Commentary on the Kathopanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Discourse 10: What Happens to the Bound Soul After Death

Hanta ta idaṁ pravakṣyāmi guhyam brahma sanātanam: yathā ca maraṇam prāpya ātmā bhavati gautama (2.2.6): Yama says, “Nachiketas, I shall describe to you some mystery. When you really die, you become the Atman. But in ordinary death, one does not become the Atman.” In real death, one really becomes the Atman. What is this real death? Some call it the mystical death. Having known this Supreme Brahman, one becomes the Atman. Having known the Supreme Being, one becomes the Self of all beings.

What happens to a person after death is the answer that is attempted in one or two mantras that follow. What happens is to be determined by the conditions that are of the present and the past. It is said that a straight answer to this question cannot be given, because what was in store even before the birth of this body is to be taken into consideration.

Many karmas are performed, as is usually done by everyone, and these karmas are done under different impulses: intense, middling and mild. Intense thoughts impel deep actions which create deep-seated impressions in the subconscious mind, but mild thoughts produce mild impressions. Every thought is recorded, and nothing goes unrecorded. These impressions are the determining factor for the reincarnation of the soul. Strong impressions may seek expression earlier than weak ones. It is not that the present one will be taken first; it depends on the intensity. For karmas there is no past and present. It depends on their intensity. Very powerful karmas may seek expression even in this very birth itself. When karmas produce an effect, these effects get buried in the unconscious and subconscious levels, and we do not know what is in our store. Subconscious impressions can rise to the conscious level in this very birth if their intensity is strong enough.

It is difficult to escape the nemesis of our thoughts, acts and feelings; we are answerable to them. Like our children, they will claim their due share. These karmas are obstinate, powerful and violent if they are given a long rope, and they will hurl us into samsara, as they have done now. We cannot say what our next birth will be like, because it cannot be said now what karmas will be allotted to us. Jadabharata became a deer, Ahalya a stone, and Yamalarjuna became the trees. This means that human consciousness can degenerate to the animal, vegetable and inanimate levels under certain given conditions, but they will again revert to the human kingdom. The stronger impressions collect themselves, and this is prarabdha karma. When the body dies, all these forces awake and rise to the conscious level, demanding their share; this is prarabdha karma. Because we also do fresh karmas, as we do not remain a witness to them and so we keep adding new ones, another birth is taken as new and fresh karmas are added. Again, karmas are fresh actions done with the sense of doership and enjoyership, and mantras six and seven are some sort of reflection on this subject.

The urge for reincarnation testifies to the immortality of the soul. The soul never ceases its efforts toward its liberation, and its efforts in this direction take the form of a series of births and deaths, outwardly manifesting the internal nature of its constitution. The soul never gets the supreme satisfaction that it hopes for in this endless process of achievements. All its efforts are unfortunately in an erroneous direction, and so instead of immortality, there are only endless births and deaths.

Things are connected by a perpetual bond of affinity, and emotional affections are propelled by the existence of internal unity. This internal union of things and persons manifests as loves outside. While this internal spiritual unity is the reality, it takes the form of an external attraction and pull when it manifests in the world. The ocean is one at the bottom, but if its waters are being let out through different channels, it can be split.

Human beings, and all beings in the phenomenal world, are incapable of diving into this unity at the bottom. They are floating on the surface because their senses are being directed outward right from the time of creation, as mentioned in an earlier mantra, and only a few turn inward. Birth and death are correlative, and when one is there, so is the other. If we are born, we have to die; and if we die, we have to be born. There are repeated births and deaths with an interlinking series of experiences, which is called samsara. So long as there is recognition of value in the things of the world, there will be love and hatred for them; and so long as there is love and hatred, desire cannot cease. Desire is an internal urge, and affection for things is an external movement towards the desired object. The births through which the soul passes indicate the restlessness of the spirit for a search for immortality. But nowhere does the spirit find satisfaction, because love for objects does not touch the bottom unity which we have. Thus, loves and hatreds are far removed from reality. So births and deaths do not cease, and the soul enters different bodies in order to experience a set of karmas.

