यथोदकं शुद्धेशुद्ध
मासिक्तं तादृगेव भवति ।
एवं मुनेर्विजानत
आत्मा भवति गौतम ॥ १५॥
इति काठकोपनिषदि द्वितीयाध्यायेप्रथमा वल्ली ॥
YATHAH UDAKAM SHUDHE SHUDHAM
ASIKTAM TADRAG EVA BHAVATI !
EVAM MUNER VIJANAT
ATMA BHAVATI GAUTAMA ||15
AS PURE WATER POURED IN TO PURE WATER BECOMES PURE WATER
SO ATMAN OF THE THINKER WHO KNOWS THIS BECOMES O GAUTAMA ||15
This is the last Shlok of this chapter . So the Lord of Death - lord Yam is concluding or telling the truth or the the ultimate Knowledge. This is not much different that the ADWAITYA thought process of Hindu philosophy. We all have the CONSCIOUSNESS and that is limited by the physical body. One can call this consciousness the JIVA or the Life or the reflection of the God or Spirit. We all know what is meant to be Alive and that thing that differentiates between life and death is the pure consciousness. We believe that this is hidden and we start thinking that it is LIMITED by physical body . We are told that when one realizes that this pure consciousness is not any different than Universal consciousness then the two become one. If we have a bottle containing ocean water in it and we close it and then put that bottle in another bottle and then those 2 bottles in the third bottle and throw in the ocean, the water in the bottle seems to be and is separated from the ocean water. But if we break all the 3 bottles ,than the water will become one with the ocean water . Just breaking the outer bottle will nor work . The outermost bottle is like our physical body and when we die, that outer bottle is broken , but we still have 2 other bottles -namely Sukshma Sharir or Astral body and Karan Sharir or Causal body. The consciousness is trapped or encased in 3 coverings and we tend to associate ourselves with these 3 coverings or bodies rather that the innermost pure consciousness . So we are told that when one realizes that we are nothing but this pure consciousness then we are one with universal consciousness.
One note to understand the concept is that EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS and not that we have consciousness and that is experiencing the different things - objects , emotions etc. So So everything is IN consciousness and the 2 are not separate from each other as such. .
