Commentary on the Panchadasi

by Swami Krishnananda

Yathā yatho pāsate taṁ phala mīyu stathā tathā, phalot karṣāpa karṣau tu pūjya pūjānu sārataḥ (209). As is our attitude towards Ishvara, so is the way in which we will have response from Him. The quickness or the slowness of the response from God depends upon the intensity of the feeling of devotion to God. If it is a very intense feeling, the response is very quick. If the feeling is comparatively mild, the response will also be mild and it will take a longer period of time to act.

But muktistu brahma tattvasya jñānādeva na cānyathā, svapnabodhaṁ vinā naiva svasvapno hīyate yathā (210). We may worship any god and we may receive the fruits of our devotion in some way, but liberation is a different matter altogether. It is not a worship; it is not an attainment of any particular thing. It is not the fruit of our action. It is Being as such. To enter into Pure Being is moksha, or liberation. But this is not easy, because the nature of Pure Being excludes all that is outside or external. Neither myself, nor yourself, nor the world, nor anything this kind will be there – because the perception of duality, multiplicity and externality contravene the nature of Pure Being.

All perception that is natural to us, what we consider as normal, is unnatural to the state of Pure Being. The best of our actions cannot touch it. All our deeds pale into insignificance in its abundance, in its radiance, in its purity. Our very existence is an obstacle to the realisation of that Pure Being. Let alone our desire for objects, our desire to even exist as this person – to continue in this personality, this love for our own self – is also an obstacle. Perhaps, it is the greatest obstacle.

We may be free, to some extent, from desire for the world of objects outside, but our desire to live as a person does not go with the other desires. So as long as this personal desire to maintain itself continues, it will act as a great hindrance in the entry of consciousness to Pure Being. Until this state is achieved, moksha is impossible.

Unless we wake up into the consciousness of our own person, we will have no freedom from the turmoil of dream perception. To rise from the difficulties we face in the dream world, we do not have to perform any action there. Many sorrows may be there confronting us in the dream world. How will we get out of them? Any effort will not help us. Any work, any effort, any deed, anything in any direction done in the dream world would be a part of the dream world itself. It cannot contradict the dream world.

So anything that we do in this world with the means available in this world would be a worldly action only and it cannot help us in rising above the world. A modus operandi which is non-earthly, non-externalised, non-personal and non-individual has to be employed. Here is the difficulty in realising the Absolute. Ordinarily it is not possible because there are no means of approach to it and all our means are worldly, including this body.

Advitīya brahma tattve svapno’yam akhilaṁ jagat, īśa jīvādi rūpeṇa cetanā cetanāt makam (211). This whole world is something like a dream in the light of the Absolute. And to rise from this world-consciousness to the Absolute-consciousness or Brahman-consciousness would be something like waking from dream. Nothing that we do in the dream world will be a help to us in the act of waking. An internal modification of consciousness itself is the means, not any external object. Any amount of worship in the dream world will be, after all, a dream worship. It will not be real. And, therefore, is this world not a help to us in the realisation of the supreme Brahman, because to that Brahman, this world is like a dream; and all that we do in this world is a dream activity. It cannot cut ice with that eternal state.

The distinction that we draw between Ishvara and jiva, a distinction between animate and inanimate beings, gets wiped out in one moment in the act of waking from dream. All the good things and bad things, all the delectable things, all the painful things, even birth and death in the dream experience, are washed out in one minute because of our having woken up from dream. There is nothing like awakening. All other things come afterwards; they are secondary. The act of awakening from world-consciousness to God-consciousness is the principle spiritual practice. It does not consist in employing any means of the world. The world cannot help us in getting out of the world. How would we expect the world to be of any assistance to us in rising above the world – because the means would be part of that which we want to overcome. Hence, this world, including this very body itself, is no more a help; it is an obstacle.

Ānandamaya vijñāna mayā vīśvara jīvakau, māyayā kalpitā vetau tābhyāṁ sarvaṁ prakalpitam (212). The causal and the intellectual sheaths, cosmically as well as individually, are the causes of the appearance of such principles and beings as Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat, or internally as jiva, consisting of the consciousness of prajna, taijasa and visva. They are created by maya only. Distinctions do not obtain finally, as they do not obtain in the dream world in comparison with the waking one.

Īkṣaṇādi praveśāntā sṛṣṭi rīśena kalpitā, jāgradādi vimokṣāntaḥ saṁsāro jīva kalpitaḥ (213). Ishvara willed to become many. This is said to be the beginning of creation. Then there is the manifestation of this will in the form of Hiranyagarbha, Virat. Then there is space-time consciousness. Then there are the tanmatras – sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa, gandha. Then there are the five elements – earth, water, fire, air, ether. Then the individuals manifest themselves.

From the time Ishvara willed to create up to His entry into the individuals who are off-shoots of this final act of creation – from the will of Ishvara down to the entry of Ishvara to the lowest possible limits of individuality – we can say it is God's creation. None of these are created by the jiva, or the individual. Neither Ishvara is our creation, nor Hiranyagarbha nor Virat, nor space, nor time, nor tanmatras, nor the physical world of the five elements, nor is our own body, which we cannot manufacture according to our will. Up to this level, it is God's creation.

