KATHA UPANISHAD: 8 - Swami Gurubhaktananda.

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Saturday 18, April 2026, 20:30.
KATHA UPANISHAD: “A Leap into the Beyond": Parts 1 & 2 
with Bhashya by Sri Adi Shankaracharya.
on the 90 Lectures delivered by Swami Advayanandaji 
KATHA UPANISHAD:  Part 1 – Total 71 Mantras
Reflections by Swami Gurubhaktananda 
Chapters 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3 
Chapter 1.1: (29) Mantras
Mantram - 1.1.10: Boon 1: “Forgive my father” 

Post-8.

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THE FIRST BOON:

And so, Nachiketas asks his boons one by one. Lord Yama has given young Nachiketas three blank cheques. What does the boy do with them?

He thinks of his family first – the suffering of his father, the anguish in his mind of having had to lose his son in a fit of rage. Then he thinks of the welfare of others, his community, through gaining merit for them to go to higher worlds after death. And thirdly, he rises even higher than that and seeks liberation– to go beyond all sorrow, beyond birth and death, to that realm for which Lord Yama alone is the most perfect teacher. 

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Mantram - 1.1.10: Boon 1: “Forgive my father” 

Nachiketas says to Lord Yama: 

1 

Shaanta-sankalpah = “May he be pacified, and     

sumanaa yathaa syaad = may he be kindly disposed. 

2 

veeta-manyuh gautamah = Free from anger may Gautama, my father, be   

maa abhi mrityo; = towards me, O Lord of Death. 

3 

tvat prasrishtam = When I am sent back to him by you,    

maa abhivadet prateeta = may he greet me and recognize me. 

4 

etat trayaanaam prathamam = This is the first of the three boons  

varam vrine. = that I choose.”

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Commentary:

1

With no thought of anything for himself, Nachiketas asks for his father’s emotional pain to be relieved, for he did feel great regret at what he had done.  

2

Nachiketas asks for a restoration in his relationship with his father. The anger felt  by the father should be completely forgotten.  

3

He also asks indirectly to be released and returned to Earth by asking for his father to recognize him as his son and not as a ghost returning from another world! He wishes to feel his father’s love once more. 

4

Indeed, he makes quite a job of including so many things in his first boon – a very tactful request that covers everything regarding his relationship with his father.

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Next 
Mantram - 1.1.11: Yama Grants the First Boon.
continue

on the 90 Lectures delivered by Swami Advayanandaji

Reflections by Swami Gurubhaktananda 

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