kathopanishad-2-1-13-aṅguṣṭhamātraḥ

Commentary by Swami Krishnananda of the great Divine Life Society

Aṅguṣṭha-mātraḥ puruṣo jyotir ivādhūmakaḥ: īśāno bhūta-bhavyasya sa evādya sa u śvaḥ: etad vai tat (2.1.13): The flame of the soul in the heart is like a flame without smoke. Generally, when we light a lamp there is a flame, no doubt, and there is also a little smoke. But here is a smokeless flame which is the light of the soul in the deepest recesses of the heart. Ivādhūmakaḥ: without smoke; īśāno bhūta-bhavyasya: the Lord of all, past and future; sa evādya sa u śvaḥ: it is today just as it was earlier also, and what it is today, it shall be tomorrow also. There shall be no distinction between past and future for the soul. Its dramatic departure from the body, and its movement through space for the purpose of reincarnation and rebirth, all this is the consequence that follows from attachment. Consciousness is stuck to the body, stuck to the mind and the intellect and the sense organs. How it is stuck is a mystery by itself. We cannot say how the Universal can implant itself by attachment to the particular parts of its own self. Somehow it has taken place.