Commentary on the Panchadasi: 11. Swami Krishnananda

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Monday 18, July 2025, 06:30.
Books: Upanishads.
Commentary on the Panchadasi:11. 
Swami Krishnananda.
Discourse 3
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Mantras 14-27
Post-11.

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Slogam-18: 

"Tamaḥ pradhana prakṛte stadbho gaye srvara jnaya, 

viyat pavana tejo'mbu bhuvo bhutni jajrire (18)."

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The jivas, or individuals—people like us, human beings—have been born into this body due to our past karmas, the fulfilment of which is to be worked out through this body and through any other body which may be compelled upon us on account of our not living a righteous and good life in this world at the present moment. For the sake of the experience of the past karmas of individuals, a field has to be created because experience is not possible unless there is a field, an area of action. This area of action for the working out of the karmas of the individuals is this vast world which God has created.

The world of God, the creation of God, extends from the time of the will of God to create until God enters and is immanent in every created being. Up to this level, it is all Bliss. It is Virat operating immanently in all beings; and variety is not a bondage there, because it is one Universal Consciousness beholding the variety of its manifestation—right from the will to create until the entry and immanence of this very same Universal Consciousness in all individuals of every species.

But tragedy starts when this individual, which is actually an immanent form of Ishvara Himself, somehow or other, for reasons nobody knows, asserts an independence of itself. It is something like the Biblical story of the fall of Lucifer who arrogantly asserted an independence from God. There is a similar story in the Upanishads, namely, that the individual somehow or other foolishly starts asserting its independence and falls headlong into the mire of sorrow, with head down and legs up, as it were, like Trishanku falling from heaven.

Then what happens? The individual is completely oblivious of the Universal Consciousness which is immanent in it. As the individual falls through the aperture of the distorted screen of this sleeping condition, with it manifests a faculty of individuality, called mind and intellect and sense organs, for creating a heaven in its hell. It says, as the poet tells us, “It is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.” It does not want to serve in heaven. It would rather reign as the president, even if it is in hell. The world is hell, and we are like presidents, ruling the world. And we feel very happy, thinking that all is well with this hell.

This wondrous creation of God is constituted of the elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether in their gross form; and in their subtle form they are sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa, gandha, to which we made reference yesterday. This is the area of action, the world which God has created for providing individuals an opportunity to fulfil their residual karmas, due to which they have been born into this body.

Prakriti, which is stability and fixity in its nature, is brooded upon. God broods over the cosmic waters, says Genesis in the Bible. It is the very same cosmic waters on which the Cosmic Consciousness broods and manifests Earth and heaven and all the worlds at one stroke for the purpose of the bhoga of the individuals—the individual's experience of the fruits of its actions, whether good or bad. What are these worlds? They are the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether. Such is the creation of God.

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Next
"Satvamssiḥ pancabhi steṣamm kramad dhin driya pancakam, 
śrotra tvagakṣi rasana ghraṇakhyam upajaate (19)." 

Continued 

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