any place. It melts here itself into Pure Existence. Atraiva samviliyante brahmaiva san brahmapyeti: The Soul is the Absolute and, therefore, it enters the Absolute. This is what we gather from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. So much detail cannot be found in the Katha Upanishad answer of Yama, but many other things are casually mentioned by way of a tentative elucidation of the answer expected by Nachiketas from Yama.

The Katha Upanishad is a most beautiful Upanishad. It is worth committing to memory, if possible. There are some ashrams in India where the residents are expected to recite it the whole day. It is, first of all, a very fitting introduction to spiritual life. The very first chapter of the Katha Upanishad is something like the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita. It places before us the conditions preceding the quest of the Spirit, as we have in the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita. The second chapter of the Katha Upanishad begins with similar circumstances to those in the second chapter of the Bhagavadgita. And as the Bhagavadgita goes on, so the Katha Upanishad also goes on. There is some similarity, people think, between the Bhagavadgita's approach to things and the approach of the Katha Upanishad. Literally also, from the point of view of the Sanskrit language, it is melodious and artistic; lyrical beauty is there. Very fine, mellifluous style is the passage of the Katha Upanishad. Inasmuch as it touches our soul and it is relevant to our own predicament at the present moment, we seem to be something like Nachiketas. And perhaps we are searching for an answer of the same kind as the three types of boons that Nachiketas expected, and perhaps we are also expecting the same thing in some way, in some measure. So the Katha Upanishad is the best introduction even to the Bhagavadgita and all the Upanishads. With these words, the major point that is raised in the Katha Upanishad may be said to be complete.