The Mundakoupanishad : Post-67 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday 18, September 2024, 06:30.
The Second Mundaka: 
First Khanda:
Mantram: 2
POST-67.

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Mantram- No. 2: 

The Purusha is Divine, formless, existing inside and outside, unborn, free from Prana and mind, pure, and greater than the great unmanifest.

Purusha is one who fills all space or who resides in the cavity of the heart. The Purusha is immaterial and, therefore, divine in nature. For the same reason, it is inside and outside. It is unborn because it is causeless. It does not undergo any process such as of life and its experiences.

The Universal Self knows without the ordinary Pramanas, or proofs of knowledge. Its knowledge does not consist in perception, inference, verbal testimony or any kind of commonly known proof. Worldly knowledge is relative and mediate. There is no necessity for the cognitive or perceptive organs in the highest Self, because in it knowledge consists in Self-realisation, or realisation of Itself. Even the distinction which is ordinarily made between the sheaths of a person cannot be made in the true Self. Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Isvara are of the nature of Pure Consciousness. The apparent distinction which is seen to exist among these three aspects of the Divine Being is more the result of a convention or habit of the mind to find objectively what it experiences in itself. Logically this distinction cannot be proved, though it is simply believed in. Hence, the Upanishad says that the Divine Being is without Prana or mind. The Pranas and the mind are limiting factors and, therefore, they have no basis in the unlimited Divine Being. The Mantras of the Vedas and the declarations of the Upanishads which describe the Divine Being as having heads, eyes, feet, etc., are only figurative, meant to convey its universal nature. There is neither the vibration of Iccha Sakti nor of Kriya Sakti in the Divine Being; therefore, there are no sense-organs also. In short, there is nothing in It which belongs to the special characteristic of the individual.

This Purusha is superior to the unmanifested being which is the source of the possibility of all causes and effects which constitute the very pith of phenomena. In this Divinity of the Purusha, the mind, the Pranas, etc., are said to come to a complete cessation as they are simply modes of relative existence, i.e., the manner in which the relations between the subject and the object are kept up. These functions of the mind, etc., are not self-existent, because they are the special forms manifested by the consciousness for a definite purpose. Their value is, therefore, only in relation to the passing modes of consciousness. As there is no mode in the Divine Being, there are no functional organs in It.

Mantram No. 3:

From this Being proceed the vital energy, the mind, the senses, ether, air, fire, water and the all-supporting earth.

All the appearances are based on the different phases of consciousness, or Vishaya-Chaitanya. Appearances are possible only on the reality of consciousness. That which is real in all forms of experience, is common to both the experiences and the experiencer. Matter is not a substance but a condition of experience differing in the various stages of evolution. Hence, all forms of matter, gross or subtle, external or internal, are certain states which are peculiar to the respective modes of the experiencing consciousness. Therefore, the universe, including all subjects and all objects, is only a condition supported by the Absolute, on the basis of which appearances are experienced by the cognising individual and without which the universe has no reality. In fact, what is real in the universe is nothing more and nothing less than Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. The names and the forms are not existent substances.

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Next

Mantram No-4.

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Continued

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