Commentary on the Panchadasi

by Swami Krishnananda

Prāg-abhāva yutaṁ dvaitaṁ racyate hi ghaṭādivat, tathāpi racanā’cintyā mithyā tenendra jālavat (255). Objects can have prior non-existence – like a pot. Before the pot was manufactured, it was non-existent. That is called prior non-existence. The non-existence of a pot before it was manufactured is called prior non-existence. When the pot is broken, afterwards it becomes non-existent. This is called posterior non-existence. Prior to creation, it is one kind of non-existence. After destruction, it is another kind of non-existence. The non-existence of the pot prior to its manufacture has no beginning, but it has an end. When the pot comes into being, the non-existence of the pot prior to its manufacture comes to a cessation. Here is an illustration of non-existence without a beginning, but with an end.

But the posterior non-existence has a beginning, but no end – the other way around. When the pot is broken it becomes non-existent, but this kind of non-existence has no end; for ever and ever it will be non-existent. So this is an instance of non-existence with a beginning but no end.

There is another kind of non-existence, called mutual non-existence. The tree is not in the stone; the stone is not in the tree. The tree is non-existent in the stone; the stone is non-existent in the tree. This mutual non-existence is called anyonya abhava.

A fourth kind of non-existence is called atyanta – like the horns of a human being. A human being does not have horns; they are absolutely non-existent.

Therefore, four kinds of non-existence can be attributed to all perceptible objects. Consciousness cannot be attributed to any such character. It is consciousness alone that cannot cease to be at any time, under any given conditions. All other things involved in duality and multiplicity are involved in these kinds of non-existences defined.

Cit pratyakṣā tato’nysya mithyātvaṁ cānu bhūyate, nā’dvaita maparokṣaṁ ceti etanna vyahataṁ katham (256). Consciousness is a matter of direct experience, and the world of transiency is also a matter of direct experience. We daily experience the futility of things if only we are to bestow some thought upon what happens in the world. By experience through age, we come to realise finally that the world cannot fulfil its promises. It promises all kinds of pleasures, delights, and even permanency of existence. It uses a false promise that we will live here in this world for a long time; but the next moment the life is cut off. The world is a false promise-giver. This we come to realise when our hairs become grey and we become old. In earlier days when we are warm-blooded youths, we felt that the earth is permanent, we are permanent, and our achievements are also going to be permanent. This transiency, which is at the back of all things in the world, is not visible to the eyes of a young man. They become faded by the experience of age. And consciousness is at the back of this experience.

During our babyhood, our adolescence, our adult age, old age – through all these stages of our life – we will find one consciousness continuing. Every day that we have is an experience of the continuity of consciousness and the non-continuity of experiences in the world. In a way, daily we have this experience of the unity of consciousness and the disunity character of that which is not consciousness – namely, the objects in the world of space and time.

Itthaṁ jñātvā’pya santuṣṭāḥ kecit kuta itīryatām, cārvākādeḥ prabuddhasyāpi ātmā dehaḥ kuto vada (257). In spite of these expositions of the nature of consciousness, many a time doubts arise in the mind, as in the case of Charvakas or materialists. What do they say? “Satisfaction does not arise by a mere thought of this kind of analysis that we have conducted, that the world is transient.” The transiency of the world is not a direct object of perception every day as long as the senses are very active and they manage to pull the consciousness in the direction of their activity towards objects.

The permanency of things, the false notion that joys and sorrows in life from objects are also permanent in their nature, arises on account of consciousness following the activity of the mind and the sense organs. We have noted this feature sometime earlier when it was observed that in the object perception – the consciousness of an object – two processes are involved, namely, the mind enveloping the object and taking the shape of the object, and consciousness following the mind together with the sense organs and illumining that consciousness. Not only is there a perception of the form of the object on account of the enveloping of the object by the mind, there is also a consciousness that it is so. We begin to feel the location of the object.

The consciousness aspect of perception is due to the Atman consciousness through the intellect proceeding through the mind in terms of the sense organs. But the shape of the structure of the object that is perceived is due to the enveloping of the mind in terms of the object. The mind enveloping the object is called vritti vyakti, and the consciousness following the mental operation is called phala vyakti. The Charvakas, etc. are materialists and they consider the body alone as the real Self.
Samyak vicāro nāstyasya dhīdoṣā diti cettathā, asantuṣṭāstu śāstrārthaṁ na tvaikṣanta viśeṣataḥ (258). Proper discrimination is absent in the case of those who believe in the permanency of things – the reality of this world. It is due to a mistake or error in the working of the intellect itself. Their genius is very muddled.

