Prarabdha for a saint (verses 446-464) :
446. He who is an adept at meditation is yet seen to have external perceptions. Sruti says, this is prarabdha at work. This can be inferred from actual results seen.
447. As long as there is the experience of happiness etc., the work of prarabdha* is seen to persist. Every result is seen to have a preceding action; there can be no result independent of action.
*past actions that have begun in the present life to fructify or to bear fruit.
448. ―I am Brahman‖---with this Realization, the actions of a hundreds of millions of world cycles come to nought, like the actions of the dream-life on waking up.
449. Can the meritorious acts or sinful deeds that a person has imagined doing in a dream take one to heaven or hell when one has woken up?
450. Being unattached and indifferent like the sky, one who is realised is never concerned in the least about the actions yet to be performed.
451. The space, because of its contact with the jar, is not tainted by the smell of the liquor in it. So too, the Self is not affected by the attributes of the conditioning adjuncts (upadhis) because of its contact with them.
452. Accumulated actions performed before the dawn of Knowledge (because of which this body has come about) conjured up, do not get destroyed by the Self-Knowledge without yielding their fruits...just like an arrow shot at an object.
453. Thinking it to be a tiger if an arrow is shot at an object, it does not then stop because it turns out to be a cow. It still pierces it with full force.
454. Prarabdha is very powerful indeed for the realised person and becomes nought only through the exhaustion of its fruits; while the sancita and agami karmas are dissolved in the fire of perfect Knowledge. But none of these three affect them who have realized Brahman and always live established in It. They are truly the Transcendental Brahman.
455. For the sage who is ever absorbed in his own Self as Brahman, Non-dual and free from limitations---the question of existence ofprarabdha is meaningless, just as the question of a man having anything to do with dream-objects is meaningless when he has awakened.
456. He who has awakened from sleep has no idea of "I" and "mine" with respect to the dream-body and the dream-objects. He remains ever awake as his own Self.
457. He does not wish to prove the unreal objects to be real, nor is he seen to maintain the dream-world. If he still clings to the unreal objects, he is really not yet awoken from sleep.
458. Even so, the sage abiding in Eternal Reality in the form of the true Self does not perceive anything else. Just as one recollects the objects in the dream, the Realised one remembers his day-to-day acts of eating, releasing etc.
459. The body has been fashioned by prarabdha. So, regard prarabdha as belonging to the body. But it is not reasonable to attribute it to the Self, for the Self is beginningless and never created as a result of the past actions.
460. The Self is "birthless, eternal and undecaying"---such is the infallible declaration of the Sruti. How can prarabdha be attributed to one abiding in the Self?
461. Only as long as one lives identified with one‘s body, can one accept that prarabdha exists. But no one accepts that a man of Realisation ever identifies with the body. Hence, in this case, prarabdha should be abandoned.
462. To attribute prarabdha even to the body is decidedly an illusion. How can a superimposition have any existence? How can the unreal have a birth? And how can that which is never born, die? So how can prarabdha function for something unreal?
463 & 464. If the effects of ignorance are completely destroyed by Knowledge, how can the body continue to exist? Sruti, from a relative standpoint, postulates the concept of prarabdha for the ignorant people who entertain such doubts. The idea ofprarabdha has been expounded by the Upanishads not for proving the reality of the body etc., for the wise----because the Upanishads are without exception striving to point out the one Supreme Reality.
447. As long as there is the experience of happiness etc., the work of prarabdha* is seen to persist. Every result is seen to have a preceding action; there can be no result independent of action.
*past actions that have begun in the present life to fructify or to bear fruit.
448. ―I am Brahman‖---with this Realization, the actions of a hundreds of millions of world cycles come to nought, like the actions of the dream-life on waking up.
449. Can the meritorious acts or sinful deeds that a person has imagined doing in a dream take one to heaven or hell when one has woken up?
450. Being unattached and indifferent like the sky, one who is realised is never concerned in the least about the actions yet to be performed.
451. The space, because of its contact with the jar, is not tainted by the smell of the liquor in it. So too, the Self is not affected by the attributes of the conditioning adjuncts (upadhis) because of its contact with them.
452. Accumulated actions performed before the dawn of Knowledge (because of which this body has come about) conjured up, do not get destroyed by the Self-Knowledge without yielding their fruits...just like an arrow shot at an object.
453. Thinking it to be a tiger if an arrow is shot at an object, it does not then stop because it turns out to be a cow. It still pierces it with full force.
454. Prarabdha is very powerful indeed for the realised person and becomes nought only through the exhaustion of its fruits; while the sancita and agami karmas are dissolved in the fire of perfect Knowledge. But none of these three affect them who have realized Brahman and always live established in It. They are truly the Transcendental Brahman.
455. For the sage who is ever absorbed in his own Self as Brahman, Non-dual and free from limitations---the question of existence ofprarabdha is meaningless, just as the question of a man having anything to do with dream-objects is meaningless when he has awakened.
456. He who has awakened from sleep has no idea of "I" and "mine" with respect to the dream-body and the dream-objects. He remains ever awake as his own Self.
457. He does not wish to prove the unreal objects to be real, nor is he seen to maintain the dream-world. If he still clings to the unreal objects, he is really not yet awoken from sleep.
458. Even so, the sage abiding in Eternal Reality in the form of the true Self does not perceive anything else. Just as one recollects the objects in the dream, the Realised one remembers his day-to-day acts of eating, releasing etc.
459. The body has been fashioned by prarabdha. So, regard prarabdha as belonging to the body. But it is not reasonable to attribute it to the Self, for the Self is beginningless and never created as a result of the past actions.
460. The Self is "birthless, eternal and undecaying"---such is the infallible declaration of the Sruti. How can prarabdha be attributed to one abiding in the Self?
461. Only as long as one lives identified with one‘s body, can one accept that prarabdha exists. But no one accepts that a man of Realisation ever identifies with the body. Hence, in this case, prarabdha should be abandoned.
462. To attribute prarabdha even to the body is decidedly an illusion. How can a superimposition have any existence? How can the unreal have a birth? And how can that which is never born, die? So how can prarabdha function for something unreal?
463 & 464. If the effects of ignorance are completely destroyed by Knowledge, how can the body continue to exist? Sruti, from a relative standpoint, postulates the concept of prarabdha for the ignorant people who entertain such doubts. The idea ofprarabdha has been expounded by the Upanishads not for proving the reality of the body etc., for the wise----because the Upanishads are without exception striving to point out the one Supreme Reality.
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