From the time of the will up to the entry into particulars, God's creation is complete. But individuals, jiva creation, commences afterwards. Suddenly there is an externalised waking consciousness emanating from the created individual. The created individual, as far as it forms part of the Virat consciousness, would not be a bondage. As long as it is part of the Universal existence, there is no bondage consciousness. But when it asserts itself, each one begins to feel "I am this and you are that." Immediately there is a consciousness different from Universal consciousness, and that is called waking consciousness.

Waking consciousness is caused by the projection of the internal Atman through the intellect of the individual and working through the sense organs of the individual personality. Being exhausted by this activity of the individual personality through the sense organs, the individual falls into dream and sleeping states, and after the sleep is over, it again wakes up. Through great effort, liberation is attained.

Right from the waking consciousness down to dream and sleeping and then the final act of liberation, are all working of the jiva only. There is neither bondage nor liberation for God Himself. The consciousness of having entered into bondage and the necessity to liberate oneself – all these come within the area of individual effort. Thus, in a single verse the distinction between God's creation and individual creation has been described.

Advitīyaṁ brahma tattvam asaṅgaṁ tanna jānate, jiveśayor māyikayor vṛthaiva kalahaṁ yayuḥ (214). Not knowing that non-dual existence, which is the truth of Brahman, is unattached and detached from all things in every way, people quarrel over what kind of God it is, who God is, what kind of Ishvara it is that created the world, who is Ishvara, what is jiva. These questions and answers thereon are all unnecessary difficulties, problems created by logistic minds that are not able to probe into the real truth of Brahman that is Universally unattached. Once the consciousness identifies itself with Universal existence, questions like who is God, who is Ishvara, who is jiva will not arise. These questions themselves are part of the ignorance of the true nature of Brahman.

Jñātvā sadā tattva niṣṭhān anumodā mahe vayam, anuśocāma evā nyān na bhrāntair vivadāmahe (215). It is a great joy to come in contact with persons who have this knowledge of Brahman. Others who are apparently not fortunate enough to have attained this state are really objects of mercy and pity. But there is a third category, who do not even deserve pity; they are totally ignorant people who live like animals, and we shall not have any dealings with them.

Tṛṇārcakādi yogāntā īśvare bhrānti māśritāḥ, lokāyatādi sāṅkhyāntā jive vibhrānti māśritāḥ (216). There is confusion in the mind of everyone in regard to the nature of Ishvara when they start worshipping varieties of things as God. Stone is worshipped, grass is worshipped, trees are worshipped, animals are worshipped, human beings are worshipped, celestials are worshipped. Varieties of formations conceptualised by the human mind as superior to itself are taken as gods. All these varieties of conceptualisations of God arise on account of non-awareness of the true nature of God.

People who are accustomed to deny the other world, like the atheists, materialists, agnostics, etc., up to the Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Samkhya, Mimamsa, etc., may be said to be confused in the nature of the individual. Some are confused by the definition of jiva-hood; some are confused by the definition of Ishvara-hood. The complete concept, free from every defect, is difficult to have as long as concepts arise from the intellect, which is a limited, finite, faculty.

Advitīya brahma tattvaṁ na jānanti yadā tadā, bhrāntā evākhilā steṣāṁ kva muktiḥ kveha vā sukyam (217). Where is the question of mukti? Where is moksha, as long as we go on quibbling, arguing, and wander about from place to place in search of what we call a god for our freedom? With stability of the mind, a settled state of emotion and feeling, and a conviction that Ishvara can be realised at any spot in this world, there is no desire to move about. When this state of affairs is reached, when the mind is completely controlled in all its anguishes, desires and pursuits, it realises the non-dual Brahman just at the very spot where it is sitting. We need not move one inch from this place. Else, there will be confusion, confounded-ness, and mukti or moksha will be far, far away.

We may say these categories of philosophy are not actually falsehoods. They are degrees of reality. One thought is a lesser reality than the other one, which is the higher. But this argument also does not hold water much.

Uttamā dhama bhāva ścet teṣāṁ syādastu tena kim, svapnastha rājya bhikṣābhyāṁ na buddhaḥ spṛśyate khalu (218). The degrees of reality is also only a kind of confusion of thought. For instance, in dream there is a degree of reality between a beggar and a king; a king is certainly superior to a beggar. Inasmuch as either of them is only mind-stuff, dream-stuff, we will find that there is no distinction between a beggar and a king – though they may appear as beggar in one case and king in another case – because both are dream-stuff. There is no difference between them.

Therefore, the degrees of reality are also not a great consolation for us, though it is better to be a Badshah in dream than a beggar in dream. It is a good idea no doubt, but when we wake up the Badshah also goes, along with the beggar. He will not be there for a long time just because he is a Badshah or an emperor. So the idea of degrees of reality goes together with the non-reality of dream world.