Yonim anye prapadyante śarīratvāya dehinaḥ, sthāṇum anye'nusamyanti, yathā karma, yathā śrutam (2.2.7): Souls which have not been liberated enter into wombs of different species for the sake of embodiment. The scriptures say that the soul passes through eighty-four lakhs of species until it becomes a human being. The soul may enter into any species: a human body, or that of an animal or anything else, even an immovable object. According to the karmas it has performed and the remnant of their force, the soul enters into lower or higher wombs.

It is difficult to say where the soul will go after death, but certain outlines of the course of the soul are mentioned. It may enter a body in the physical realm, or in some higher, subtler realm. It may reach the realm of svarga or that of hell. It may follow the northern course of the sun and reach Brahmaloka, it may follow the southern course of the sun and reach Pitriloka, or it may attain jivanmukti or sadyo-mukti. Any of these are possible. The Bhagavadgita says that the last thought determines the nature of the next birth, and this indicates the type of life one has to lead if a particular thought is to be engendered at the time of death.

The last thought, determined by the earlier ones, may be regarded as the fruit of the tree of life. The time of death is that condition of the whole personality when there is a cessation of the willpower and freedom of thought in the conscious level of our being. We cannot think as we think now. Something that may be said to happen in dream does not occur in our waking state. In waking we deliberately suppress the thoughts and feelings by the power of will, but in dream there is no such taboo or restriction and we are free to think as we like in accordance with our deepest feelings, so that the last thought comes from the whole of our being.

Therefore, the deeper layers of our personality come to outer manifestation at the time of death. Rather than the thought, the feelings come at that time. Thought is deliberate thinking, while feelings are the real personality of the individual. Thoughts may be due to pressure, but feelings are free thought, or unrestricted expression of thought. So one has to be careful of one's feelings. Hushed thoughts, suppressed feelings, etc., are dangerous, and one has to be careful with them because it is these that we carry with us at the time of death, and not our relatives and wealth.

Hence, in an unbefriended condition the soul carries its samskaras, casting off this physical body here and seeking an atmosphere where it would be possible to pay for the samskaras and vasanas it carries with it. Violent samskaras seek expression in the nether regions. The nether regions and the higher realms are not in space and time. The space and time necessary are created by consciousness, just as when we enter into dream we seek to enter a new space and time. The most enchanting story of Lila and Padma of the Yoga Vasishtha shows how illusory are space and time, and how different space-time relations can exist simultaneously. Though it may appear that we move in space and time, we do not actually move. Even in this world the movement of the soul is relative, just as it is after death. Birth, death and transmigration are conditions of consciousness through which the soul passes.

Thus, the soul can travel through various courses, enter different wombs of species, and again revert to the original status when the karmas are exhausted. All this happens under one condition: our deeds coupled with our feelings. If we think we have done something, we will have to reap the fruits thereof. This is why karma yoga is prescribed. Our actions should not bring about a reaction which will cause rebirth. All the karmas of all previous births will have to seek expression some time or other, and as we go on adding new karmas in every birth, samsara never ends.

Ya eṣa supteṣu jāgarti kāmam kāmam puruṣo nirmimāṇaḥ tad eva śukraṁ tad brahma tad evāmṛtam ucyate, tasmin lokāḥ śritāḥ sarve, tad u nātyeti kaś cana: etad vai tat (2.2.8). Here, the Upanishad shifts its emphasis to another aspect. While the soul is reincarnated in different bodies, it can also liberate itself, if it is honest. For this purpose, it has to investigate itself deeply. Just as there is sensation behind the awareness of objects, thinking behind ordinary sensation, there is consciousness behind thoughts. This consciousness is not the same as sensation; one is not the other. Sensation is to be separated from the awareness of objects, thought from sensation, and consciousness from thought.

Consciousness is not mind, mind is not sensation, sensation is not object. Yet due to a mix-up of character, one gets superimposed on the other. This mutual super-imposition is ananya-adhyasa, and when we investigate it, the independence of consciousness will be realised. This is easily done by analysing the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. In this mantra, a hint at it is given. Even when we are fast asleep, we may slip into the world of dream. The various experiences we have there are similar to the waking condition. As far as their structure is concerned, these two states are the same.

