Katha Upanishad Shankara bhashya: Valli 4 Mantra 6

Intro to Mantra 6
yat prthyagatma ishwara bhavena nirdhistaha sa sarvatmeti yetad darshayati

As talks about the further development. In the previous mantra it was said jivatma and paramatma are one and the same - one nirguna atma alone is appearing as Ishwara with samashti namarupa and as jiva with vyashti namarupa. Nirguna atma alone is saguna jiva and saguna Ishwara ... not only that nirguna atma is in the form of HIranyagarbha and later in the form of Virat as well. All the three saguna forms are noting but appearances of nirguna atma. Sthoola namarupa - Virat, Sukshma namarupa - HG, Karana namarupa - Ishwara. In a nutshell this understanding is called sarvatma bhava. Why so called? Sarvam atma is the bhavana. THere is nothing other than Atma.

yaha prthyagatma ishwara bhavena nirdishtaha - this jiva who was presented as the paramatma- that atma alone is sarvatma - n the form of everything iti etat this message darshyati is presented in the following mantra

Mantra 6
Yah purvam tapato jatam adhyah purvam ajayate
guhayam pravishya tishtantam bhutebhir vyapashyata etadvaitat

Gist
The whole mantra is descrining HG - 1st - purvam tapatah jaatah HG is born first. Hence the title prathamajah - and how born? out of tapas of Ishwara. Ishwara is not mentioned but we supply, 2nd definition of HG - adhyaha purvam ajayatah - born even before the panchabhutas - water represents all the panchabhutas. 3rd - bhutebhih sah guhaam pravishya tishtanti - HG resides in every living being in the heart of every being guha means heart. Samashti HG is present in every individual as taijasa. surrounded by the body and the sense organs - karyakaranasanghatai ityarthah. Whole mantra is description of HG. Suppose a person recognizes this HG...the mantra is incomplete - we complete the mantra by saying sah Brahma pashyati whoever sees HG is seeing Brahman alone. Indirect message given is - knower of HG is knower of Brahman means Brahman alone is in the form of HG> this is the message - and etad vaitat - and this Brahman alone is the one you wanted to know about.

Bhashyam
yah mumukshu purvam prathamam tapato jnanadi lakshanat Brahmanah ityetat jatam utpannam hiranyagarbham
Suppose a mumukshu a seeker (knows HG) - purvam = prathamam, tapata - jnanadi lakshana - Ishwara's tapas - what is the tapas of Ishwara? not standing on one leg, etc!...mere sankalpa - jnanamayam tapah..expression comes in the Mundaka Up..yasya jnanamayam tapah..sankalpah - mere will of Bhagwan. Where does the sankalpa take place - in the human it takes place in the mind. For Bhagwan sankalpa is in Maya. Ishwara sankalpa is in the form of Mayavrtti. (Jiva sankalpa is in the form of manovrtti) Who is doing that tapas?>Brahmanah - here it means Ishwaraysa. ityetat - this is the meaning. jatam - is equal to utpannam is born hiranyagarbham. HG is born out of the sankalpa of Ishwara

kimapekshya purvam ityahah adhyapurvam apsatebhyah panchabhutebhyah na kevalabhyah apraayah ajaayatah utpannah
HG is born before - it is said. Question comes - before what? Kim apekshya? From the standpoint of what do we say that HG is before. adhyah purvam - before the waters. AS comments apsatebhyah panchabhutebhyah - water represents all the pancha bhutas including waters. Na kevalabhyah aabhyah - dont take only the waters merely but also include all elements iti abhipraayah this is the intention of the ajaayatah is in the mulam and means utpannah - was born - before all the panchabhutas

