एतद्वै सत्येन दानेन तपसाऽनाशकेन ब्रह्मचर्येण निर्वेदनेनानाशकेन षडङ्गेनैव साधयेदेतत्त्रयं वीक्षेत दमं दानं दयामिति न तस्य प्राणा उत्क्रामन्त्यत्रैव समवलीयन्ते ब्रह्मैव सन्ब्रह्माप्येति य एवं वेद
etadvai satyena dānena tapasā'nāśakena brahmacaryeṇa nirvedanenānāśakena ṣaḍaṅgenaiva sādhayedetattrayaṃ vīkṣeta damaṃ dānaṃ dayāmiti na tasya prāṇā utkrāmantyatraiva samavalīyante brahmaiva sanbrahmāpyeti ya evaṃ veda
This let him attain by the sixfold means — by truth, giving, austerity, fasting, chastity, detachment. And to these three let him look: restraint, giving, compassion. His breaths do not depart, but dissolve here itself; being Brahman, he enters Brahman — who so knows.
19186a05d6b8 · publicado 29 jul 2026, 4:12:03 UTC
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After two khaṇḍas of negations the Upaniṣad for the first time says what to do; and says it with a householder's brevity.
Six means are named: truth, giving, austerity, fasting, chastity, detachment. The list is deliberately mixed: here is the inward (truthfulness, dispassion) and the entirely bodily (fasting). The Upaniṣad does not divide into high and low: one fasts with the same thing with which one speaks the truth.
Then three more are added, a second list, shorter than the first: dama, dāna, dayā — restraint, giving, compassion. Three words on one sound, and they are remembered together. Those who know the Bṛhadāraṇyaka will recognise them: there the thunder rolls “da-da-da”, and it is interpreted by this same triad.
Note that giving is named twice — both among the six and among the three. Of all the virtues the Upaniṣad singles out precisely this one. To give away is harder than to fast, and it is the surer test.
And the fruit is described in a turn worth understanding exactly: “his breaths do not depart, but dissolve here itself”. In the first adhyāya of the Kauṣītaki the departing man went the way of the gods through the worlds; here there is no way at all. The knower has nowhere to go, because he is already there: the prāṇas do not set out on a journey, they dissolve on the spot.
And the conclusion: “being Brahman, he enters Brahman”. Not “becomes Brahman”, but precisely “being”. The entering is no transformation; it is the acknowledgment of what was so before.