The Philosophy of the Panchadasi: 2.8 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday 10, July 2025, 06:00.
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Upanishads
The Philosophy of the Panchadasi: 2.8.
Chapter 2: Discrimination of the Elements-8.
On the Unsubstantiality of the Elements
Swami Krishnananda.

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Chapter 2: Discrimination of the Elements:
4.On the Unsubstantiality of the Elements

The first of these changes is the manifestation of Akasa or ether. Akasa has the property of spatiality in addition to existence. We feel that space is, and it has also the quality of distinguishing things by a peculiar feature in it, which we call emptiness. Minus the quality of spatiality and reverberation of sound, space is nothing but existence, which is the same as Brahman. The Sakti which makes the manifestation of Akasa possible brings about also perversion in one's understanding of the relation between existence and Akasa. Instead of feeling that Akasa is an after-effect and existence is prior, we are apt to think that Akasa is the primary substance and existence is a property associated with it, as when we say 'Akasa exists', thus mixing up the two, and making existence a predicate of the subject Akasa. This reversal of understanding is called Bhrama or delusion, which is carried further down into the various errors that we commit in the hundreds of precepts and concepts that we have or cling to in our life.

The perversion of understanding that causes the perception of space as a substance and existence as its property is again reversed into the right knowledge that Existence is the anterior substance and space is incapable of being without existence. It is therefore necessary to undertake a serious enquiry into the nature of space in order that there may not be deluded perception in regard to it. Existence and space differ from each other on account of their different names as well as by the disclosure of their real nature through reasoning. Existence and space are not synonymous terms. Hence they should indicate two different objects. Existence is commonly present even in air and other elements, but not spatiality. Thus the two have to be distinguished. Existence has a greater pervasive capacity than space and hence it should be the substance and space the property. Minus existence, space is nothing. We should not think that spatiality has a value of its own, because it is just another name for emptiness. Space is only an appearance like objects seen in dream, which are contradicted in waking. The differentiated world is contradicted in the experience of Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Ishvara. As genus and the individual, Jiva and its body, qualities and objects are distinguished in ordinary life, existence and space are to be differentiated. It is due to a lack of concentration of mind and certain doubts still lurking in it that one is not able to really feel that existence is the true substance. Concentration is to be practised for a protracted period by the usual methods of Yoga, and doubts have to be removed by right observation and proper reasoning. By meditation, observation and reasoning one comes to realise that existence is not space and space is not existence. To a Jnani or knower, the existence behind space alone is visible, and he does not see any such thing as spatiality or emptiness. In that condition he would rather be surprised to notice that people mistake space for existence. This analysis has to be carried on further in regard to the other elements also, viz., air, fire, water and earth.

The element of air also is to be analysed in the same manner as space. Air occupies a smaller part than space and inherits the quality of sound from space. The features of air are: (1) drying, (2) touch, (3) motion, and (4) velocity. It is felt to be existent; – this is the property of Brahman. It is unsubstantial when it is divested of existence; – this is the quality of Maya. It produces sound; – this is its inheritance from space. Though it is an effect, it is thus likely to be considered an independently real substance. As it has nothing which is not present in the preceding principles, we should regard air only as an appearance. It is existence alone that follows all the elements as a natural concomitant of everything, and space cannot be said to follow in that way. The quality of sound belonging to space follows the elements, but not spatiality. It should not be thought that air is absolutely real just because it is not directly connected with Maya which is the unmanifest qualifying adjunct of Ishvara. The answer is that unsubstantiality does not depend on being manifest or unmanifest, but on the capacity to vanish when divested of existence. Maya is not to be taken in the sense of any real substance that may create duality, but a name given to our inability to explain the relation of appearance to Reality. The existence-aspect of air is Brahman. The other aspects are unsubstantial. Similar is the case with fire, water and earth. Fire, water and earth have their own qualities, together with those of the preceding principles which are their causes in a sequence, but none of these have any intrinsic value when taken independently of existence. They are all a naught, minus existence. It is in the earth-element on which existence is superimposed that the physical cosmos is situated. In the cosmos are located the fourteen worlds in which Jivas are placed differently under different circumstances according to their desires and actions. The Jivas are to recognise by this way of analysis that they are bound back to Brahman in their essential being; it is an erroneous feeling that they are widely separated in a spatial universe, an aberration of consciousness and not a fact. Nothing, really, separates one Jiva from another except the imaginary space. There is a real eternity and infinity here and now.

When the unsubstantiality of the elements and their modifications, of Maya and its forms, is properly driven home into one's mind, the conviction that Brahman-existence is undivided reality gets firmly established. (Mantras : 60-98).

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Next: 5.Liberation-in-Life:
Continued

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