अस्य विस्रंसमानस्य शरीरस्थस्य देहिनः ।
देहाद्विमुच्यमानस्य किमत्र परिशिष्यते । एतद्वै तत् ॥ ४॥
asya visraṃsamānasya śarīrasthasya dehinaḥ .
dehādvimucyamānasya kimatra pariśiṣyate . etadvai tat .. 4..
When the soul, identified with the body and dwelling in it, is torn away from the body, is freed from it, what then remains? This, verily, is That?
Commentary:
When this consciousness is separated from the body, what remains? That is the Reality. Ordinarily, the mind and the sense organs remain in the case of the death of a person who is not liberated, but in the case of the death of a person who is liberated, the mind and the organs of sense do not go with the soul. They dissolve here itself, together with the body dissolving. The brahmanista purusha, the knower of Brahman, does not depart from the body. He dissolves himself there. The drop in the ocean does not have to move in any direction to dissolve itself in the ocean. It sinks into the ocean then and there. The departure from the body is only a way of speaking in the case of people who are ignorant, who are not realised. But in the case of those who are realised, who are God-conscious always, in their case the pranas do not depart, the mind and the senses do not depart. There is nothing that departs; the body is simply cast out. The bubble sinks into the body of the ocean, and the thing that was apparently in one place at once becomes that which is everywhere. That is final liberation. Etad vai tat: “This is the answer to your question, Nachiketas,” says Yama.