Just as the consciousness that animates mentation, etc., is different from it, consciousness is different from sensation and objects both in waking and in dream. Consciousness exists even in deep sleep, on account of which we remember previous experiences. This shows that consciousness stands as a witness of all the states. That consciousness is Brahman; that is the immortal Atman. That which stands separated from all phenomena—physical, mental, etc.—is Brahman. That consciousness is the witness of the desire-filled activities in waking, etc. “All the worlds hang on this pure Atman in its universal nature. No one can go beyond this. Transmigration ends here. This verily is That,” says Yama.

Agnir yathaiko bhuvanam praviṣṭo rūpaṁ rūpam prati-rūpo babhūva, ekas tathā sarva-bhūtāntar-ātmā rūpaṁ rūpam prati-rūpo bahiś ca (2.2.9). This Atman is uniformly present in all things; it is not different in different persons and things. It is not that the Atman is big in an elephant and small in an ant. Three examples are given here: the wind, the sun, and fire. Fire burns equally, without any partiality. It enters various objects and burns in various hues, putting on various contours, not on account of the difference in fire itself, but because of the medium through which it passes. As fire is one in its original state but when it enters the world it puts on various forms, likewise the one Atman that is uniformly present in all bodies appears to be various because of the differences in the bodies and intellects. These things called 'men', 'animal', 'tree' are due to the intensity of the manifestation of the Atman. When sattva predominates, we call it a genius because there is more manifestation of the Atman in sattva. In the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there is lesser manifestation of the Atman. And when there is no manifestation of the Atman because of tamas, we call it a stone, etc. But the Atman is uniform, One and Absolute, even as is fire. Internally and externally it is the same.

Vāyur yathaiko bhuvanam praviṣṭo rūpaṁ rūpam prati-rūpo babhūva, ekas tathā sarva-bhūtāntar-ātmā rūpaṁ rūpam prati-rūpo bahiś ca (2.2.10): The odour of air is not really its property. We have scent at one place and stink at some other place. Just as the quality of the air does not limit air, the quality being due to the limitations of bodies such as room, vessel and so on, just as the odour that we attribute to the air does not really belong to it, so is the Atman free from any container. It is not large or small. The properties of the world do not belong to the Atman. The Atman is the existence of all beings, and their being is the being of the Atman.

Sūryo yathā sarva-lokasya cakṣur na lipyate cakṣuṣair bāhya-doṣaih, ekas tathā sarva-bhūtāntar-ātmā na lipyate loka-duḥkena bāhyaḥ (2.2.11). How is the Atman unaffected? Like the sun is the Atman unaffected. If we spit at the sun, or praise or abuse the sun, it does not affect it. Just as the sun, the eye of all the world, is not affected by the way it is viewed by all people, likewise is the Atman transcendent to the world and is unaffected by it. Change, increase, decrease, decay and death are the characteristics of the world. They do not touch the Atman. Physical and ethical characteristics, characteristics of the senses and the mind, do not reach the Atman, because the Atman is far, far removed from the operation of the jiva's samsara. Without the sun we cannot live, and yet nothing that happens to us affects the sun. Even so, the Atman does not take either of our good or bad. Though the Atman is immanent, it stands transcendent.

Eko vaśī sarva-bhūtāntar-ātmā ekam bījam bahudhā yaḥ karoti, tam ātmastham ye'nupaśyanti dhīrās teṣaṁ sukhaṁ śasvataṁ netareṣaṁ (2.2.12): The one controller, the all-pervading Atman, single, undivided, indivisible, appears as this manifold universe, as we may appear manifold in dream. To the wise who behold the Atman abiding in the soul, to them belongs real happiness, and not to anyone else. Permanent happiness belongs only to those who have realised the Atman in their own being, and not to those who run after objects.

Happiness and peace are the subjects of mantras twelve and thirteen. To whom does happiness belong? And who is it that can have real peace? Happiness and peace belong to those, says the Upanishad, who are able to recognise the Atman in its purity as the single Source of the multitudinous variety, and the Substance of all the forms that seem to fill the universe. The Upanishad is tending to describe the unfolding of the world with its evolutionary and involutionary activity, and the Center of the universe tending to ramify into the nama-rupa prapancha, the name-form world.

