Verse 4

अनेजदेकं मनसो जवीयो नैनद्देवा आप्नुवन्पूर्वमर्षत् ।
तद्धावतोऽन्यानत्येति तिष्ठत्तस्मिन्नपो मातरिश्वा दधाति ॥ ४ ॥

anejadekaṃ manaso javīyo nainaddevā āpnuvanpūrvamarṣat |
taddhāvato'nyānatyeti tiṣṭhattasminnapo mātariśvā dadhāti || 4 ||

4. It is motionless, one, faster than mind; and the Devas (the senses) could not overtake it which ran before. Sitting, it goes faster than those who run after it. By it, the all-pervading air (Sutratman) supports the activity of all living beings.

Shankara’s Commentary:

Com.—As the ignorant by killing their Atman whirl in Samsara, contrariwise, those who know the Atman attain emancipation; and they are not slayers of the Atman. What then is the nature of the Atman will now be explained.

Anejat is a compound of na and ejat. The root ejri means to shake. Shaking is motion, i.e., deviation, from a fixed position. Free from that, i. e., ever constant. It is, besides, one in all Bhatas. It is fleeter than the mind, whose characteristics are volition, etc. How is this inconsistent statement made i. e., that it is constant and motionless and at the same time fleeter than the mind? This is no fault. This is possible with reference to its being thought of, as unconditioned and conditioned. It is constant and motionless in its unconditioned state. That the mind travels fastest is well-known to all, seeing that the mind encased within the body and characterised by volition and doubt is able at one volition to travel to such distant places as the Brahmaloka etc.; and travelling so fast as it does, it perceives on landing (at its destination) that the intelligent Atman has, as it were, gone there before it; therefore, the Atman is said to be fleeter than the mind. Devas, from the root which means ‘enlighten,’ signifies the senses such as the eye, etc. Etat means the entity of the Atman which is now being treated of. These senses could not overtake it. The mind is faster than these, because these are distanced by the activity of the mind. Not even the semblance of the Atman is within the perception of the senses; for, it had gone even before the mind which is fleeter than they, being all-pervading, like the Akas. The entity of the Atman, all-pervading, devoid of any attributes of samsara, and in its unconditioned state subject to no modification, appears to undergo all the changes of samsara. superposed upon it. and though one, appears, in the eyes of ignorant men, diverse and enclosed in every body. It seems to travel beyond the reach of others’ mind, speech, the senses, &c., which are dissimilar to the Atman, though they run fast. The sense of ‘seems’ is suggested by the mantra using tishtkat (sitting). ‘Sitting, means ‘being itself inactive.’ ‘Tasmin’ means ‘while the entity of the Atman endures.’ ‘Matarisva’ means ‘air,’ so called, because it moves (svayati) in space (matari—antarikshe). Air (matarisva) is that whose activity sustains all life, on which all causes and effects depend, and in which all these inhere, which is called sutra (thread, as it were) supporting all the worlds through which it runs. The word ‘Apah’ means all Karma—the manifested activity of all living things. (This air) allots to fire, sun, clouds, &c., their several functions of flaming, burning, sinning, raining, &c. Or, it may be said that it supports these, from the Srutis, such as “From fear of this, the wind blows, &c.” The meaning is that all these modifications of effects and causes take place only while the eternally intelligent entity of the Atman, the source-of all, endures.