<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
	<META HTTP-EQUIV="CONTENT-TYPE" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8">
	<TITLE>Upanishadic
Symbolism</TITLE>
	
</HEAD>
<BODY LANG="en">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
	<tr>
		<td>
<p align="center" style="margin-left:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b><font size="4">Upanishadic
Symbolism</font></b></p>
<P ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
A certain rationalistic critic divides the Upanishadic
symbols into three categories – those that are rational and can be
easily understood by the mind; those that are not understood by the
mind and yet do not go against reason, having nothing inherently
irrational in them and may be simply called non-rational; those that
seem to be quite irrational, for they go frankly against all canons
of logic and common sense. As an example of the last, the irrational
type, the critic cites a story from the <I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">Chhn</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">dogya,
</FONT></I>which may be rendered thus:</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
There was an aspirant, a student who was seeking after
knowledge. One day there appeared to him a white dog. Soon, other
dogs followed and addressed their predecessor: &quot;0 Lord, sing to
our Food, for we desire to eat.&quot; The white dog answered, &quot;Come
to me at dawn here in this very place.&quot; The aspirant waited. The
dogs, like singer-priests, circled round in a ring. Then they sat and
cried aloud; they cried out, <I>&quot;Om </I>We eat and <I>Om </I>we
drink, may the gods bring here our food.&quot;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important
to bear in mind that the Upanishads speak of things experienced –
not merely thought, reasoned or argued and that these experiences
belong to a world and consciousness other than that of the mind and
the senses. One should naturally expect here a different language and
mode of expression than that which is appropriate to mental and
physical things. For example, the world of dreams was once supposed
to be a sheer chaos, a mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is
held to be quite otherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered
a method – even a very well-defined and strict method – in the
madness of that domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant
world; but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered.<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-12<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>It is not a jargon, but a foreign language
that must be learnt and
mastered.</FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
In the same way, the world of spiritual experiences is
also something methodical, well-organized, significant. It may not be
and is not the rational world <I>of </I>the mind and the sense; but
it need not, <I>for </I>that reason, be devoid of meaning, mere
fancifulness <I>or </I>a child's imagination running riot. Here also
the right key has to be found, the grammar and vocabulary <I>of </I>that
language mastered. And as the best way to have complete mastery of a
language is to live among the people who speak it, so, in the matter
of spiritual language, the best and the only way to learn it is to go
and live in its native country.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Now, as regards the
interpretation <I>of </I>the story cited, should not a suspicion
arise naturally at the very outset that the dog <I>of </I>the story
is not a dog but represents something else? First, a significant
epithet is given to <I>it – white; </I>secondly, although it asks
<I>for </I>food, it says that <I>Om </I>is its food and <I>Om </I>is
its drink. In the Vedas we have some references to dogs. Yama has
twin dogs that &quot;guard the path and have powerful vision.&quot;
They are his messengers, &quot;they move widely and delight in power
and possess the vast strength.&quot; The Vedic Rishis pray to them
f<I>or </I>Power and Bliss and f<I>or </I>the vision <I>of </I>the
Sun.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT> There is also the Hound <I>of
</I>Heaven, Sarama, who comes down and discovers the luminous cows
stolen and hidden by the Panis in their dark caves; she is the
path-finder for Indra, the deliverer.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
My suggestion is that the dog is a symbol <I>of </I>the
keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception <I>of </I>direct
knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite
sensible and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for
Knowledge came first a purified power <I>of </I>direct understanding,
an Intuition <I>of </I>fundamental value, and this brought others <I>of
</I>the same species in its train. They were all linked together
organically – that is the significance <I>of </I>the circle, and
formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth <I>(Om).