yastam prathamajam devadi shareeran utpadya sarvi prani guham hrdayakasham pravishya tishtantam shabdadin upalabhamanam bhutebhutebhau karyakaranalakshana sah tisthantam yah vyapashya pashyati ityetat.
that firstborn HG - most active employee of Ishwara - has been given the contract to create - Mundaka - Brahma..prathamaja .. vishwasya karta. Devashareerani utpadya...He creates beginning with Virat - and from there all the lokas, all the bodies of the Devas, etc He is samashti he created all the vyashti jivas. HG Himself as samashti chidabhasa enters the vyashti antahkarana as it were in the form of vyashti chidabhasa. sarva prani guhaam hrdayaakasham pravishya tishtantam. Here guha in the mulam is understood as hrdaya akasham. Shastra locates the mind in the hrdaya akasha - not in the brain. Within the physical heart there is an empty space and mind resides there during sushupti - during dream the mind travels through the naadis, and during awake it pervades all the physical body. Hrdayam is where the mind rests during sushupti. Also enters is not to be taken literally but only figuratively in the sense of "becomes available". HG in the individual is known as taijasa. Whats the job of taijasa? He experiences all the sense objects - upalabhamanam shabdadin - how does taijasa reside? bhutebhi surrounded by all the organs - karyakaranalakshanaibhi - in the form of the physical and subtle bodies consisting of all the organs sah tishtantam. Suppose a person knows such a HG

Yaha evam pashyati sah etat eva pashyati yat tat prakrtam Brahma.
yah evam pashyati - suppose a person knows HG in this manner as given in these three descriptions, sah etat eva pashyati - this is added to complete the sentence - he knows Brahman. yat tat Brahman- which is the topic under discussion.

So final message of the mantra is - Brahman is in the form of HG also.

Sarvatma bhava is being talked about in this mantra. One Atma alone appears as jivA, jagat, and Ishwara also. AtmA with tamas pradhana Maya is jagat, with rajas pradhana maya is jivA, with sattva pradhana Maya is Ishwara. These three Gunas alone "make" the nirguna Atma into jiva jagat and Ishwara. One Atma alone appears as the antaryami Ishwara, and as Hiranyagarbha Ishwara and also as Vishwarupa or Virat Ishwara. Of these three antaryami Ishwara is talked about in mantra 5, HG Ishwara is talked about in mantras 6 and 7, and Virat Ishwara is talked in Mantra 8. One Turiyam alone appears as triteeya padah - called antaryami Ishwara - and dwiteeya padah which is hiranyagarbha Ishwara, and prathamah padah as vaishvanaro Ishwara (in the terminlogy empployed by the Mandukya)
Sarvatma bhava means Turiyam alone appears as the three padas of the Universe - and that turiyam aham asmi.

Anvyah
yah adhyah purvam ajayata (sah hiranyagarbha bhavati). purvam tapatah jatam guham pravishya bhutebhih saha tishtantam (hiranyagarbham)yaha vyapashyata (sah Brahma pashyati) etad vai tat.

[AS takes the meaning of the word yaha as mumukshu. Amaradasa takes the 1st word yaha connecting with Hiranyagarbha. The meaning of the latter has been taken here for the anvyaha for the purpose of convenience.]

Karana shareera : response to some questions

Question:
***"For jiva as well as jivanmukti stoohla sharira dies with physical death. For the jiva sukshma sharira survives death and then travels to "find" another physical body. For the jivanmukti sukshma sharira dies with physical death. For the jivanmukti karana sharira dies with liberation."***
Answer:
A suskhma shareera that still has a balance of prarabdha - you can think of this as residual energy which needs to be exhausted - that very prarabdha demans of the Order an equipment for its next round of exhaustion. The karana "shareera" is the background field/the Great UnManifest or avyakta which enables this to take place.So no jiva - be he a jivanmukta or a nonjivanmukta - in the words of Shankara "from Brahma-ji to a blade of grass"..is ever born and so there is no question of death for the jivA. Sthula-sukshma shareera bundles go through of endless cycle of birth and death, with the background avyaktA enabling (hence karana) this to take place as per Ishwara's Order.

