Commentary on the Panchadasi: 7. Swami Krishnananda.

 

======================================================================================

Wednesday 18, June 2025, 09:20.
Books
Commentary on the Panchadasi:7. Swami Krishnananda.
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Discourse 2
Mantras: 6-13.
Post-7.

======================================================================================

Mantras:s 6-13.

Consciousness is the subject of analysis, and is being studied further in the coming mantras.

Sa bodho visayad bhinno na bodhat svapna bodha vat, evam sthana traye'pyeka samvid tatvad dinan tare (6). 

Masabda yuga kalpesu gata gamye svane kadha, nodeti nasta metyaka samvi desa svayam prabha (7). 

This consciousness is Self-conscious, svayam prabha. Objects in the world require consciousness in order that they may be known, but consciousness does not require another consciousness that it may be known. That is the meaning of Self-consciousness. Objects cannot know themselves. They are known by another, which is the subject endowed with consciousness; but the subject, which is consciousness, does not require another subject to know itself. That is the meaning of Self-consciousness, svayam prabha.

Consciousness is not different from consciousness. While objects require a consciousness to know them, consciousness does not require another consciousness to know it, because consciousness is never an object. It ever remains a subject, pure and simple.

If we say that consciousness requires another consciousness behind it—because it is possible to extend this logic beyond the effects to the causes, and behind that cause to another cause—the problem will arise, namely, that that which knows consciousness should also be consciousness as there cannot be two consciousnesses, because we have already seen that consciousness cannot be divided into two parts. It cannot be split or fragmented, because the imagined fragmentation of consciousness is also to be known by consciousness only. The limitation of consciousness is known by consciousness, and therefore, consciousness is not limited. That is to say, it is unlimited. Therefore, it is svayam prabha. It is Self-knowledge. Consciousness is not different from consciousness, though consciousness is different from objects.

bodho visayad bhinno na bodhat svapna bodha: 

As it is in the case of dream, we have noted that consciousness itself appears as an object outside, and the object is not different from consciousness. Consciousness is to be considered as a continuous link obtaining not only between the diversity of objects, but also between the variety of the three states of waking, dreaming and sleep.

evam sthana traye'pyeka samvid tatvad: 

Sthana traye means the three states—waking, dreaming and sleep. Objectively, it is the cohering principle of the unity that is behind all diversity of perception; subjectively, it is the link bringing together, in a state of a single apprehension, the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. Not only that, day in and day out this consciousness persists, dinan tare. So many days we have lived in this world; from childhood to this time, we remember all the days through which we have passed. Do we not think there is one consciousness that is linking us into a single personality? “I lived fifty years back, forty years back, thirty years back, twenty years back. I was a child, and I am an elderly man, and so on.” Who is saying this? Who is feeling this? Who is conscious of this? There is one single Consciousness maintaining itself as a self-identity throughout the days and the months and the years that we have passed.

Masabda yuga kalpesu : 

Not merely through days and months and years is it continuing as a single link, it has been maintaining its continuity through ages and ages, through cycles of creation, through the Krita, Treta, Dvapara and Kali Yugas. Through all creation, right from the beginning, this one Consciousness has been maintaining itself as the self-identical unitariness that we are. Here is a glorious message for all of us. We are not the little crawling insects on the surface of the Earth that we appear to be. We are mighty in our inner essence. The potential of unlimitedness is singing its own celestial music within us, and wanting to reveal itself just now. But it is not allowed to reveal itself or manifest itself on account of a peculiar juxtaposition that has taken place between consciousness and matter—which is to say, the attachment to this body, and attachment to the ways of prejudiced thinking in terms of space, time and externality.

Desa-kala-vastu-parichheda: 

is the term used to signify the conditioning of our knowledge in terms of space, time and objects. What do we think day in and day out? We think space, time, objects, and there is no fourth thing that we can think of. All this conditioning arises on account of this body through which we start thinking; and when body-consciousness reads through the affirmation of space-time consciousness and object-consciousness, how would we have knowledge of the eternity that we are, the infinity that our Consciousness is? Nevertheless, it is worth knowing that this Consciousness that we really are is a continuous link that is maintaining itself as Self-consciousness through days and months and years, and cycles of creation. From eternity to eternity, it is existing. We are deathless eternities, in essence. The coming and going, the fluxation of the universe, the varieties of creation in cycles do not affect this Consciousness because it is Consciousness that knows that there is fluxation and a coming and going of things. How many times has God created the world? The scriptures say many, many cycles have come and gone, but who is knowing this? Consciousness. Eternity is Consciousness.

gata gamye svane kadha, nodeti nasta metyaka: 

Neither does Consciousness arise at any time, because it has no beginning, nor does Consciousness end at any time, because it has no death. Beginningless and endless, immortal is this Consciousness, which we ourselves essentially are.

*****

Continued

======================================================================================