</I>It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn to chant,
the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening <I>of </I>the
consciousness to truths that come from above and beyond.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the
symbol<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>Rig
Veda, X. 14-11, 12.</FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Page-13</P>
<hr>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
of Intuition. In the Vedas, the
cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the
frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the
environment of ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to
the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have
to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These
material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and
subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking,
however, symbols are not <I>chosen </I>in a subtle or spiritual
experience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and
constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a
dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a
psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are
very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third
eye.</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>I. THE SEVERAL LIGHTS</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The <I>Brihadaranyaka </I>speaks
of several lights that man possesses, one in the absence of another,
for his illumination and guidance.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
First of all, he has the Sun; it
is the primary light by which he lives and moves. When the Sun sets,
the Moon rises to replace it. When both the Sun and the Moon set, he
has recourse to the Fire. And when the Fire, too, is extinguished,
there comes the Word. In the end, when the Fire is quieted and the
Word silenced, man is lighted by the Light of the Atman. This Atman
is All-Knowledge; it is secreted within the life, within the heart:
it is self-luminous <I>Vij<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ntilde;Ä</FONT>namayah
pr<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Äņ</FONT>e<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ş</FONT>u
hrdyantar jyotih.</I> 
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The progression indicated by the
order of succession points to a gradual withdrawal from the outer to
the inner light, from the surface to the deep, from the obvious to
the secret, from the actual and derivative to the real and original.
We begin by the senses and move towards the Spirit.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The Sun is the first and the
most immediate source of light that man has and needs. He is the
presiding deity of our waking consciousness and has his seat in the
eye – <I>cak<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ş</FONT>usah <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>dityah,
<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>dityah caksuh bh<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>tv<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>
aksin<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ī</FONT> pr<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>vi<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ś</FONT>at.
</I>The eye is the representative
</P>
<p align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">Page-14</p>
<hr>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
of the senses; it is the sense
<I>par excellence. </I>In truth, sense-perception is the initial
light with which we have to guide us, it is the light with which we
start on the way. A developed stage comes when the Sun sets for us,
that is to say, when we retire from the senses and rise into the
mind, whose divinity is the Moon. It is the mental knowledge, the
light of reason and intelligence, of reflection and imagination that
govern our consciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond
the mind, exceed the derivative light of the Moon. So when the Moon
sets, the Fire is kindled. It is the light of the ardent and aspiring
heart, the glow of an inner urge, the instincts and inspirations of
our secret life-will. Here we come into touch with a source of
knowledge and realization, a guidance more direct than the mind and
much deeper than the sense-perception. Still this light partakes more
of heat than of pure luminosity; it is, one may say, incandescent
feeling, but not vision. We must probe deeper, mount higher – reach
heights and profundities that are serene and transparent. The Fire is
to be quieted and silenced, says the Upanishad. Then we come nearer,
to the immediate vicinity of the Truth: an inner hearing opens, the
direct voice of Truth – the Word – reaches us to lead and guide.
Even so, however, we have not come to the end of our journey; the
Word of revelation is not the ultimate Light. The Word too is
clothing, though a luminous clothing – <I>hiranmayam p<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>tram</I>
When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence,
absolute calm and quietude reign in the entire consciousness, when no
other lights trouble or distract our attention, there appears the
Atman in its own body; we stand face to face with the source of all
lights, the self of the Light, the light of the Self. We are that
Light and we become that Light.</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>II. THE FOUR OBLATIONS</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.96cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<I>The Word has four breasts.
The Gods feed on two, </I>SWAHAKAR <I>and </I>VASHATKAR, <I>men upon
the third, </I>HANTAKAR, <I>and the Ancestor upon the fourth, </I>SWADHA&sup1;
–</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.96cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Ritualistically these four terms
are the formulae for oblation 
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<font size="2">&sup1;<I>Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, </I></font>
<font size="2" FACE="Times New Roman Cyr, serif">V.
8.і.</font><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-15</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
to four Deities, Powers or
Presences, whom the sacrificer wishes to please and propitiate in
order to have their help and blessing and in order thereby to
discharge his dharma or duty of life. <I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">Sv</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">h</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>is the offering especially dedicated to Agni, the foremost
of the Gods, for he is the divine messenger who carries men's
offering to the Gods and brings their blessing to men. Vasatk<I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Är</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>is the offering to the Gods generally. <I>Hantak<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Är</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>is the offering to mankind, to our kin, an especial form
of it being the worship of the guests, <I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">sarvadevamay'tithi.
