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For a student seeking liberation, infatuation for the body etc., is a "tragic death”. He who has totally conquered this attachment comes to deserve the state of liberation.
To one who is aspiring to rise above the fascinations of the sense-organs and the calamitous confusions of emotions and the thoughts, it is indeed a dire tragedy if he allows himself to be tempted away by the fields of immediate pleasures which the body can experience in the midst of sense-objects. To turn our attention away from the sense-world and to seek diligently the experience of the transcendental is the path by which the higher can be unfolded. Prompted by the old Vāsanās, the individual might meet situations and moments when he is irresistibly jerked out of his contemplative mood to run riot, seeking fulfilment in the world of objects around. This would destroy the equipoise of the seeker, and, therefore, Sankara characterizes this tragedy as the "dire death" (Mahā-Mrtyu).
On the other hand, he who has won a victory over his own delusory misconceptions (Moha) and is not off and on tempted by the outer world, discovers in himself a steadiness of contemplation with which he can certainly learn to withdraw himself from the whirls of matter and come to experience the Pure Self. This is the condition of utter liberation from the entanglements and fascinations of the matter vestures.
मोह जहि महामृत्युं देहदारसुतादिषु ।
यं जित्वा मुनयो यान्ति तद्विष्णोः परमं पदम् ॥ ८६ ॥ moham jahi mahāmrtyum dehadārasutādīşu yam jitvā munayo yānti tadvispoh paramam padam 86.
जाह - Kill, महामृत्युम् - the great death, मोहम् - this infatuation, GESIT galley -over the body, wife, children, etc., 74 - which, fecal - having conquered, मुनयः • sages, यान्ति - reach, तत् - that, विष्णोः of Lord Vişnu, 944 - the Supreme, 9H - State.
Conquer this great death of infatuation over. your body, wife, children etc. By conquering thus, the sages reach the Supreme State of Vishnu.
