Commentary on the Panchadasi

by Swami Krishnananda

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 the 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 water which is tapas, 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. And what are these worlds? They are the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether. Such is the creation of God.

Satvā ṁśaiḥ pañcabhi steṣāṁ kramād dhīn driya pañcakam, śrotra tvagakṣi rasana ghrāṇākhyam upajāyate (19). The sense organs, the sensations of knowledge – hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling are the prominent activities of our sense organs – are created out of the sattva portions of the prakriti. Through tamas, the five elements are created. Through the sattva gunas of prakriti, independently and individually taken, the sense organs are created as mentioned; and they are the reason for our perception of the world by hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling. These are the only activities of ours in this world through the sense organs. They are created out of the prakriti itself through its sattva guna, while the cosmic physical world is created out of the tamas quality of the same prakriti.

Tai rantaḥ karaṇaṁ sarvai vṛtti bhedena tad dvidhā, mano vimarśa rūpaṁ syād buddhiḥ syān niśca yātmikā (20). The internal organ called the mind or chitta is also constituted of the total essence of the sattva gunas of prakriti. In an individual, this prakriti sattva becomes the cause of the manifestation of the five sense organs. Collectively taken, it becomes the cause of the manifestation of the mind itself which has four functions to perform – namely thinking, self-arrogation, memory, and intellection – known as manas, buddhi, chitta, and ahamkara.

Manas, or the mind, does only the act of indistinct and indeterminate thinking. When we begin to feel that something is there in front of us, but cannot clearly know what it is that is there, it is called indeterminate thinking, which is the work of the mind. But when it is clear to us that it is a man that is standing there, or a tree is there, or a pole is there, that distinct and clear perception is the work of reason, or intellect, which is superior to the mind. Mano vimarśa rūpaṁ syād buddhiḥ syān niśca yātmikā. Decision and determination are the functions of the buddhi – intellect, or reason.

Rajoṁ’saiḥ pañcabhi steṣāṁ kramāt karmen indrayāṇi tu, vāk pāṇi pāda pāyupastha abhi dhānāni jajñire (21). We have mentioned what happens with the tamas and the sattva of prakriti. Now there is something else left, which is rajas. The rajas of prakriti becomes the cause of the organs of action – different from the senses of knowledge. The senses of knowledge are hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling. The organs of action are five more – speaking, grasping with hands, locomotion with the feet, the genitals, and the anus – the organ of excretion. These are the five organs of action, which are the operating locations of pranas. The mind is not the cause here. The mind is directly connected with the senses of knowledge, whereas the prana is directly connected with the organs of action. Individually taken, this fivefold rajas guna becomes the organs of action that I mentioned.

Taiḥ sarvaiḥ sahitaiḥ prāṇo vṛtti bhedāt sa pañcadhā, prāṇo’pānaḥ samā naśco dāna vyānau ca te punaḥ (22). But collectively taken, this rajas becomes prana or vital energy in us with its fivefold functions of prana, apana, vyana, udana and samana. Prana works when we breathe out. Apana works when we breathe in. Samana works in the stomach, in the navel area, and causes digestion of food. Vyana causes circulation of blood; and udana takes us to deep sleep and also causes deglutition of food when we eat, also causing separation of the jiva consciousness from the body at the time of death. This fivefold function of the prana, known as prana in general, is the total cumulative effect of the rajas guna aspect of prakriti.

So we are now fully in possession of the knowledge as to how the tamas, sattva and rajas prakriti work under the control of Ishvara, the God who created the world.

Buddhi karmendriyaprāṇa pañcakair manasā dhiyā, śarīraṁ sapta daśabhiḥ sūkṣmaṁ talliṅga mucyate (23). The subtle body is inside us. It is the astral body, or sukshmasarira, and consists of the five senses of knowledge, the five senses of action, the five pranas, together with mind and intellect – totalling seventeen. These seventeen constituents are the substance of the sukshma sarira; that is the subtle body. Seventeen components go to form the subtle body within the physical body.