Svadh</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>is the offering to the departed Fathers (Pitris).</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The duty of life consists, it is
said, in the repaying of three debts which every man contracts as
soon as he takes birth upon earth – the debt to the Gods, to Men
and to the Ancestors. This threefold debt or duty has, in other
terms, reference to the three fields or domains wherein an embodied
being lives and moves and to which he must adjust and react rightly
-if he is to secure for his life an integral fulfilment. These are
the family, society and the world and beyond-world. The Gods are the
Powers that rule the world and beyond, they are the forms and forces
of the One Spirit underlying the universe, the varied expressions of
divine Truth and Reality: To worship the Gods, to do one's duty by
them, means to come into contact and to be united-in being,
consciousness and activity-with the universal and spiritual
existence, which is the supreme end and purpose of human life. The
second – a more circumscribed field – is the society to which one
belongs, the particular group of humanity in which he functions as a
limb. The service to society or good citizenship entails the worship
of humanity, of Man as a god. Lastly, man belongs to the family,
which is the unit of society; and the backbone of the family is the
continuous line of ancestors, who are its presiding deity and
represent the norm of a living dharma, the ethic of an ideal life.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
From the psychological
standpoint, the four oblations are movements or reactions of
consciousness in its urge towards the utterance and expression of
Divine Truth. Like some other elements in the cosmic play, these also
form a quartet – <I>caturvy<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ūha – and
</FONT></I>work together for a common purpose in view of a perfect
and all-round result.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">Sv</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ÄhÄ</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>is the offering and invocation. One must dedicate
everything to the Divine, cast all one has or does into the Fire of<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.36cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-16<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Aspiration that blazes up
towards the Most High, and through the tongue of that one-pointed
flame call on the Divinity.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
In doing so, in invoking the
Truth and consecrating oneself to it, one begins to ascend to it step
by step; and each step means a tearing of another veil and a further
opening of the I passage. This graded mounting is <I>vasatk<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ra</I>.
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">Hantak</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Är
</FONT></I>is the appearance, the manifestation of the Divinity –
that which makes the worshipper cry in delight, &quot;Hail!&quot; It
is the coming of the Dawn – ahan<I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT></I>
– when the night has been traversed and the lid rent open, the
appearance of the Divine to a human vision for the human
consciousness to seize, almost in a human form.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Finally, once the Truth is
reached, it is to be held fast, firmly established, embodied and
fixed in its inherent nature here in life and the waking
consciousness. This is <I>Svadh<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">.</FONT></I></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The Gods feed upon <I>Sv<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>dh<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä
</FONT></I>and <I>Vasat, </I>as these represent the ascending
movement of human consciousness: it is man's self-giving and
aspiration and the upward urge of his heart and soul that reach to
the Gods, and it is that which the immortals take into themselves and
are, as it were, nourished by, since it is something that appertains
to their own nature.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
And in response they descend and
approach and enter into the aspiring human soul – this descent and
revelation and near and concrete presence of Divinity, this <I>Hanta
</I>is man's food, for by it his consciousness is nourished.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=LEFT style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
This interchange, or mutual
giving, the High Covenant between the Gods and Men, to which the Gita
too refers</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
With this sacrifice nourish the
Gods, that the Gods may nourish you; thus mutually nourishing ye
shall obtain the highest felicity&sup1;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
is the very secret of the cosmic
play, the basis of the spiritual evolution in the universal
existence.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The Gods are the formations or
particularisations of the Truth-consciousness, the multiple
individualisations of the One spirit. The Pitris are the Divine
Fathers, that is to say, souls that once laboured and realised here
below, and now have passed beyond. They dwell in another world, not
too far removed from the earth, and from there, with the force of
their</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2><I>&sup1;The Gita,
</I>III-II.</FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-17</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Realisation, lend a more concrete help and guidance to
the destiny that is being worked out upon earth. They are forces and
formations of consciousness in an intermediate region between Here
