Commentary on the Panchadasi

by Swami Krishnananda

Daśamo’stīti vibhrāntaṁ parokśa jñāna mīkṣyate, brahmā stītyapi tadvat syād ajñānā varaṇaṁ samam (57). When a person who has been under the impression that one of the ten people is missing is told that the tenth person is also there, the knowledge that the tenth person is there is called indirect knowledge. The tenth person has not been seen yet. There is no direct knowledge. But it has been told that the person is still alive, existing. This indirect knowledge leads further on to direct knowledge subsequently.

In the same way, when we are told by a Guru that God exists, our ignorance about the existence of God vanishes because the word comes from a reliable person. Many people might not have seen a far-off country, for instance. But when a person who has visited that country says that the country exists because he has actually experienced it, the person who has heard this and yet not gone there personally takes it to be a fact. “Oh, I see. That country exists, because this knowledge has come to me through a person who is reliable, who is not going to mislead me, and who has had a direct experience of it.”

In a similar manner, when we are told God exists, the statement comes from a person who is reliable, who is not likely to mislead us into wrong notions. Brahman exists. This knowledge removes the avarana, or the veil, which is known as the obscuration of the consciousness of there being such a thing called Brahman.

Ātmā brahmeti vākyārthe niḥśesaṇa vicariate, vyakti rulli khyate yadvad daśama stvama sītyataḥ (58). Direct knowledge is, “You are the tenth man, sir. I am not telling you that the tenth man simply exists; I am telling you that you are the tenth person. You have been counting nine people, forgetting yourself as already there. Now I am telling you, you are the tenth one.”

“Oh, I am the tenth one.” The knowledge ‘I am the tenth one’ is direct experience. In a similar manner, when it was told that Atman is, Brahman is, we have only an indirect knowledge by way of reliable sources of information. But when it is applied to one's own direct experience – the Atman that exists is our own self, the Brahman that exists is the largest dimension of our own consciousness – it becomes an experience. Then it becomes direct, an efflorescence of the indirect knowledge obtained earlier.

Daśamaḥ ka iti praśne tvame veti nirākṛte, gaṇayitvā svena saha svameva daśamaṁ smaret (59). Where is the tenth man? Suppose the tenth man, who has not counted himself, puts this question to the passerby. He is told, “You are yourself that. Count yourself first, and then count others. Don't start counting only those people whom you are seeing with your eyes. Why have you not counted yourself first? Are you not alive? Count yourself first: one. Then the other nine may be counted, and so you will have ten people.”

The value of the whole world consists in the value that is recognised in the Atman first. A soul-less world, a soul-less society, a soul-less object does not exist, because anything that has no soul is virtually not existing. And if we consider that the soul is only within us, and it is not anywhere else, and that we can utilise everything other than our own selves as an instrument for our own purpose, what are we actually employing as our instrument? Do you know? It is that which is not a soul, because if we think that the instrument that we are employing for our own purpose is also a soul, it would be a self-contradiction because a soul cannot employ another soul for its own purpose, as they stand on par. They are on equal status.

The soul cannot be a servant of another soul. It is a non-soul that becomes the servant of a soul. The master always thinks that he is the soul and the servant has no soul. He can be sold as a commodity, like a bag of rice, and he will fetch interest. This is how we treat other people, how we treat things in the world, how we treat the world itself as a tool, as a non-self, a soul-less existence, as if we are the only soul.

Now, this is what has happened to the poor man who forgot himself and counted all the non-selves, being nine; and even if nine were there, the sorrow of the tenth man missing was so intense that they could not survive without beating their heads. The soul is the meaning that gives value to everything else in the world which looks like a soul-less existence. Who is the tenth man? You yourself are that. Where is the Atman? Inside you. What are the other things then? They also have a soul like you.

The world is a kingdom of ends; it is not a kingdom of means. This is something that we have to remember always. Nothing in the world, no person, is a means to somebody else. Every person is an end in itself. Everybody has self-respect and would not like to be denied the prerogative of having a respect for one's own self – because the soul asks for respect. Only a soul-less thing has no respect; and if we think that another person has no soul, so much the credit to our wisdom.

Daśamo’smīti vākyotthā na dhīrasya vihanyate, ādi madhyā vasāneṣu na navatvasya saṁśayaḥ (60). Once the consciousness “I am the tenth man” arises, it cannot be obliterated afterwards. He will never forget that he is the tenth person. He can count from the beginning, from the middle or from the end, in serial order or reverse order; he will always find that it is ten. Whether the world is the subject and you are the object or whether you are the subject or the world is the subject, whatever be the case – consider yourself as the subject and the world as the object or consider the world as the subject which looks at you as the object – it makes no difference provided that there is a soul in all things.

