18th Manthram:
agne:! naya supattha: ra:ye: asma:n
viswa:ni de:va! vayuna:ni vidwa:n |
yuyodhyasmath juhura:na me:naha
bhu:yishtha:nthe: nama ukthim vidhe:ma ||
This manthram completes the prayer started in the 15th manthram and also gives the essence of the Isavasyopanishad. The purport of this manthram may be summarised as follows:
'O agne, Oh God! Who giveth us light, let us all attain Thee. Lead all of us kindly on the right path so that we attain all wealth - wealth of this world and the wealth of Thy world. O Lord! the whole universe is Thy playground. Thou hast given us a number of paths but we don't know which leads us where. Thou knowest all of them perfectly. But every path draws us to itself. Consequently, we are committing sins. Therefore, O Lord! show the mercy on us and give strength of resistance. Drive sin away from us. Please, take away from us the sin of egoism or ahankara. For ahankara is the worst sin in us.
If Thou askest us, O God, what we are doing for Thee, we say we are bound to do whatever pleases Thee, and whatever Thou thinkst the greatest thing. But O Master! what is it we have that Thou dost not have? But there is one thing with us Bhagavan: that is egoism and the feeling of 'I'. This is really the worst of all sins. But Paramathma, this is also not ours, nothing is ours. Hence, we surrender this is also not ours, nothing is ours. Hence, we surrender this to Thee because it is also Thine. Therefore, we say 'nama ukthim vidhema'. It is your responsibility Bhagavan to lead us on the right path to give us wealth and happiness.
It may be recalled here that in the 2nd manthram, that man ought to live by performing his duties in this world. It is stated when the theme of the 2nd manthram is associated to that of this 18th manthram, we get the essence of the Isavasyopanishad: Man ought to surrender himself, his body, mind, soul and egoism to Bramhan and perform the worldly duties assigned to him believing that his thoughts and deeds are done in the service of God. Man should not renounce karmas, but he should renounce bhava or selfish thought.
Sarvam Sri: Krishna:rpanam asthu
Jai Srimannarayana !