Those who are indulging in the sense and mental operations in terms of objects will have no desire to study scriptures. They will not have the mind to go to satsanga. They will not have any kind of inclination towards the existence of things above this world. Prarabdha can be very rajasic and tamasic in many cases, where even the longing for the realisation of God cannot be there. Even the thought of God cannot arise in the minds of people whose prarabdha is entirely rajasic and tamasic. It is only where prarabdha is a little bit sattvic that awareness of a higher world arises and we begin to see the lacuna or the insufficiency of things in this world.

Yadā sarve pramu cyante kāmā ye’sya hṛdi śritāḥ, iti śrautaṁ phalaṁ dṛṣṭaṁ neti cet dṛṣta meva tat (259). This is a quotation from the Kathopanishad, which makes out that when all the desires of the heart are entirely released, one experiences Brahman consciousness at once. This is the scripture statement in the Kathopanishad. At once, at this very moment, the experience of Universal Brahman would be possible – provided that all the longings of the heart are pulled out and the desires cease entirely.

Desires must cease – not merely in their obvious operative form, but also in the submerged, latent form. In the operative form they are visible in the waking state and dream state. In the submerged form they are there in the state of deep sleep. The desires should not be there, either as operative or non-operative, active or latent. They should be totally thrown out by the awareness of all things being pervaded by one consciousness. Because of the pervasion of one consciousness through all things, desires for objects should cease of their own accord.

Yadā sarve prabhidyante hṛdaya granthaya stviti, kāmā granthi svarūpeṇa vyākhyātā vākya śeṣataḥ (260). This is also a quotation from the Kathopanishad. When the knots of the heart are broken, Brahman is experienced instantaneously. What are these knots of the heart? Ignorance, desire and action.

The non-perception of reality is called ignorance. This is one kind of knot with which we are tied to this earthly existence. When we are unconscious of the existence of a Universal reality, we suddenly become conscious of the existence of an unreality of the world. When the Universal is not an object of our consciousness, the externality of the world becomes at once the opposite experience. This is desire.

Ignorance is the non-perception of the Universal; desire is the perception of the particular. And the running after the particular objects for fulfilment of those desires is action, karma. Three knots are mentioned: avidya-kama-karma – ignorance, desire, action. These three words are repeated many times by Acharya Sankara in his commentaries as the source of all problems in life: avidya-kama-karma – a threefold knot of the heart, to which the consciousness is tied in terms of empirical experience.

Ahaṅkāra cidātmā nāu ekī kṛtyā vivekataḥ, idaṁ me syād idaṁ me syāt itīcchāḥ kāma śabditāḥ (261). What do we mean by desire? It is defined here. By the identification of egoism – personality consciousness – and not being able to distinguish it from the Universal consciousness which is reflected through it, one begins to feel that this is a very good thing; let me have it. This is not at all a good thing; let me not have it. The desire to have something and the desire not to have something is the desire spoken of, and this kind of dual desire – wanting some things in terms of what is desirable or pleasurable, and not wanting some things which are not pleasurable – is a twofold manifestation of desire. Wanting or not wanting – both these are obverse and the reverse of the same coin. They come under the same desire. This is called kama, the outcome of avidya, and the cause of action directed in terms of fulfilment of desires.

Apraveśya cidātmānaṁ pṛthak paśyanna haṅkṛtim, icchaṁstu koṭi vastūni na bādho granthi bhedataḥ (262). Merely experiencing bodily aches, such as the temporary feeling of hunger and thirst, does not preclude Universal consciousness. Jivanmuktas also eat food; they also feel thirsty. When they feel fatigue, they go to sleep. These are natural effects following from the karmaja adhyasa mentioned, the superimposition of the ego consciousness, personality consciousness with the body and the body with the ego; but they do not have the other kind of consciousness which mistakes the personality for the Universal and the Universal for the personal.

Thus, there is a distinction drawn between ordinary human experience, which is born of karmaja adhyasa, and the real spiritual experience, which has no bhramaja adhyasa, causing no rebirth in spite of a temporary feeling of the body and its consequent appurtenances of feeling hunger, thirst, etc.