But happiness is not for those who pursue the objects of the world. All pleasures are created, or brought about, by the union of the senses with objects. We have heard of the term 'sensation', but it is rare for people to deeply think what it means. Unfortunately for us, happiness is a form of sensation, and sensation is a stimulation generated by the repulsion taking place when senses come into contact with objects. It is repulsion rather than union. These experiences, falsely taken for union, can even be brought about by the mind contacting objects directly, without the help of the senses. The eyes get stirred into activity in perception, and so is the case with the other senses. This irritation is like the morbid irritation which the body experiences during illness. But when we get used to a particular sensation it becomes normal to us, like getting accustomed to alcoholic drinks. A person used to alcohol will not feel anything if he takes a small quantity. This is the effect of the habit. Habits become values, significances and realities, so much so that we become subjected to them. Instead of our controlling them, they begin to control us.

These habits and such experiences to which we are accustomed in the world of forms constitute the world, all which are regarded as realities, and sensation appears as concrete objects, like the thoughts of dream appear as solid objects. Desires, feelings, etc., concretise themselves into solid objects, and we get real experiences from non-existing objects. So to have a real experience, objects are not necessary. On the other hand, even when there is real existence of objects we may not experience them, as in sleep, swoon and death. So whether the formations outside are real or not, we can have an experience, because what is necessary for experience is sensation, and not an object. Sensations are certain impacts on our nerves, though the objects outside may act as agents in the generation of a sensation. But if we can create those sensations by an inner technique, we can have the experience without objects.

What we want is an experience, whether or not objects exist. This is the cause of our unhappiness, because we do not really come in contact with objects. A real union can never happen. One thing cannot become another thing; otherwise, there would be only one thing. Until we become the object and the object becomes us, there can be no real union. Therefore, possession or enjoyment is an imagination, not a reality. The whole world is drowned in sensory happiness, but because of the fundamental defect—the impossibility of one possessing or enjoying the other—happiness does not belong to those who have not sought the Substance within all. Happiness belongs to that One Thing.

If the senses are to withdraw themselves from all contact then there can be real happiness, because contact is not the way of happiness. The Gita says ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya eva te (B.G. 5.22): All pleasures that are contact-born are sources of pain because in contact we do not come into real union with what we want. Physical contact is not union, and as long as union does not come about, there cannot be real happiness. When diversity gives place to unity in whatever degree, there is happiness to that degree. We are in a world of imaginary happiness or unhappiness brought about by the contact of the senses, conveyed through the nerves to the mind. No one can be happy who has not entered into the substance of the object.

Nityo'nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko bahūnām yo vidadhāti kāmān, tam ātmastham yenupaśyanti dhīrāḥ; teṣāṁ śāntiḥ śasvatī, netareṣāṁ (2.2.13). Peace is like happiness. Peace cannot be had as long as we do not know the way. Silence, or peace, is not absence of outward noise or tumult. Even if all people keep silent, there cannot be real peace, for there will be a burning within. Peace is another name for happiness. It is not a dead substance; it is vitality. It is not sleep. Peace is attended by consciousness; it is connected with an awareness of it. Then only has it meaning. If we are wealthy but not aware of it, the fact has no meaning for us. It is awareness that gives meaning to life. Maya is nothing but the net spread out by the senses who deceive us. We mistake one thing for the other. This is adhyasa, this is maya. Under such circumstances, there cannot be peace.

Peace is the nature of the Atman, as is bliss. The more we manifest the Atman in our life, the more do we become blissful, powerful. Our face glows with radiance. Not only have we peace within, but we can also radiate it outward, like the sun. It is eternal among all the so-called imperishable things of the world. Parinama nitya is the temporarily permanent, not the eternally permanent. A building is permanent, but not eternal. While the objects of the world can be called permanent, they are not eternal; but within them is a permanent substance, the Atman.

There is a consciousness behind all things. Intelligence is immanent in human beings, in animals, in the vegetable kingdom. In the subtler realms, such as svarga, etc., where we are in a spiritual world, not in an intellectual world like ours, we are closer to Reality, and the senses become more and more ethereal and less and less useful, so that when we reach the highest, Brahmaloka, we do not need the senses at all, and one mirrors the other, one reflects the other. This is the experience where one transcends the world of senses, and so it is the purified intelligence transcending the rationality of the world.

