Commentary on the Panchadasi: 8. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday 25, June 2025, 09:00.
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Commentary on the Panchadasi:8. Swami Krishnananda.
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Discourse 2
Mantras: 6-13.
Post-8.

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Samvi deṣa svayam prabha: 

This svayam prabha, Self-consciousness, is Self-proof. It does not require any other proof. We may require a proof to establish other things, but we do not require a proof to establish Consciousness, because it is the presupposition of all other proofs. All proofs proceed from Consciousness. It is self-proved, indubitable.

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Iya matma para nandaḥ para premaspadaṁ yataḥ, ma na bhuvam hi bhuya sam iti premat mani kṣyate (8). 

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Consciousness is Self-proof. It is Self-conscious and is also Self-love. Consciousness has two peculiar aspects: intense affirmation of itself, and intense love of itself. It cannot love anything else. Immense love is the nature of the Self. It is the source of the love of all other things in the world. Nobody loves anything in the world for its own sake. All love is for one's own self. If we carefully analyse our love, we will realise that we have loves for things because we love ourselves; and when everything goes, we would like to protect ourselves. When all things go—land, property, money, relations are all destroyed—we would like to remain at least as beggars. We would not like to die. Love of self is supreme love, and all other loves are conditioned by this self-love.

Therefore, being the source of para prema aspada, supreme love being the essence of the Self, it is Supreme Bliss itself in its nature. Consciousness cannot be limited, as it has been shown. Because it is not limited, it is ultimately free. It is limitation that puts a bar on our expression of freedom. When Consciousness, which we really are, has no bar or limitation of any kind, it is absolutely free. Bliss and happiness mean the same as freedom. The more we are free, the more we are also happy. Inasmuch as the Self is totally free, it is total Bliss; and because it is eternally free, it is eternal Bliss.

Iya matma para nandaḥ: 

This Self is Supreme Bliss. Para premāspadaṁ yataḥ. It is also the source of the bliss that we apparently see in outer objects. What does one feel always? Mā na bhūvaṁ hi bhūyā sam: “Let me not, not be. Let me be. Let me not annihilate myself and let not conditions arise to annihilate me. May I live always, and may I not, not live.” This is the feeling, the longing, the main desire of the Self. It is asserting its eternity. The eternity aspect of the Self always affirms itself in the desire to not not be, and in the desire to always be.

Iti premat mani kṣyate: 

This kind of love is always seen in the Self. When all things go, when the world itself goes, it would be good if we are alive—so do we think. It is on the one hand Self-luminous, Self-conscious, Self-affirmative, and also Self-bliss. Eternal unending Bliss—that is the Self.

Tat premat martham anyatra naiva manyartha matmanah, atasat paramaṁ tena parama nandata'tmanaḥ (9). 

Tat premat martham: 

All love is for its own sake. 

Anyatra naiva manyarthani:

 Self-love is not for the sake of another; it is for its own sake. Therefore, we have to consider the Atman as Supreme Bliss, and so we conclude that the Atman is basically Bliss in its nature. Existence, Consciousness, Bliss are said to be the nature of the Atman, or the Self.

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Continued

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