A soul-less thing cannot exist. And anything that exists has a soul. Therefore, our attitude towards the world, as it has been obviously and well said, should be the same as our attitude towards our own selves. How do we treat our own selves? That is how we have to treat even a leaf on the tree, what to talk of people in the world. We have no business even to pluck a leaf from the tree. We have no such authority. It has a self-existence of its own. Why are we interfering with it? Otherwise somebody can pluck our ear, and we would not like it.

Sadeve tyādi vākyena brahma sattvaṁ parokṣataḥ, gṛhītvā tattva masyādi vākyāt vyaktiṁ samullikhet (61). In the Upanishads there are two types of description of reality. One definition is called avantara vakya and another is called mahavakya. Avantara vakya is the statement which merely tells us that something exists. It will not tell us where it is. Brahman exists: asti brahma. This is avantara vakya, an intermediary introductory statement made by the Guru in front of the disciple before actual initiation is done. We studied mahavakya in the fifth chapter of this book.

In an avantara vakya of the Chhandogya Upanishad, the Guru speaks to the disciple. Uddalaka Aruni speaks to his disciple, his own son, Svetaketu. Existence alone was prior to the act of creation – One alone, without a second. This is avantara vakya. And the identity of that existed prior to creation, with our own self is the mahavakya. Its existence merely as such, as an object of our knowledge, is indirect knowledge born of avantara vakya, intermediary, introductory definition. When it is said that we are inseparable from it, right from eternity, the mahavakya –  the great statement of instruction – has been communicated.

Ādi madhyā vasāneṣu svasya brahmatva dhīriyam, naiva vyabhi caret tasmāt āparokṣyaṁ prati ṣṭhitam (62). One alone without a second did exist. Therefore, we cannot exist outside it. It is not necessary to add another sentence that we are identical with that. We have a little common sense to understand that it must be the fact. One alone, without a second, was there. And inasmuch as we stand as a second to it, we will be a redundant existence in the presence of that “all-pervading, all-inclusive, One alone, without a second”. Therefore, it is understood, it is implied, that we are inseparable from that. This is aparoksa experience, direct knowledge.

Janmādi kāraṇa tvākhya lakṣaṇena bhṛugḥ, purā pārokṣyeṇa gṛhītvātha vicārāt vyakti maikṣata (63). There was a Guru called Varuna. He had a son called Bhrigu, who was also a disciple. This is an illustration taken from the Taittiriya Upanishad. “Teach me Brahman,” said the disciple to the Guru. “That from which everything comes, that in which everything subsists, that to which everything returns is Brahman. Meditate on this,” was the instruction. After meditating, the disciple went to the Guru again, “Teach me Brahman.” “Contemplate this physical sheath as Brahman.” He meditated, and went again, “Please teach me Brahman.” “Contemplate the vital sheath as Brahman.” He meditated on that, and went again and said, “Please teach me Brahman.” “Contemplate the mental sheath as Brahman.” He meditated thus, and went again to the Guru and said, “Please teach me Brahman.”

Why did he go again and again? What was the matter? There was some defect in the instruction and also in the experience thereby – that is to say, in considering physical, vital, or mental sheaths as Brahman. Again the disciple went, “Please teach me Brahman.” “Meditate on the intellectual sheath as Brahman.” He again meditated on that, and went again to the Guru and said, “Teach me Brahman.” “Meditate on the bliss of Brahman.” After that he did not go again. When bliss has been experienced, why should we go to the Guru afterwards? The Guru is rejected because bliss is a greater Guru than the Guru who brought us the bliss. What do you say?

In the beginning, it was only a definition by way of an indirect instruction. Brahman is that which is the cause, sustenance and the end of all things, and it is that which is pervading the physical body, that which pervades the vital, mental, intellectual sheaths, that which is the ultimate bliss that we experience in the state of deep sleep. Having consciously entered into that sleep, if we can be conscious that we are sleeping, we are in direct contact with Brahman. As we cannot be conscious that we are sleeping, that contact is not possible. We come back in the same way as we went into it. The fool went in, and a greater fool came back.

Yadyapi tvamasītyatra vākyaṁ noce bhṛgoḥ pitā, tathā pyannaṁ prāṇamiti, vicārya sthala muktavān (64). The Guru Varuna did not directly tell Bhrigu what Brahman was. He wanted the disciple to work his own way, by his personal effort, and so he only lead him gradationally, stage by stage, through the levels of experience, right from the conceptual idealisation of God (Brahman) as that which exists as the volition, the sustenance, and the end of all things, that which is in the physical and other sheaths, that which is the ultimate bliss. This is how a graduated instruction was imparted to the disciple by the Guru as we have it recorded in the Taittiriya Upanishad.