Commentary on the Panchadasi: 6. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Thursday 12, June 2025, 09:00.
Books
Commentary on the Panchadasi:3. Swami Krishnananda.
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Mantras: 1-5,
Post-6.

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Chinmaya Mission:

A two-day Bala Vihar camp was organized under the auspices of Chinmaya Mission Amritsar on June 1 and 2, 2025, at Chinmaya Amrit Ashram. More than 150 children from approximately 11 schools in Amritsar participated in this special camp. The camp was designed for students from nursery to grade five, engaging them in various activities centered around Indian culture and values.

On the first day, activities included storytelling sessions, bhajans, dance, yoga, and various games to introduce the children to the richness of Indian culture. These sessions were conducted in the esteemed presence of Shri Avinash Mahendru, President of Chinmaya Mission; Dr. Anita Bhalla, Director of Bhavan’s School; Mrs. Vanita Mahendru, Principal of Bhavan’s School, Islamabad; and Shri S. N. Joshi, President of the Chinmaya Mission Vanaprastha Program.

On the second day, the children presented vibrant role plays in their respective groups on assigned themes. These included performances depicting the Dashavatara (Ten Avatars of Lord Vishnu), Matki Phod (pot-breaking), Raas Leela dance, bhajan-sankirtan, Dandiya dance, and the Ram Setu scene. Through these performances, they brought elements of Indian culture to life and gained enriching experiences.

Yoga and games helped instill core values such as inner strength through yoga, teamwork, and the power of unity. The spiritual knowledge of the children was showcased through a camp quiz, reinforcing virtues like self-discipline, cooperation, and self-restraint. Parents in attendance expressed their appreciation for the camp, observing how their children, along with others, lovingly embraced and practiced Indian culture. Every child actively participated in all activities and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The camp concluded with the distribution of prasadam.

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Mantram: 5. Continued

By an act of inference, when we see muddy water in the Ganga, we infer that it must be raining upstream. In a similar manner we realise and affirm—not by direct experience, of course, but by inference—that consciousness must have been there in deep sleep also, but for which fact, the memory of sleeping would not be there.

What follows from this? Consciousness was in waking, dream and sleep continuously. This is the reason why we feel that we are the same person who was awake, who dreamt, and who slept. It does not mean that somebody is waking, somebody else is dreaming, and a third person is sleeping. It is not three different persons doing that. One continuous identity of personality is maintained by consciousness.

So, what is the analysis now? Consciousness is continuously present in all the three states and, therefore, it constitutes a fourth state. It is not any one of the three states. If consciousness was completely absorbed and identified only with waking, it would not be present in dream. Similarly, if it had been exhausted in dream or sleep, it would not have known the other two conditions. Inasmuch as consciousness knows all three conditions, it shows that it is none of the three conditions. It is a fourth state of consciousness, a transcendent element in us, or rather, a transcendent element which we ourselves are. We are that transcendent Consciousness, basically. We are not that which is involved in waking, dream and sleep. We are Consciousness. This is the analysis here by examining the conditions of waking, dream and sleep.

Inasmuch as consciousness alone was there in sleep, we have to know something about what kind of consciousness it was. It could not be a consciousness that was only in some place, in a particular location. The peculiar character of consciousness is that it cannot be located in a particular place. It cannot be only in one place; it has to be everywhere. If consciousness is assumed to be present only in one place, there must be somebody to know that it is not elsewhere. Who is telling us that consciousness is only inside the body and it is not elsewhere? Consciousness itself is telling that.

It is necessary for consciousness to overstep the limits of its bodily encasement in order to think that it is only inside. We cannot know that there is a limitation of something within a fence unless and until we also know that there is something beyond the fence. The consciousness of finitude implies the consciousness of the infinite. The impossibility of dividing consciousness into parts, fragments, and locating it in particular individuals makes it abundantly the infinite that it is. So we are actually entering into the infinite Consciousness in the state of deep sleep; but because of the potentials of our karmas, our prarabdha, etc.—the unfulfilled desires, the unconscious layer, as it is called in psychoanalysis—which cover our Consciousness as darkness, we do not know what is happening to us. We are actually on the lap of Brahman in that state of deep sleep. But blindfolded we go, and therefore, it is as good as not going.

In these three verses, Consciousness has been analysed as firstly, distinct from objects of perception; secondly, distinct from the three states; and thirdly, infinite in nature. Such is the grandeur of our essential being. We are basically infinite Consciousness. This is the reason why we ask for endless things. We want to possess the whole world. Even if we become kings of the Earth, we are not satisfied because the Atman inside is infinite. It says, “Do you give me only the Earth? I want the skies.” If you give the sky, it will say, “I want further up.” That is the asking for infinitude. The Atman is also eternity. It is not bound by time. Therefore, we do not want to die. The desire to be immortal, the desire not to die, the desire to be existing for all time to come, endlessly, is the eternity in us that is speaking. Therefore, every one of us is basically infinity and eternity, whose nature is Consciousness; and it is Absolute because of the infinitude of its nature.

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Next

Discourse 2

Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality

Mantras: 6-13.

Continued

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