Commentary on the Panchadasi: 10. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday 07, July 2025, 20:20.
Books: Upanishads.
Commentary on the Panchadasi:9. 
Swami Krishnananda.
Discourse 3
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Mantras 14-27
Post-10.

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Mantram - 16:

Satva suddhya visuddhi bhyam maya'vidye ca te mate, 

maya bimbo vasi kṛtya taṁ syāstaavajna isvaraḥ (16).

Omniscience is the nature of God, or Ishvara, because Ishvara is a universally spread-out reflection of the Absolute Brahman in the all-pervading, equilibrated condition of the sattva guna of prakriti. As sattva is universally manifest, it has no divisions such as rajas and tamas. Therefore, the reflection through it of Brahman Consciousness, known as Ishvara, is omniscient, knowing all things at one stroke. For the same reason, it is also omnipresent and omnipotent. So God is all power, all knowledge and all undivided presence: omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. This is the nature of Ishvara, God, Who creates this universe.

But the fate of the individual jiva is different. It is not omniscient; it is not omnipotent; it is not omnipresent. While Ishvara is everywhere, the jiva is in one place only—like every one of us. We cannot be in two places at the same time. Our knowledge is distorted, reflected and conditioned to objects; and we have no power, because avidya controls us. Therefore, the individual jiva is the opposite of Ishvara. While Bliss is the nature of Ishvara, or God, unhappiness, sorrow, grief, suffering is the nature of the individual jiva.

Slogam - 17:

Avidya vasaga stvanya stad vaicitryada nekadha, 

sa karaṇa sariram syat prajnas tatra bhimana van (17). 

This avidya, or the causal body, which is also known as the anandamaya kosha in the individual, is of varieties and not of a uniform nature. The avidya of a human being, the avidya of an animal, the avidya of a plant or a tree, the avidya of stones and inanimate objects are variegated in their manifestation. They cause the variety of the species of individuals, which are 84 lakhs in number. Jivas are 84 lakhs in variety. A lakh means 100,000, and so there are 84 100,000's. So many incarnations through the varieties of species of beings each one takes, and then one attains the state of humanity. Human beings are the last thread, knot, or terminus of these 84 lakhs. Yet, evolution is not complete with humanity. We have to become divine beings. Merely being human beings is not sufficient, because even in the human being there is the operation of rajas and tamas. Pure sattva does not operate in the individual jiva. Therefore, there is unhappiness and a sense of finitude and limitation. Because of the subjection to avidya which, unlike Ishvara, is predominantly rajasic and tamasic in nature, and which is variegated in all the species of beings, there comes the causal body of the jiva.

The Consciousness that is inherent in and behind this avidya in the causal body is called prajna in the technical language of Vedanta philosophy. Prajna is only a name, which means the Knower Consciousness existing at the back of the totally covering and obscuring avidya as it is manifest in the state of deep sleep, and manifest in other states as well, in different ways. Avidya is not manifest only in sleep. In sleep it acts as complete obscuration, like an eclipse of the sun. But in the dreaming and waking states it manifests through the subtle body and the physical body, due to which we are conscious of our subtle body in dream and conscious of the physical body in waking. That also is an action of avidya because wherever there is externality of perception, there is avidya. Everything involved in this perception of things outside in space and time is working through avidya. It is only in the state of sleep that avidya completely covers Consciousness: sā kāraṇa sariram syat prajnas tatra bhimana van.

This Consciousness in the three states—sleeping, dreaming and waking—is known by different names. The Consciousness that is behind the causal body, as manifest in sleep, is called prajna. The same Consciousness operating behind the dream state is called taijasa. The same Consciousness operating behind the waking state is called visva. Visva, taijasa, prajna are the names of the same Atman Consciousness operating behind the screen of the waking condition, dreaming condition and sleep condition.

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Next: Slogam-18: 
Tamaḥ pradhana prakṛte stadbho gaye srvara jnaya, 
viyat pavana tejo'mbu bhuvo bhutni jajrire (18).
Continued

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