Bhashya
भवति, आहोस्वित् शरीरस्थस्य संकुचितानि करणानि मृत-स्य भिन्नघटप्रदीपप्रकाशवत् सर्वतो व्याप्य पुनः देहान्तरा-रम्भे संकोचमुपगच्छन्ति- किंच मनोमात्रं वैशेषिकसमयइव देहान्तरारम्भदेशं प्रति गच्छति, किं वा कल्पमान्तरमेववेदान्तसमये- इत्युच्यते-- 'त एते सर्व एव समाः सर्वे-ऽनन्ताः' इति श्रुतः सर्वात्मकानि तावत्करणानि, सर्वात्म-कप्राणसंश्रयाच्च ; तेषाम् आध्यात्मिकाधिभौतिकपरिच्छेदःप्राणिकर्मज्ञानभावनानिमित्तः ; अतः तद्वशात् स्वभावतः सर्व-गतानामनन्तानामपि प्राणानां कर्मज्ञानवासनानुरूपेणैव दे-हान्तरारम्भवशात् प्राणानां वृत्तिः संकुचति विकसति च ;तथा चोक्तम् 'समः प्लुषिणा समो मशकेन समो नागेनसम एभिस्त्रिभिर्लोकैः समोऽनेन सर्वेण' इति ; तथा च इदंवचनमनुकूलम्--' स यो हैताननन्तानुपास्ते' इत्यादि, 'तंयथा यथोपासते' इति च ।तत्र वासना पूर्वप्रज्ञाख्या वि-द्याकर्मतन्त्रा जलूकावत् संततैव स्वप्रकाश इव कर्मकृतं देहा-द्देहान्तरम् आरभते हृदयस्थैव ; पुनर्देहान्तरारम्भे देहान्तरंपूर्वाश्रयं विमुञ्चति- इत्येतस्मिन्नर्थे दृष्टान्त उपादीयते-
In plain words
So which is it: do a dead person's organs — normally packed tightly into one body — suddenly spread everywhere, the way a lamp's light fills a room once its covering jar shatters, and only then contract again into the next body? Or, as some philosophers hold, does the mind alone travel to where the new body is starting, and Vedānta actually has an entirely different picture? Here is the answer, straight from scripture: these faculties are all equal, all infinite, every one of them. On their own they are already everywhere, resting as they do on a breath that is itself everywhere. What seems to divide 'my organs' from 'the world out there' is not any real boundary in them — it comes entirely from the impressions built up by what a being does and knows. So even though these faculties are, by nature, boundless, their actual working range tightens or opens up strictly according to that impression, and according to whatever new body is beginning. Hence the old teaching: equal to a gnat, equal to a mosquito, equal to an elephant, equal to these three worlds, equal to the whole of everything — and, in the same spirit, whatever you meditate on, that is exactly what you become. The real mover, then, is a single impression — the one called 'prior cognition,' shaped entirely by knowledge and action, continuous like the leech, glowing as if with its own light, and never actually leaving the heart even as it carries you from this body into the next, and then lets that support go once the new one is taken up. To make this vivid, here comes an illustration.
Close to the Sanskrit
Does it occur, or else do the organs of one who has died — [ordinarily] contracted while confined to a body — having pervaded everywhere like the light of a lamp [freed from] a broken pot, again undergo contraction at the commencement of another body? Moreover, does mind alone go toward the place where another body commences, as in the Vaiśeṣika doctrine; or is it, rather, an altogether different scheme according to the Vedānta doctrine? — To this it is answered: 'these, all of them, are equal, all infinite' — thus from scripture. The organs, to begin with, are all-pervading in nature, and also because of their dependence on the all-pervading vital breath. Their division into the individual and the elemental has as its cause the dispositions arising from a living being's action and knowledge. Therefore, owing to that, by their own nature, of the vital faculties — even though all-pervading and infinite — precisely in accordance with the impression left by action and knowledge, and owing to the commencement of a [new] body, the function of the vital faculties contracts and expands. And so it has been said: 'equal to a gnat, equal to a mosquito, equal to an elephant, equal to these three worlds, equal to this whole' — thus. And likewise this statement agrees: 'he who meditates on these infinite ones,' etc., and 'as, in whatever way, they meditate' — thus. There, the impression called 'prior cognition,' governed by knowledge and action, continuous like the leech, self-luminous as it were, brought about by action, initiates [the passage] from [one] body to another body, remaining all the while in the heart; again, at the commencement of [yet] another body, it releases the [former] body that was its previous support. — On this very point an illustration is now adduced—