Commentary on the Panchadasi

by Swami Krishnananda

There is a gradual development of thought in the chapters of the Panchadasi, as you would have noticed during our studies. It is not that any specific order is indicated anywhere in different chapters. It is important to connect the thoughts into a systematic whole in order that the entire presentation may become a guideline for our whole life. People who listen to these discourses may not have been able to notice the inner coherence of these teachings. The coherence aspect of the teachings is based on the coherence of the structure of life itself. It is not that we do anything we like, right from morning to evening. There is a system in our activity, in our mode of thinking, in our general outlook of life.

The nature of the world determines the behaviour of people in respect of the world. It is a cosmological system, if we can put it so – the methodology of the gradual descent of reality, stage by stage, until it reaches the lowest category of earth consciousness. We are now bound to the world of earth consciousness in the sense that we are perpetually aware of a material world outside us. In such an intensity do we become conscious of the world outside; and the world seems to be flooding us with its variety and compulsion to such an extent that many a time we forget that we exist at all. Our existence is drowned in the existence of the world. We are concerned with the world very much, not paying sufficient attention to the fact that this concern for the world would not have any meaning if we ourselves do not exist.

This is the reason why the very first chapter starts with the fundamental question of our existence itself. Let the world be there or not; that is a different question. Are you existing? If you are sure that you exist in a convincing manner, on the basis of that conviction, you can develop further relations with things outside – the world, etc. The first chapter was, therefore, devoted to the establishment of a fundamental reality behind the human individual independent of the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. This is the subject of the first chapter, if you can recollect what you have heard.

Consciousness is externalised in the state of waking, internalised in the state of dream, totally stifled, as it were, in the state of sleep; nevertheless, it persists as a continuity in all the three states of waking, dream and sleep. Because of its continuity in the three states, we are able to recollect our identity the next morning when we wake up from sleep. If this consciousness were not continuously present in the three states, there would be no awareness of our identity as a person who slept yesterday. We would be aware of somebody else.

Essentially, the first chapter dealt with the nature of the fundamental consciousness which is our essential nature, into which we enter in the state of deep sleep, where our consciousness is not connected to any of the sheaths – neither to the causal, nor the intellectual, mental, sensory, vital or physical. It appears to be existing there as an unadulterated, pure, featureless Universality. Our essential nature is Universal Consciousness – not body consciousness or world consciousness or object consciousness. This is the quintessence of the first chapter. The establishment of the existence of a reality behind the individual is the primary theme of the first chapter.

In the second chapter, the objective analysis of the world was taken up: the world of five elements. Though we are to some extent conscious that our essential nature cannot be a physical embodiment in the form of this body, mind etc., and that we are basically a consciousness that is imperishable, the world is too much for us, many a time. The world is constituted of five elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. The second chapter engaged itself in the distinguishing of the form taken by these elements and the reality that is behind them.

The point that was essentially made out there was: When we say, “Ether exists, fire exists, water exists, earth exists,” etc., we are likely to consider existence as a kind of predicate or an adjunct to space, air, etc. Existence is not a quality of space. It is space that is a quality of existence. In our statements like, “The building exists, this exists, that exists,” we wrongly attribute a qualitative character to Pure Existence that is at the back of all things, and give substantiality to that which is really a quality.

The existence aspect of anything is primary. The form of that thing is secondary. Space, air, fire, water, earth are forms taken by Pure Existence in an objective fashion. Existence has to be separated from the forms taken by existence in the shape of these five elements. Pure Existence is universal, as distinguishable from the five elements. Objectively also, universality of consciousness is established, as subjectively it was established in the first chapter.

In the third chapter, the analysis was practically in the direction of what we call, “Who am I?” Are we the body or anything that we consider as this psychophysical complex? With analysis of this situation, it was proven that we are not the physical body because it has no consciousness. In the dream state, we are not even aware that the physical body is existing. That is to say, we can exist even minus consciousness of the physical body.

In the state of deep sleep, even the consciousness of mind being there is not there. In dream, the mind is operating; the body is not there. But in deep sleep, even the mind is not there. When the body and the mind both are not there, what is there in the state of deep sleep? Something is there. Do you exist in sleep? Yes, I exist. In what form do you exist? Not as the body, not as the mind. But we always consider ourselves as a complex of body and mind. Psychophysicality is regarded as the true nature of our personality, while really we are neither of these. This has been established in this analysis of the third chapter, or the enquiry into the nature of the individual, who is none of the five sheaths – not the physical, not the vital, not the sensory or the mental, not the intellectual, not the causal – Pure Universality.
 
So in all the three chapters, we have this one single theme driven into us, that Universality, which is the pure Brahman Consciousness, is at the back of the three states on the one side, and at the back of the five elements on another side, and at the back of the five sheaths on the third side.

