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94
Guru Replied:
You are a Blessed one! You are wishing to attain the absolute Brahman by freeing yourself from the bondages of your ignorance. Indeed, you have fulfilled your life and have glorified your clan.
Before answering the various questions raised by the disciple, the teacher's face beams into a smile of satisfaction, and soon, words expressing his overwhelming satisfaction and appreciation at meeting such a perfect student gush out from the teacher with a thrill and joy. The very fact that the boy had decided to get himself freed from all his weakness, and walk out into the boundless fields of Perfection has made him blessed; not only that he has glorified himself but “has even sanctified his entire clan" (Kulam).
The word Kulam is not merely the family, but it connotes all the ancestors and the future descendants. Family means only the present living members and the immediate forefathers.
And this is not a statement of exaggeration. It had already been explained that rare indeed, are those who come to exhibit such a burning thirst for liberation among the living creatures at any period of human history. Evidently, the boy is a highly evolved being*, and hence he is feeling his acute impatience for his own liberation.
A blind enthusiasm to seek the Truth through discussions with a perfect Guru will become the only responsibility of a student of Vedanta, if he accepts the words of this mantra too literally when it says "You have fulfilled your Life". This statement is to be understood not as a declaration of literal truch, but as a statement indicating a fact.
In ordinary life also we make use of such expressions as "baking the bread”, when we know that the bread need not be baked. In such cases, we generally use the immediate future fulfilment to indicate the present activity. Similarly, enquiry into the life and its relationship with its cause, with
except through
the well-earned
* Stanza 2 : "It is not to be attained merits of a hundred crores of births".
