On Mundaka Upanishad: Only the one who has stopped moves in freedom

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

कामान्यः कामयते मन्यमानः स कामभिर्जायते तत्र तत्र ।
पर्याप्तकामस्य कृतात्मनस्विहैव सर्वे प्रविलीयन्ति कामाः ॥

kāmānyaḥ kāmayate manyamānaḥ sa kāmabhirjāyate tatra tatra
paryāptakāmasya kṛtātmanasvihaiva sarve pravilīyanti kāmāḥ

He who cherishes desires and his mind dwells with his longings, is by his desires born again wherever they lead him, but the man who has won all his desire and has found his soul, for him even here in this world vanish away all desires.

~ Verse 3.2.2

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Acharya Prashant (AP): “He who cherishes desires and his mind dwells with his longings, is by his desires born again wherever they lead him, but the man who has won all his desire and has found his” — the reading with you says ‘soul’, make it ‘self’ — “self, from him even here in this world vanish away all desires.”

This has to be read with a lot of care. Otherwise, it will lead into a conceptual mess and misinterpretation which already exists since long and in a great proportion of the population.

“He who remains involved in desires, whose mind remains immersed in desires, is by his desires born again wherever they lead him.”

What is the meaning of ‘born again’ here? For this, we have to understand what the current birth is like because the verse is saying that if you are lost in your desires, then you will be born again where your desires are.

So, a particular place is being talked of; you will be born again where your desires are. The question is: What is the current birth? Where are you right now?

Now, if you look purely in a bodily sense, then you are where you are sitting, where your body is. But human beings are more mind-identified than body-identified. Animals are purely…