***
question no 1:From Swami Paramarthanandaji I have learned that karana sharira dies with liberation. I understand this to mean that as the jivanmukti has stopped taking maya for real, karana sharira "dissolves". Right or not?
***
This dissolution is technically termed pravilapanam. It is not a physical dissolution but an understanding of the effect being mithyA.So effect gets resolved into cause and once resolved is as good as being nonexistent. So entire anatma prapancha including all the koshas and the shareeras are all understood as being the AtmA alone. There is nothing other than Atma to dissolve or to dissolve into - there is no dissolution other than Atma either. From a material standpoint, the elements constituting the sthula-sukshma shareeras have lost any residual prarabhda or charge or energy and so there is no further continuation of the process of rebirth.
***
question no 2:Karana sharira being maya seems to be entirely collective - but as it is part of sharira trayam I would think that it must also have an individual aspect. If this is so, in what way is it "attached" to the individual jiva. Is it "attached" entirely through belief in its reality? Or is there another concept regarding this question?
***
The attachment is in the sense of the abhimana that "I am this body" - in terms of the self-identification or superimposition.If you analyze, not just the karana shareera but even the sthula shareeram is never "attached" - it is I the Atma that seemingly superimposes the properties of the anatma and claim ownership... .instead of identifying myself with the sentiency - that by which the eyes are enabled to see - and instead mis-identify myself and say "'I' see the tree with 'my' eyes - Shankara calls this "aham idam mama idam naisargikoyam lokavayabhara.So in this context one can understand the karana shareera as Avyakta, or Maya - as having both Cosmic and individual aspects - only thing while the sthula and sukshma bundles are manifest, the karana shareera is unmnaifest/potentia l.
***
question no 3:
as far as I understand, only sukshma sharira travels after physical death. Karana sharira does not travel. It is the "pool" into which stoohla and sukshma sharira merge in physical death and (for the jiva) out of which they emerge again. Right or not?
***
Yes. The ocean analogy may be quite appropriate here. Bubbles form on the surface of the Ocean. Let us imagine each bubble that forms to have formed as a result of some latent energy that results in the transformation of placid water into the bubbles and upon its dissolution there is still some residual energy that needs to find expression in the form of another bubble. Strictly from the standpoint of the Ocean the bubbles are nothing but the Ocean itself, and yet it is the UnManifest "stirring" or latent potential in the Ocean that itself gives rise to the bubbles. This potential is individually related to each bubble and at the same time is collectively related to the Ocean and at the same time is really speaking "nothing" - but the Ocean alone! So there is nothing such as travel/merger/ etc for this "nothing".
***
question no 4:
In pralayam: Do all the sukshma shariras of the jivas merge into karana sharira?Does karana sharira being maya survive pralayam in dormant form?
***
For Maya there is no pralayam to survive. Origniation and Dissolution both operate only from the standpoint of the Cause which is Maya. Just as when the Ocean is calm for a minute, there is no bubbles and there is only Ocean. Or when the dream ends the potential for the next dream is there but this potential is nothing Other than the sleeper. So there is "nothing" other than Brahman during pralayam [see the strikingly breath-taking expression in Br.Up 2.1. - Naiveha kinchaanaagra aseet, mrtyunaivaidamavrta m aseet - There was "nothing" here in the beginninge and "It" was covered by Death!!"]... - not just the Maha-Pralayam or Cosmic Dissolution but during our nightly trysts with the dress-rehearsal pralayam of the supremely restful Deep Sleep or sushupti - "prajna" in the Mandukya terminlogy. Here both sthula and sukshma shareera are temporarily resolved and what IS is only the jivAtman - there being no other, but the blissful embrace of a benevolent Mother Maya which is ever UnManifest - the terms karana shareera and anandamayakosha can be better understood in this context.It is interesting to note in this context that in the Katha Upanishad panchakosha viveka (1.3.10 and 1.3.11) Lord Yama quietly shifts from the vyashti to the samashti levels when he goes beyond the Intellect and talks about the vijnanamaya kosha and the anandamaya kosha in Cosmic terms of Mahat and Avyakta - thereby deliberately avoiding the idea that atma is revealed as the inner essence of ONLY the vyashti panchakosha - in which case we will end up in atma bahutvam exactly like sankhya philosophy.

