आत्मानं चेद्विजानीयादयमस्मीति पूरुषः ।
किमिच्छन्कस्य कामाय शरीरमनुसंज्वरेत् ॥ १२ ॥ātmānaṃ cedvijānīyādayamasmīti pūruṣaḥ |
kimicchankasya kāmāya śarīramanusaṃjvaret || 12 ||12. If a man knows the Self as ‘I am this,’ then desiring what and for whose sake will he suffer in the wake of the body?
If a man, one in a thousand, knows the Self, which is his own as well as the Supreme Self, which knows the desires of all beings, which is in the heart (intellect), and is beyond the attributes of hunger etc. The word ‘if’ shows the rarity of Self-knowledge. Knows how? As ‘I am this’ Supreme Self, the witness of the perception of all beings, which has been described as ‘Not this, not this,’ and so on, than which there is no other seer, hearer, thinker and knower, which is always the same and is in all beings, and which is naturally eternal, pure, enlightened and free; desiring what other thing, of the nature of a result, distinct from his own Self, and for whose sake, for the need of what other person distinct from himself: Since he as the Self has nothing to wish for, and there is none other than himself for whose sake he may wish it, he being the Self of all, therefore desiring what and for whose sake will he suffer in the wake of the body—deviate from his nature, or become miserable, following the misery created by his limiting adjunct, the body, i.e. imbibe the afflictions of the body? For this is possible for the man who does not see the Self and consequently desires things other than It. He struggles desiring something for himself, something else for his son, a third thing for his wife, and so on, goes the round of births and deaths, and is diseased when his body is diseased. But all this is impossible for the man who sees everything as the Self. This is what the Śruti says.
Swami Vivekananda Says:
This rest, eternal, peaceful rest, I am catching a glimpse of now in this beautiful spot. “Having once known that the Atman alone, and nothing else, exists, desiring what, or for whose desire, shall you suffer misery about the body?”. I feel as if I had my share of experience in what they call “work”. I am finished, I am longing now to get out. “Out of thousands, but one strives to attain the Goal. And even of those who struggle hard, but few attain” (Gita, VII. 3); for the senses are powerful, they drag men down.[Source]