asuryā nāma te lokā andhena tamasāvṛtāḥ, tāgṁste pretyābhigacchanti ye ke cātmahano janāḥ.
असुर्याः – demoniac, sunless; नाम – really; ते – those; लोकाः – people (lit. world); अन्धेन तमसा – by blinding darkness (gloom); आवृता – covered; ताग्म् – to those; ते – they; प्रेत्य – after death; अभिगच्छन्ति – go to; ये के च – whosoever; आत्म-हनः – killers of the Self; जनाः – people
Sunless are those worlds, and enveloped in blinding gloom to which all those people who are slayers of their own souls go, departing from here.
Now a doubt may arise as to what would be the destiny of those who are not following either the path of meditation or the path of action? What would happen to them and their pilgrimage, is explained in this particular stanza. The Upaniṣad Master declares that having been born as a man, an individual (or society or community or nation) who refuses to live either the ‘life of meditation’ or ‘the life of intense and continuous activity’, is to be considered as committing suicide. Such a nation must necessarily come to fall into an abyss of darkness and despair. The individual (or the community) should thereafter, certainly, come to experience a terrible fall in its cultural and spiritual eminence.
~Chinmayananda
After leaving their bodies, they who have killed the Self go to the worlds of the Asuras, covered with blinding ignorance.
What does it mean "to kill the Self?" How can the immortal Soul ever be destroyed? It cannot be destroyed, it can only be obscured. Those who hold themselves under the sway of ignorance, who serve the flesh and neglect the Atman or the real Self, are not able to perceive the effulgent and indestructible nature of their Soul; hence they fall into the realm where the Soul light does not shine. Here the Upanishad shows that the only hell is absence of knowledge.
~Paramananda
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