In the fourth chapter, a very important one, we were introduced into the concept of Ishvara and jiva – creation of the world by God, and the creation of the individual psychologically. The world of five elements, this entire cosmos, is created by God. It is an objective reality. The presentation of these objects in our perception through the sense organs is what we call actually consciousness of an object. The object is there independently by itself, unconcerned with what we are thinking about it.

The mountain is there, the river is there, the sun is there, the moon is there, stars are there. They are not bothered about what we are thinking about them. That is one aspect of the matter. Objective reality is the creation of God Almighty – Ishvara-srishti it is called. Ishvara-srishti is God’s creation, impersonal in its nature, and it is not concerned with the viewpoints or whims and fancies or emotions of people individually. This is the objective character of creation, known as Ishvara-srishti.

But there is also the subjective side, which is the world created by our own selves. Our sorrows are not caused by God. He does not create anything specially for certain persons. The experience of joy and sorrow is a personal matter. It is engendered by the reaction of the mind of the individual in respect to the objects outside, which are all God’s creation, Ishvara-srishti.

Loves and hatreds are the cause of sorrow. Certain things in the world are regarded by the individual mind as its own, and it segregates everything else as not its own. What it considers as its own, it clings to; and what it considers as not its own, it rejects.

The reason for clinging to objects is a peculiar juxtaposition of values between the mind and the object concerned; and this juxtaposition does not continue for all times. The relationship between our mind and the object is not a permanent one. As the mood changes, as evolution progresses onward, as age grows, our wisdom increases, and we will find that our ideas about the world go on changing and what we wanted yesterday may not be the thing that we want today.

So it is very funny that one should cling to some things under the impression that they are the source of happiness, while actually they are fickle in their location. Not only our mind is fickle, but even the situation of the object is fickle. The object will not be there for all eternity for us to be attracted to. As the mind changes and progresses in the evolutionary process, the objects of the world also change. We won’t always have the same thing to cling to. So subjectively and objectively, there is a mistake in the attachment of the mind to objects of sense. This attachment is the source of sorrow. That world of psychology created by the individual is called jiva-srishti, individual creation. This distinction was drawn in the fourth chapter.

The fifth chapter concentrated on the elucidation of the four great sentences of the Upanishads: prajnanam brahma, aham brahmasmi, tat tvam asi, ayamatma brahma. Prajnana brahma: Consciousness is Brahman; the ultimate nature of reality is Pure Consciousness. This is the definition of Brahman as we have it in the Aitareya Upanishad of the Rig Veda.

And aham brahmasmi: The fundamental consciousness in us is identical with the Universal Consciousness. This is a statement that occurs in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad of the Yajur Veda. Tat tvam asi: Thou art that. This individual is basically identical with the Absolute. This is a statement that comes in the Chhandogya Upanishad of the Sama Veda. Ayamatma brahma: This Self is Brahman verily, basically, fundamentally. This statement comes in the Mandukya Upanishad of the Atharva Veda. This is the substance of the fifth chapter.

It is when we enter the sixth chapter that we actually wallow through a large body of thoughts right from the subject of creation, which was compared to the process of the painting of a picture. That is how the sixth chapter started. We have a canvas, first of all, for the purpose of painting, and then the canvas is stiffened with starch; that is the second stage. And then on the stiffened cloth, outlines are drawn for painting. That is the third stage. And lastly, ink is filled in at the fourth stage.

So is creation. In the beginning, there was no creation. The Absolute Being alone was. That background of everything which is uncontaminated with the creative process is Brahman, the Absolute Being that wills to create, as it were. That willing process is something like the stiffening of the Universality of consciousness, as by starch the cloth is stiffened. That condition of the concentration of the will of Brahman towards the future creation is the state of Ishvara.

And then the drawing of the outline of the future creation is in the state of the Hiranyagarbha-tattva, where as in a dream, we see the objects of the world faintly, but not clearly. The outline of the future creation is seen in Hiranyagarbha-tattva. In Virat, the final form of creation, the entire world occurs and variety is seen.

Now the details in regard to this are the theme of the sixth chapter. God, the world and the individual – Ishvara, jagat and jiva – are the subject of this chapter. Ishvara creates this world through His maya shakti, which is another name for the pure sattva guna, the property of equilibrium of prakriti. Inasmuch as pure sattva is universal in its nature, Brahman reflected in that sattva is also universal. Therefore, Ishvara is universal; therefore, He is also omniscient; therefore, He is omnipotent also. But when the sattva of prakriti is submerged by the activity of rajas and tamas, individuality crops up. Rajas is the distracting power of prakriti. It divides things, one from the other. So we are all divided. Each person is different from every other person. Every atom is different from every other atom. Segregation is the action of rajas.