Even heavenly satisfactions of the world are only forms of that one Supreme Satisfaction. The ocean can be diverted through various channels, and it can run through them with greater or lesser intensity, but the content of water is the same irrespective of its force through the various outlets. Similarly, the Atman is in the same intensity in all beings. If a mirror is clean, it will reflect well. If it is painted with tar or any other colour, it will reflect accordingly. Higher forms of life reveal greater and greater manifestations of the Atman, until we come to the human level and even higher ones. When a creeper moves towards the light of the sun, it is seeking the Atman in its own blind manner. When trees strike their roots deep inside the earth, it is for the sake of the Atman. When birds fly hither and thither in search of food, when animals graze in the field, they are seeking the Atman. When we, human beings, work hard, it is not for any other reason but for that Atman which we have not yet found. We have been creeping like plants, grazing like animals, and we have not found the Atman, because it is not to be found by these means. These variegated forms are the great drama of the Atman; but we are involved in it, and so we do not enjoy it. Enjoyment is for the spectator, not for the dramatist. Such is the degeneration into which consciousness has descended. The one experience of the Atman appears to have taken the manifold forms of this world. Suppose our different limbs became self-conscious, what would our condition be? They would fight among themselves. War taking place in one's own body is insanity. The wars in the world are only a kind of insanity, a tension between forms which are of a single Being.

“My dear Nachiketas, never can you find peace in this world which is torn asunder,” says Yama. “Peace is to those who recognise the one Atman as present in their own self, as the supreme Enjoyer, and not as the object of enjoyment.”

“Know the Knower, see the Seer, understand the Understander,” says the Upanishad. Who is to understand the Understander? There is a strange way of knowing the Knower. It is called atma sakshatkara, or Self-realisation. To them who have attained this belongs real peace.

Tad etad iti manyante' nirdeśyam paramaṁ sukham, kathaṁ nu tad vijānīyām kimu bhāti vibhāti vā (2.2.14). How are we to designate the Atman as this or that when it is in all things? Mystics have called it 'That which Is'. 'This is That' is the definition of the Atman, and not anything else, because indescribable supreme bliss is that Supreme Being. It cannot be indicated by any symbol.

Kathaṁ nu tad vijānīyām kimu bhāti vibhāti vā: In a humorous way Yama speaks to Nachiketas: “How can I speak about it? How can I understand it and explain it to you? How can I say whether it shines from within or from without? It is within as also without. This wonderful Atman, what shall I say about it? It can crop up in any form, here, there, everywhere. Does it shine or is it reflected through objects? What shall I say? I can only say verily it is That.”

Na tatra sūryo bhāti na candra-tārakam, nemā vidyuto bhānti, kuto'yam agniḥ; tameva bhāntam anubhāti sarvaṁ tasya bhāsā sarvam idaṁ vibhāti (2.2.15). This light of the Atman is such that the sun cannot shine there. If millions of suns were to shine, it would not be equal to That, what to say of lesser lights like the moon, stars, fire, etc. Every light is illumined by That light. Which light can illumine That light? We breathe because of the breath of that Breathless Being. We exist because of that Supreme Existence. Every-thing depends on That; how could they derive vitality from anything else? In that Supreme Life, this so-called sun of empirical life, this moon or mind, or the fire of human desire, do not shine. All these are mockeries before the Atman. Our intellect, even that of a genius, all that we regard as the highest in us, are matchless before the Atman. All these values are borrowed from that Supreme Value, and there is nothing here if what is borrowed is returned to it. The empirical values and realities of the world are reflections of the paramarthika satta, or the Eternal Reality.

These three realities—pratibhasika, vyavaharika and paramarthika—are not three realities, but three expressions of the One Reality. Just as light can pass through a clear, coloured or broken glass and get reflected accordingly, the One Reality can reveal itself in different ways. But all these degrees of reality—matter, body, mind, earth, water, fire, air, ether, etc.—are subtleties, varying in intensity, of the same Reality. All lights come from that One Light. That is the joy which sustains us. That is the ocean of ambrosia which is not the lifeless nectar of the celestials, but a conscious one. In this mantra is a description of the Satchidananda Atman.