Prājña statrā bhimānena taijasatvaṁ prapadyate, hiraṇya garbhatā mīśas tayor vyaṣṭi samaṣṭitā (24). When consciousness manifests itself as a background of the sleeping condition of the causal body, it is called prajna, as we said. When it is there at the back of the dreaming condition, it is called taijasa. Cosmically, this dreaming condition is animated by the Universal Consciousness, called Hiranyagarbha-tattva. Individually Hiranyagarbha is the dreaming consciousness, and cosmically he is called by such names as universal prana, sutratma, thread consciousness, Hiranyagarbha. Ishvara is the cosmical counterpart of the sleeping condition, while Hiranyagarbha is the cosmical counterpart of the dreaming condition. Virat is the cosmical counterpart of the waking condition. This is something important for us to remember, even for our meditation.

In meditation, what will we do? We merge the waking consciousness into the Virat Universal Consciousness, in the total waking condition of the cosmos. We merge the dreaming consciousness in the total causal dreaming condition of the cosmos in Hiranyagarbha. And in sleep we merge this causal condition into the universal causal condition of Ishvara. But in all the three states of sleep, dream and waking, we are conditioned, and we remain helpless; forcibly we are driven into these conditions by some factor of which we have no knowledge. Whereas that is the case with each one of us, a different state of affairs obtains in Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Ishvara. They have no compulsion. That is all freedom; it is all universality. It is all omniscience. It is all omnipotence. God dancing in his own glory, as it were, is Virat, Hiranyagarbha, Ishvara; but suffering jiva in a concentration camp, as it were, which is this world, is the fate of every one of us.

Hiraṇya garbhatā mīśas tayor vyaṣṭi samaṣṭitā. Vyasti is individual; samasti is total. Individually, we are prajna, taijasa and visva. Cosmically, the same thing is known as Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Ishvara.

Samaṣṭi rīśaḥ sarveṣāṁ svātma tādātmya vedanāt, tada bhāvāt tato’nye tu kathyante vyaṣṭi saṁ jñayā (25). Because Ishvara has an identity of His own Self with everything that He has created, He is called Total Consciousness, or samasti in Sanskrit. Because of the absence of this identity of consciousness with all things at the same time in the case of the jiva, it is called shakti or a segregated individual. Identity with all things at one stroke is the nature of Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat. Identity only with this particular body, and not with anybody else, is the fate of the jiva, the individual. The great tragedy, a great travesty, a great sorrow has manifest before us is this individuality of ours.

Tad bhogāya puna bhogya bhogā yatana janmane, pañcīkaroti bhaga vān prayekaṁ viyadā dikam (26); dvidhā vidhāya caikaikaṁ caturdhā prathamaṁ punaḥ, svasve tara dvitīyāṁ śaiḥ yojanāt pañca pañca te (27). It was mentioned that there are five potentials of the five elements – sound, touch, etc. These electrical energies, we may call it, that are at the back as the causative factors of the five elements and are mixed up by God Himself in some proportion – called panchikarana, or the process of quintuplication – due to which, the physical world of earth, water, fire, air and ether are manifest. Half of the sabda, or the hearing tanmatra, is mixed with one eighth of each of the other four remaining and, therefore, becomes half in its composition as sabda tanmatra; and one eighth of it consists of a little portion of the other, namely touch, colour, taste, and smell. In a similar manner are the other elements also. When we take up the touch principle, half of it is touch principle. One eighth of the other four are taken into consideration and mixed with this half of the touch principle. It becomes vayu, or wind. Sabda becomes space by this quintuplication process, or sky as we call it, and the touch principle in its quintuplication process becomes wind, or air. Then the colour principle in the same process becomes fire, or light. The taste principle in the same process becomes water. The smell principle undergoing the same process of quintuplication becomes physical earth.

So the five gross elements – ether, air, fire, water, and earth – are constituted of some other elements also, and they are not entirely the original potentials wholly manifest in them due to a peculiar combination and permutation that became necessary for the chemical type of combination, as it were, causing the manifestation of five gross elements. Thus the whole physical universe has been cosmically created on one side, and individually created on the other side.