Free will vs Fate

This debate between freewill and fate is by default never-ending - because the proponents of free-will will ever exercise their free-will in explaining their position and the determinism of those determined to defend determinism is of course pre-determined!
In the Bhagavad Gita, Bhagvan Krishna makes his stance ambiguously clear!
First he emphasizes this (18.59): yada ahankAram Ashritya na yotsya iti manyase mithyaisha vyavasAyaste prakRRiti tvAm niyokshyati
If by harboring or resorting to a notion of doership, you think "I will not act (fight)", then this is your error; you will be impelled - nay - compelled to act by your own intrinsic nature.
Shankara too in his bhAShya adds - na mantavyam - don't think - svatantra aham - I am free (to act)!
Krishna again reiterates (18.60) svabhavajena kaunteya nibaddhaH svena karmanA kartuM nechChasi yanmohAtkarishyasyavashopi tat
What through this delusion (of freedom) you don't desire to do, bound by your own work (which have led to vAsanA-s) borne of nature, you will inevitably do.
Krishna also emphasizes next (18.61) that it is ever the Lord alone that causes all beings to revolve as though they were wooden puppets mounted on a machine yantrA rUdhAni (the robots of that age!)
But just when you take this as a clear and unequivocal endorsement of determinism by the Lord, he advises Arjuna very soon (18.63) "yathaichChasi tathA kuru" - after taking into consideration all these 18 chapters of advice that I have patiently given you, "please act as you wish". You alone have the freedom - nay - the responsibility to decide what it is that you need to do now - to do or not to do - to fight or not to fight - the choice is yours. The Lord Himself, has just told Arjuna, that as the wielder of mAyA, he impels beings to act as though they were mere puppets. And the very same Lord now tells Arjuna - "please now think, and then do as you see fit". Whence is the need for these words from Krishna if, as the All-knowing Lord, He knew full well that Arjuna would have no choice but to fight?
Thus it is that we see Krishna emphasizing the twin concepts of determinism and free will in almost back-to-back shloka-s in the Bhagavad Gita. We can "freely" draw our own conclusions and hopefully come to our own "pre-determined" understanding!

Shastra is the only pramana for self-knowledge part 2

I wanted to touch on two points - one of which I forgot to mention in my last post.

The first adhikartvam for jnAnA for those considered unfit or unqualified for the study of
the VedAs.(Brahmasutra 1.3.38). Here Shankara does admit that such persons, as a
result of good works done in their past lives, can indeed gain self-knowledge
from the ItihAsAs and PurAnAs, instead of directly from the VedAs. The point to
be noted here is that these scriptures are indeed based on the VedAs alone,
and have the VedAs alone as their source.

For example - this is how the RAmAyanA is presented-

Vedavedye pare pumsi Jate Dasarathatmaje
Vedah Pracetasadasit Saksadramayanatmana
"As the Supreme Being, who is so exalted as to be known by the Vedas, was born
the son of Dasaratha, the Vedas themselves took birth as the child of Valmiki
[in the form of the Ramayana]."

And of course the MahAbhAratA is popularly referred to as the fifth VedA.

So one can see that the PuranAs, and even the itihAsAs, are nothing but the
VedAs in essence.
On a side note, in this context about VidurA, it is interesting to note the
words of the Wise VidurA himself in the MahAbhAratA, Note here how the King, a
kshartiyA, and recognizes and acknowledges, ViDurAchArya who by birth is a
ShudrA, as his teacher, and how ViduRa himself, though Wise, responds by a
adherence to Dharma....the following passage well illustrates the concept of
DharmA in our tradition.
***
Dhritarashtra said: If there is anything still left unsaid by thee, O Vidura,
say it then, as I am ready to listen to thee. The discourse is, indeed,
charming.
Vidura said: O Dhritarashtra, O thou of the Bharata race, that ancient and
immortal Rishi Sanat-sujata who, leading a life of perpetual celibacy, has said
that there is no Death. That foremost of all intelligent persons will expound to
thee all the doubts in thy mind, both expressed and unexpressed.
Dhritarashtra said: Do thou not know what that immortal Rishi will say unto me?
O Vidura, do thou say it, if indeed, thou hast that degree of wisdom.
Vidura said: I am born in the Sudra order and, therefore, do not venture to say
more than what I have already said. The understanding, however, of that Rishi,
leading a life of celibacy, is regarded by me to be infinite. He that is a
Brahmana by birth, by discoursing on even the profoundest mysteries, never
incurs the censure of the gods. It is for this alone that I do not discourse to
thee, upon the subject.
Dhritarashtra said: Tell me, O Vidura, how with this body of mine I can meet
with that ancient and immortal one (Sanat-sujata)?
Vaisampayana said: Then Vidura began to think of that Rishi of rigid vows. And
knowing that he was thought of, the Rishi, O Bharata, showed himself there.
Vidura then received him with the rites prescribed by ordinance. And then after
having rested a while, the Rishi was seated at his ease.
Vidura addressed him, saying: O illustrious one, there is a doubt in
Dhritarashtra's mind which is incapable of being explained away by me. It
behoveth thee, therefore, to expound it, so that listening to thy discourse,
this chief of men may tide over all his sorrows, and to that gain and loss, what
is agreeable and what disagreeable, decrepitude and death, fright and jealousy,
hunger and thirst, pride and prosperity, dislike, sleep, lust and wrath, and
decrease and increase may all be borne by him."
***

