Ishavasyopanishad -14

Mantras 12 to 14

अन्धन्तम: प्रविशन्ति येSसंभूतिमुपासते

ततो भूय इव ते तमो ये उ संभूत्यां रता: ||१२||

अन्यदेवाहुः सम्भवाद्न्यदहुरसम्भवात्

इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ||१३||

संभूतिं च विनाशं च यस्तद्वेदोभयं सह

विनाशेन मृत्युं तीर्त्वा संभूत्यामृतमश्नुते ||१४||

The worship of the Unmanifest gives one knowledge of everything of the universe. One understands the nature of the essential constituents of life. The pain of death is the result of not having this understanding. Pain is the result of the belief in the reality of a centralisation of certain aspects of prakriti by the consciousness of desire. The pain of death is not felt when there is the knowledge that death is a change of the constituents of personality which get reduced to their fundamental units. Even as water flows in a river, life flows in existence. Every moment there is fresh life, even as every moment there is fresh water in a river. Not being able to bear this flaw or change is called pain, but the knowledge of all the essential constituents of this flow negates all pain, because knowledge is the opposite of attachment to particular forms taken by these constituents. Knowledge of the essence of prakriti, therefore, gives a full knowledge of the entire life of the universe and thus pain and the consciousness of change which are the characteristics of the individual are not felt. Hence one crosses over death through the worship of the Unmanifest.

Through the worship of the Manifest or hiranyagarbha one attains relative immortality and thence krama-mukti. The meaning of these mantras is that one should combine the worships of the Manifest and the Unmanifest, because an exclusive worship of hiranyagarbha considering Him as distinct from the universe will not allow one to proceed to the Absolute, since that aspect of the Absolute, viz., the prakriti, which is rejected and not meditated upon, shall pull one dawn to individual life. No distinction should be made between God and the world; otherwise the meditation would be partial and liberation would not be possible because of lack of completeness.

The negation of death through the worship of prakriti is not the cessation of becoming, but the non-experience of the pain of becoming. The change is there, but the change is not felt as something destructive and undesirable. The attainment of immortality through the worship of the Manifest is not resting in the Absolute but the absence of the pain caused by defects like poverty, vice and craving, as a consequence of the attainment of universal wealth, power and knowledge. Therefore, these two conditions are different from the realisation of the Absolute.