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

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Sunday, 20 Aug 2023. 07:00.

Chapter 4: Cosmology-5.

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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.

The sense organs are contained in this body. We are generally told that the karmendriyas, or the organs of action—speaking, grasping, locomotion, etc., which are the tendencies to action and the limbs that help such activity—are all motivated and controlled by the prana. The prana is the synthesised form of rajasic force, and the karmendriyas, or the organs of action, are the discrete or the diversified forms of the same energy. So we may say that all our activities are nothing but prana working. But these activities have ideas behind them, thoughts behind them. Thoughts precede action.

The mind together with the senses of knowledge constitute the manomaya kosha, or the mental sheath. Here we are in an animal level, practically. On the pranic level, we are like vegetables; and on the purely physical level, we are like inanimate matter. But on the thinking level, we are like animals, and only on the intellectual level are we superior to animals. That is a still higher stage. The vijnana, or the intellect, is something like a purified form of the mind. It is purified in the sense that it is capable of determinate thinking, while the mind is usually engaged in indeterminate thinking. There is a translucent feeling of the presence of things and an indistinct thought of objects outside when the mind operates. It cannot decide, it cannot judge, it cannot discriminate, it cannot argue, and it cannot come to a conclusion. This is the mind, as we see it operating in animals, for instance. This is what we call the instinct level, when we are not self-conscious to the extent necessary for judging things in terms of pros and cons, etc.

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To be continued

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