Analysis of Kathopanishad Chapter 2, Valli 2 - Part 1

Verse 1

The speaker reads the first verse of the second Valli:

“puraṃ ekādaśa-dvāram… etad vai tat”

Meaning:
“This human body is like a city with eleven gates, in which the unborn, pure, simple, knowledge-formed Supreme lives. As long as a person has this body, by practicing meditation or any spiritual discipline, he never experiences sorrow. He becomes liberated while living, and after death becomes free of body-consciousness as well. This is the very Supreme you asked about.”

The body is compared to a city of eleven doors:

– two eyes
– two ears
– two nostrils
– mouth
– navel
– anus
– genital organ
– brahmarandhra (at the crown)

In this city sits the unborn, pure, uncomplicated Supreme, the Self.

The verse says:

– As long as we have this human body, we should use some spiritual practice—any path that suits us: knowledge, bhakti, karma, hatha yoga.
– Through that, we will stop falling into sorrow.
– First we become jivanmukta—liberated while living.
Meaning: the mind becomes free of inner defects like anger, greed, attachment, etc.
– Then comes videhamukti—not the leaving of the body, but freedom from body-identity.
The sense of “I am the body” dissolves, and one lives in soul-awareness.

So “vimuktaś ca vimucyate” means:

1. First free from mental impurities.
   

2. Then free from body-consciousness.
   

This completes verse 1.

Verse 2

This verse, like the tenth chapter of the Gita, expresses the many forms of the Supreme.

It lists several conditions and beings, saying: “I am present in all of them.”

The verse describes the Supreme seated in the heart (the pure abode), and then says He is also:

– in the sky
– in the forms called vasus
– in the sacrificial priest (hotā)
– in the guest
– in all ordinary humans
– in superior humans
– in nature
– in space
– in water-born beings
– in earth-born beings
– in beings born in seasonal conditions
– in mountain-grown plants
– and beyond all these as the Vast One

Understanding “Vasu”

Here Vasu refers to the eight powers associated with the eightfold nature described in the Gita:

1. Space (ākāśa) – devata Dhruva

2. Air (vāyu) – Anila

3. Fire – Anala

4. Water – Āpaḥ

5. Earth – Dharma

6. Mind – Soma

7. Intellect – Pratyūṣa

8. Ego – Prabhāsa

The verse says:

“In the Vasu dwelling in the inner space (mind), I am present.”

Inner space = the mind.
Thoughts move in the mind like birds in the sky.
The purity within the mind (Soma) is also a form of the Divine.

Then:

– Hotā — the one offering oblations in the fire. Even in that priestly role, the Divine is present.
– Atithi — the guest. In the guest who enters the home, the Supreme is present.
– Nṛṣat — in all human beings.
– Varṣat — in excellent or noble people as well.
– ṛtasat — in nature itself, in every element of the physical body.
– vyomasat — in the sky-dwellers, meaning even in birds.
– abjā — beings born in water.
– gojā — beings born on earth.
– ṛtajā — beings conditioned by nature or born under seasons.
– adrijā — plants and life growing on mountains.

Finally:

“ṛtaṃ bṛhat” — “I am the Vast One.”
Meaning: “Do not confine Me only to the forms you can name. I am far beyond them.”

Thus the verse establishes the complete universal presence of the Supreme.

This finishes verse 2.

Verse 3

“ūrdhvaṃ prāṇam unnayati…”

Meaning:
“The One who raises the prāṇa upward and pushes the apāna downward—He sits in the center, in the heart-space, and all the gods (all powers) worship Him.”

Here:

– When one rises toward higher consciousness, prāṇa moves upward.
– The upward-moving power is called udāna.
– The downward-moving force handling waste is apāna.
– The main breath in the lungs is prāṇa.
– The force spreading nutrients through the body is samāna.
– The all-pervading life-force present everywhere is vyāna.

Although yoga speaks of five prāṇas, this verse mentions only two—udāna and apāna—to show that both upward and downward movements happen only because:

The Self, seated in the heart, empowers them.

The verse then says:

“All the gods worship Him.”

Here “gods” means the powers and functions in the body—the senses, organs, mind, prāṇas, everything that works inside us.
They all operate only because the inner consciousness is present.
When that presence is withdrawn, the body becomes a corpse, and all functions stop.

Thus:

– The Supreme seated in the heart
– empowers all functions
– is worshipped (supported) by all the powers
– and is the same One who pervades everything described in verse 2.

This completes verse 3.