Commentary on the Panchadasi: 15. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday 07, Sep 2025, 06:30.
BOOKS
UPANISHAD 
Discourse -4
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Mantras 28-43
Mantras 30-32 
SWAMI KRISHNANANDA
Post-15.

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30.

Kurvate karma bhogāya karma kartuṁ ca bhuñjate, nadyāṁ kīṭā ivāvartād āvartāṁ tara māśu te, vrajanto janmano janma labhante naiva nirvṛtim (30). 

hese jivas, these individuals, these born, created beings incessantly engage themselves in some action. They have to feed their stomach. They have to survive by eating food. Birds and insects are also seen struggling to find their grub. Even an earthworm wriggles and writhes its slimy body inside the earth to maintain itself by the absorption of the elements of the earth through its skin. Insects, reptiles, mammals and human beings are busy feeding their stomachs to survive somehow or other, to protect themselves either by hibernation or by running to some far corner of the world—or in the case of human beings, by building a house, etc.—to protect themselves against the onslaught of nature and any other difficulty that may be expected from outside.

Such is the business of life, this intense activity for survival and for enjoyment in this world through this body. Survival means finding ways and means of continuing the joyous life of this Earthly existence. We eat for the sake of work, and work for the sake of eating. If we do not work, we cannot eat; and if we do not eat, we cannot work. This is a vicious circle. Like insects caught in a whirl of a flooded river, viciously circling and unable to get out of the whirl on account of the force of the movement of water, these jivas who are caught up in this vicious circle of working for survival, and survival for working, find no peace of mind. From birth to death, and from one birth to another birth, they move helplessly on account of this involvement in the desire to maintain their physical existence, and work hard for the sake of the maintenance of their physical life. They will never have peace of mind, and all the transmigratory lives through which they have passed will be only a continuation of the problems and the difficulties which they face in life.

It does not mean that the next birth will be a better birth, unless, of course, we live today a newly oriented kind of life. If the same drudgery continues throughout our existence in this world, it will be carried forward to the next world. The next world may be better for us, and our life in it may be far better than in this one, provided that the present life of ours is qualitatively transmuted through the perception of the higher values of life, and by detachment of the senses and the emotions from involvement in the objects outside. If we cannot achieve this much of spiritual discipline, of sense control, mental stability and emotional peace inside, there will be only the animalistic instinct in man to continue the same routine of eating in order to work and working in order to eat.

Sometimes a good man with a compassionate heart sees an insect caught in a whirlpool and, taking pity on it, lifts it and keeps it on dry ground. Then it somehow or other starts breathing and continues to live; otherwise, it will go into the whirl of water and nobody knows what will happen to it. In a similar manner, some good man comes in this world as a Guru, a teacher, a master, a preceptor, a guide and a philosopher. Taking pity on the suffering people, somehow he injects into them knowledge of the ways and means of freeing themselves from this involvement in the whirl of samsara, Earthly existence. We are compared to insects caught in a whirl of water, and we have no way of escape if that happens to us. But just as some kind person helps the insect and its life is saved, so is the case of a spiritual seeker who is ardently searching for God and has had enough of this world, who wants nothing more from this Earth and seeks enlightenment in the art of living a higher life. In the case of such people, the Guru comes to that disciple automatically. The belief is that the disciple does not go to the Guru; the Guru comes to the disciple somehow or other, by some miracle of God's working.

31.

Sat karma pari pākātte karuṇā nidhinod dhṛtāḥ, prāpya tīra taru cchāyāṁ viśrā myanti yatha sukham (31). 

As insects placed under the shade of a tree on dry ground are somehow or other able to survive, so by the fructification of good karmas that we did in the previous life, we come in contact with a great spiritual Master. We find peace under the shade of that vast tree who is the Guru, and who frees us from this whirl of the flood of Earthly existence by proper instruction, upadesa, by tattva darshan vidya.

32.

Upadeśa mavā pyaivam ācāryāt tattva darśinaḥ, pañca kośa vivekea labhante nir vṛtiṁ parām (32). 

By acquiring such knowledge from the Guru, the Master, one attains to a new kind of vision of life. The student begins to see the realities of life, and not merely the appearances, through the instructions that come from the Guru as light that is flashed on darkness.

Pañca kośa vivekea labhante nir vṛtiṁ parām. The Guru generally starts instruction from the lower stages of understanding, gradually, to the higher forms of it. The instruction commences mostly with an analysis of the composition of the personality, a study of the inner constituents of the individual. “My dear disciple, do you know what you are, what kind of person you are? What is the stuff out of which you are made? What is the substance which constitutes your body, mind, etc.? Let us analyse this.” The initial instruction commences with an analysis of the human personality and individuality.

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Next
33.
Ann.aṁ prāṇo mano buddhir ānanaśceti pañca te, kośā stairā vṛtaḥ svātmā vismṛtyā saṁsṛtiṁ vrajet (33). 
Continues

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