The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads 4.5. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Saturday, January 23, 2021. 09:59. AM
Chapter 4: Cosmology 5.

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The annamaya kosha means the physical sheath constituted of the food that we intake. Anna is food; and as I mentioned earlier, the various impressions created by our sensory experiences contribute to the stability of the body, including the physical food that we take. And here we have a marked distinction of the limbs of the body—head, ear, nose, etc. We can feel that the various limbs of our body are completely cut off from the limbs of the bodies of others. In spite of the Upanishad crying out that all this manifestation has come from the One, we are least conscious of this fact, and we cannot even dream at any time in our life that we have any connection with the wall standing out there. Such is the condition of physical experience, where limbs are cut off completely into a little prison house of this body in which the Atman abides, as if it is its own property. Now these activities of the physical body are driven or motivated by inner impulses coming from higher realms, and these subtler realms which are more pervasive in their nature are the other koshas mentioned, which are inside the physical body.

We are not the physical body only, as many people may mistake themselves to be. Inside the physical body there is an energy body; it is called the pranamaya sarira. The subtle electric force that energises the whole physical system, as copper wires are energised by or charged with electric force driven by the power house, is the prana. The prana is an invisible sakti; it is a power. We cannot define it, just as we cannot define electricity. It is what we call the life principle, the breathing process; and the sense of ‘life’ that we feel in us is due to the presence of the activity of the prana. It is difficult to translate this word into English. It is vital force, vital energy, life principle, or whatever we may call it. Just as in a live wire electric energy charges every particle or atom of the wire and we cannot know which is the wire and which is electricity (but if we touch the wire we will get a shock), likewise we cannot know which is the body and which is the prana. They have become one, so that if we touch any part of the body, it looks as if we are being touched. Our life has become one with the vehicle which is the body; the vehicle has become one with the driver. They are identical; we cannot separate one from the other.

Now, this prana is the external-most manifestation of a still subtler energy which we call mind. The mind is transparent enough to reflect the consciousness of the Atman, whereas the prana is not so transparent. It is opaque, comparatively; it is rajas-ridden, and it is very active. Wherever there is an excess of activity, or rajas, there cannot be a reflection of the Atman and, therefore, prana does not reflect consciousness. It requires the help or aid of the mind that is more transparent in its nature. Though the mind, too, has rajas and tamas in it in a certain percentage, it has a greater predominance of sattva in it. So the thinking faculty, or the psychic faculty, becomes the interior controlling agent of the other external sheaths, the pranamaya sarira and the annamaya sarira.

To be continued...

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