Know your Self: Here and Now
इह चेदशकद्बोद्धुं प्राक्षरीरस्य विस्रसः ।
ततः सर्गेषु लोकेषु शरीरत्वाय कल्पते ॥ ४॥
iha cedaśakadboddhuṃ prākṣarīrasya visrasaḥ .
tataḥ sargeṣu lokeṣu śarīratvāya kalpate .. 4..
If a man is able to realise Brahman here, before the falling asunder of his body, then he is liberated; if not, he is embodied again in the created worlds.
Commentary:
It is good for people to realise this great Truth before the shedding of this body. If it is possible for us to realise this Truth before we leave this body, then we will have no rebirth. But if we have not attained it—iha ced aśakad boddhum—then what happens? Tataḥ sargeṣu lokeṣu śarīratvāya kalpate: If this Truth has not been realised in one’s own experience before the departure from this body, there will be birth in some realm, some world, some location, for the purpose of working out the karmas that have not been properly discharged.
The birth of the soul can be in any one of the worlds, or brahmandas, universes, which are infinite in number. The mind will take us to exactly that spot where it is possible for us to fulfil our desires. There is an automatic action spontaneously taking place between the mind that is filled with unfulfilled desires and the location of the world where alone it is possible to fulfil these desires. Everything in the world is interconnected, one with the other. Everything in the world knows everything that is taking place everywhere. In modern physics, Bell’s theory has declared that activities, events, take place in the world not one after the other, but simultaneously. If something happens here, it is also happening in the sun at the same time. If something happens in the sun, it also happens in the galaxies. And if something happens in the galaxies, at the same time it is happening in some star. And not only that, it is happening everywhere in space. So anything that is happening, even a pinprick in our foot, is a prick in the whole cosmos. This is Bell’s theory of the simultaneity of action taking place everywhere. But even before Bell was born, it was declared in the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita that our thoughts will gravitate to that particular spot where the desires will be capable of manifesting themselves. Any world will attract us. But this will not take place if our individual self blossoms forth into the universal God. It is good for us to realise it before we pass away.
The relationship between the soul, the self, and the universal Self is described in the next verse.
Swami Vivekananda Says —
Have you seen God? Have you seen the soul? If not, are you struggling for it? It is here and now, and you have not to wait for the future. What is the future but the present illimitable? What is the whole amount of time but one second repeated again and again? Religion is here and now, in this present life.[Source]
Owing to life itself being frail and uncertain, one should be devoted to religion even in one’s youth. For who knows when one’s body may fall off?[Source]
Man has got this body simply to realise Self-knowledge. …Advance like a hero. Don’t be thwarted by anything. How many days will this body last, with its happiness and misery? When you have got the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say — I have reached the state of fearlessness! Say — I am the Atman in which my lower ego has become merged for ever. Be perfect in this idea; and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: “Thou art That”, “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached![Source]
Let me realise the Truth this moment! In this very life!” — these are the words of a hero. Such heroes are ever ready to renounce the very next moment, and to such the scripture (Jâbâla Upanishad, 3.) says, “यदहरेव विरजेत् तदहरेव प्रव्रजेत — The moment you feel disgust for the vanities of the world, leave it all and take to the life of a monk.[Source]