Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad - 2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, 10 Jun, 2023. 07:00.

Mantram - 2.

Post-2.

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Mantram-2.

"Kurvan-nevaha karmani jijivisec-chatagm samah,

evam tvayi nanya-theto'sti na karma lipyate nare."

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kurvan = performing;

eva = alone;

iha = here ( in this world);

karmani = work, deeds;

jijiviset = should desire to live;

satagm = a hundred;

samah = years;

evam = thus;

tvayi{sati} = while you are;

na = not;

anyatha = otherwise;

itah = than this;

asti = is;

na = not;

karma = deed;

lipyate = is attached;

nare = in the man (humanbeing)

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Translation :

Performing, verily, work in this world should 

one desire to live a full hundred years. This

alone is right, for there is no other right path.

Action neverclings to a man following this path. 

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 The meaning of life, in this light, appears to be a participation that is called upon everyone in relation to that organisation to which each one belongs. Extending the analogy of the physical body to larger organisations, we will feel that we live only when we participate in a larger-than-ourselves. When we do not participate in a system to which we necessarily belong, we do not really live. We just hang on. There is a difference between hanging on and actually living. A paralysed part of the body may hang on, but it is not living. It is not a part of the body. It exists. We can see it hanging lifelessly, as it were, to no purpose.

The life of a person comes to no purpose when the participation expected of that person in the context of the whole to which that person belongs is absent. The society of human beings is an organisation, and everyone belongs to human society as long as one is a human being. The very finitude of human organisms compels them to participate in a system known as society. There is no necessity for a perfected individual to participate in anything. But the perfected individual is a misnomer, because that which is perfect cannot be an individual. Anyone who is an individual, human or otherwise, is, therefore, not perfect in any sense of the term. Thus, considering even the lowest category to which one belongs in a conceived wholeness, the human individual has to participate in the organic activity of society.

The word ‘society' has several connotations. It includes within its compass any activity, performance or evaluation necessary for the maintenance of this group called society. We need not go into the details of the issues that may rise from its definition. In every endeavour, project, adventure, work or activity necessary for the continuance of the human individual to sanction the survival of the human personality in order to achieve this perfection, the participation of the individual in society is necessary. An anti-social person cannot be a happy person. An unsocial person will be privately suffering the sorrows of finitude, and cannot enjoy the delights of participation.

 Why should we feel happy in participation and feel miserable when we do not participate? The necessity for participation of the limbs in respect of the organism arises because of the necessity for the survival of the body itself. Disorganised limbs of the body disintegrate the body; the organism perishes. It decomposes itself, and is no more there after some time. The parts also die together with their non-cooperation with the whole. It does not mean that a non-cooperating individual will survive, even as a non-cooperating part of the body will not survive, together with the death of the whole to which it belongs, and with which it does not cooperate.

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Next

Mantram-3

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