The Mundakoupanishad : Post-47. - Swami Krishnananda

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Wednesday, 20 Dec 2023. 07:15.

Chapter-3. Section-1.

Mantram - 9

POST-47.

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Mantram - 9.

"Eso'nur atma cetasa veditavyo 

yasmin pranah pancadha sam-vivesa, 

pranais - cittam sarvam - otam prajanam, 

yasmin visuddhe vibhavaty - esa atma." (3.1.9): 

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Translation :

By means of the Light of the Intellect (intuitive faculty) one should know the subtle truth of the Atma within the body which is pervaded by the Life-force in a five-fold way. Man's intellect is interwoven with the senses. When that intellect is purified, the Self shines forth.   

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Commentary:

This subtle Atman is to be known only through intuition, in which the mind, the intellect and the sense organs stand together as if they melt into a single faculty. The mind thinks, the intellect understands, the eyes see, the ears hear, and so on, but intuition, or insight, is a single faculty which operates as sight, hearing, thinking, understanding, and everything that the other functions are capable of reporting to us. Intuition is actually the soul operating from inside. The soul has no eyes and ears; therefore, the knowledge which the soul manifests from itself is not seeing, hearing, etc. It is direct, immediate apprehension. Here the word 'chetas' is used to signify the deepest intuition possible.

Yasmin pranah pancadha sam-vivesa: 

The fivefold pranas and the mind are all located in this central function. The five pranas are prana, apana, vyana, udhana and samana. Prāṇaiś cittaṁ sarvaṁ otam prajānām: The mind is enveloped by the powers of the sense organs, and amidst these functions there is the Atman shining independently of these separated functions, and yet causing the functions to take place independently. As the Sun who has no colour may appear as sevenfold in colour when its light is passed through a prism, for instance, the single faculty of intuitional apprehension may look like sensory operations, mental thinking, intellectual understanding, etc., because of the prism-like action taking place in the psyche of the individual through which the integral light of the Atman passes. This integral light is called intuition, insight, direct experience, etc. Subtle is this Atman, capable of being known only through inward intuition in which all the pranas and the sense organs are located, and in which the mind, together with sense organs, is fixed, in the midst of which this Atman shines.

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Next

Mantram-10.

To be continued

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