The second point has to do with mystics. Mystics are
certainly not a 20th or 21st century phenomenon! From Meerabai to Sant Kabir to
Guru Nanak to Sant Tukaram there are hundreds of thousands of mystics who have
ever graced our land. Shankara in the Sutrabhashyas does make a reference to
them [- I had previously quoted this, not too long ago, but i think it is worth
repeating here again -]

***
Purvapakshin: Your account does not leave open the possibility of the authority
of the Smrti-texts, such as the Yoga Sutras and the Samkhya source-texts, or the
authority of rishis like Kapila. The Samkhya is also not concerned with things
that are "to be done" but only with true knowledge, which is the means to
release. But there is no room in your account for the texts of the Samkhya and
so they thereby become meaningless. Since many people cannot understand the
meaning of the shruti-texts, they rely on the Smrti-texts, which are composed by
recognized authorities (prakhyata-pranatr). And the knowledge (jnana) of such
men, like Kapila, is said to be unobstructed (aprahita) like that of the rishi
(arsha).

Siddanta: If we admit your doctrine, then it, in turn, will render other
Smrti-doctrines useless (like the "Vedantic" portions of the Gita, e.g.). And it
is not possible for someone to perceive (upalabhate) super-sensory (ati-indriya)
objects (artha) without the aid of revelation (shrutim-antarena), because there
are no means (nimitta) to do so.
Purvapakshin: It is possible in the case of siddhas like Kapila because they
have unobstructed (aprahita) knowledge (jnana).

Answer: No, because powers (siddhi) such as super-sensory perception are
dependent upon certain practices (anushthana) and such practices are
characterized by things that are "to be done" (codana).

Nor can we count on some recognized (prasiddha) sage (mahatmya) like Kapila,
since even here there will be no foundation, because the teachings of these
recognized sages (mahatmya), as well as the founders of the other schools
(tirthakara, i.e., the Buddha, Mahavira, etc.), all mutually contradict one
another (paraspara-vipratipatti).

Besides, even assuming that we can trust in the authority of these siddhas,
because they instruct by way of so many different doctrines (bahu-siddhanta),
their teachings will all be in conflict (vipratipatti) with one another. And
then, as people are multiform (vaishvarupa) in their opinion (mati), (if we
accept these teachings) the undesirable consequence (prasanga) will follow that
truth (tattva) will be unregulated and without basis (avyapasthana). The Vedic
revelation, on the other hand, is an absolutely independent (nirapeksham) and
self-constituting authority (svarthe pramanyam). But human dicta
(purusha-vacasam) are dependent upon an external basis and mediated (vyavahita)
by memory (smrti) and discourse (vaktr).

(Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.1)

***

Shankara concludes this section with a very categorical assertion -

"We have thus established the perfection of this - our knowledge- which reposes
on the Upanishads, and as apart from it perfect knowledge is impossible, its
disregard would lead to 'absence of final release' of the transmigrating souls."