The Isa Upanishad: verse- 2

It is surely hard for a person to renounce because all our senses are ‘outward’; and to draw them inside and keep the mind focused on the thought always is difficult in general people’s lives as because they are busy in the material world. And to cognise the Self (Atman) from the forest of non-self (anatman) is tough for them. For them the Upanishad is saying:

कुर्वन्नेवेह कर्माणि जिजीविषेच्छतँ समाः ।

एवं त्वयि नान्यथेतोऽस्ति न कर्म लिप्यते नरे ॥२॥

kurvanneveha karmani jijivisecchhataD samah ।
evam tvayi nanyatheto'sti na karma lipyate nare ॥ 2॥

MEANING: “By doing Karma, indeed one should wish 

to live here for a hundred years. For a man, such as 

you (who wants to live thus), there is no other way 

than this, whereby may not cling to you.”

At that time the maximum time a person lived was 

one hundred years, generally. So it is said that if one 

wishes to live that long span of life then he should do 

so by performing actions (karma, then the rituals like 

agnihotra etc...).

‘Kurvan iba iha’, only by doing here ’karmani’, karmas 

(action) such as (agnihotra) a sacrifice etc one should 

wish to live ‘satam samah’, a hundred years. ‘Evam 

tvayi’  for you, who have such a strong desire for 

life;’nare’  for a man identifying oneself to be same 

with human, (The real nature of us is Consciousness, 

which is the Reality and this is the Existence and Bliss 

Absolute; which has been wrongly mis-identified to be 

one with the human personality.) ‘na asti’ there is not; 

‘anyatha’ any other way; ’itha’, other than this, the  

present way of  life viz. performing rituals like 

‘agnihotra’ etc.., by which method , ‘karma na lipyate’, 

karma may not be clinging with you. Therefore one 

should desire to live by doing actions as prescribed by 

the scriptures such as ‘agnihotra’ etc...

The Upanishadic thought actually a very brilliant one 

declaring clearly to the people that one should be very 

true to oneself. Suppose a person is there who does 

not have that degree of nonattachment (vairagya) 

which is very much essential for enlightenment 

through Knowledge Absolute (liberation) but has the 

earnest urge to achieve the goal of human birth by 

realising unity of the individual Self with the Absolute 

self. For him it becomes tough as the scriptures here 

prescribes the aspirant to fix one’s mind fully 

absorbed to the Absolute and detach totally from this 

material world. Tough, because his mind more often 

pulls him backwards and reminds him of the world 

that he has left. Here is the brilliance of the Vedas, the 

Upanishad tells him to take the path of action, and 

perform the rituals; in modern times he should do the 

right without any association with action or its fruit. 

(Each action has some result as its fruit; which in turn 

generates another set of actions and fruits). And 

eventually he is lead to the deliverance after 

thoroughly cleansing his mind through these selfless 

actions. The ancient Upanishad thus actually gave a 

way out for everyone to reach Peace Absolute.

Bhagavan says: “be perfect with yourself, staying true 

to one’s own conscience is an austerity. It is one of 

the primaries of religion.” Actually one should not 

deviate from the one’s own natural tendencies, rather 

when interest develops in this path of spirituality one 

should try slowly turn all the tendencies towards God. 

So Upanishads gave a way out for those people who 

have a strong desire for the life to exercise the actions 

which are instructed by the scriptures and eventually 

they achieve deliverance as well.