and There <I>(antariksa), </I>and serve to bring men and gods nearer
to each other, inasmuch as they belong to both the categories, being
a divinised humanity or a humanised divinity. Each fixation of the
Truth-consciousness in an earthly mould is a thing of joy to the
Pitris; it is the <I>Svadh<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT></I>
or food by which they live and grow, for it is the consolidation and
also the resultant of their own realisation. The achievements of the
sons are more easily and securely reared and grounded upon those of
the forefathers, whose formative powers we have to invoke, so that we
may pass on to the realisation, the firm embodiment of higher and
greater destinies.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>III. THE PATH OF THE FATHERS AND
THE PATH OF THE GODS</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>One is an ideal in and of the world, the other is an
ideal transcending the world. The Path of the Fathers (Pitry<I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT></I>na)<I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>enjoins the right accomplishing of the <I>dharma </I>of
Life – it is the path of works, of Karma; it is the line of
progressive evolution that, man follows through the experience of
life after life on earth. The Path of the Gods (Devay<I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT></I>na)
runs above life's evolutionary course; it lifts man out of the
terrestrial cycle and places him in a superior consciousness it is
the path of knowledge, of Vidya.&sup1; The Path of the Fathers is the
soul's southern or inferior orbit (<I>daksinayana, apar<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>rdha</I>);
the Path of the Gods is the northern or superior orbit (<I>uttar<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>yana,
par<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>rdha)
<FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">. </FONT></I>The former is
also called the Lunar Path and the latter the Solar Path.&sup2; For
the moon represents the mind,&sup3; and is therefore, an emblem that
befits man so long as he is a mental being and pursues a dharma that
is limited by the mind; the sun, on the other hand, is the knowledge
and consciousness that is beyond the mind – it is the eye of the
Gods.4</FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds.
The first is the manifest world-the world of the body, the life</FONT></P>
		<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2><I>&sup1; Karma<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ņÄ</FONT>
pit<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ŗ</FONT>loka vidyay<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>
devolokah (jayy<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>h) –
Brihadaranyaka, 1.5.16.</I></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=LEFT style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2><I>&sup2; Devalok<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>d<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>dityam...
pitrlok<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ccandram 0 Ibid., VI.
2.15.16.</I></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=LEFT style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2><I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>C<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ndram
mano bh<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>tv<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>
– Aitareya, 1.2.4; Manasascandram<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>h
– Ibid., 1.1.4.</I></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=LEFT style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<I><font size="2">4Div<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ī</FONT>va
caksur<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>tatam – Rig Veda</font></I><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; page-break-after:avoid; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<I>Page-18</I><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
and the mind. The body has
flowered into the mind through the life. The body gives the basis or
the material, the life gives power and energy and the mind the
directing knowledge. This triune world forms the humanity of man. But
there is another aspect hidden behind this apparent nature, there is
another world where man dwells in his submerged, larger and higher
consciousness. To that his soul – the Purusha in his heart only has
access. It is the world where man's nature is transmuted into another
triune reality – Sat, Chit and Ananda.</P>
		<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The one, however, is not
completely divorced from the other. The apparent, the inferior nature
is only a preparation for the real, the superior nature. The Path of
the Fathers concerns itself with man as a mental being and seeks so
to ordain and accomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to
the Path of the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness
should be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should develop
along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as to make them
fit to receive the light which belongs to the higher level, so
allowing the human soul imbedded in them to extricate itself and pass
on to the Immortal Life.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
And they who are thus lifted up
into the Higher Orbit are freed from the bondage to the cycle of
rebirth. They enjoy the supreme Liberation that is of the Spirit; and
even when they descend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as
free agents, as vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring
down something of the substance and nature of the Solar reality into
the lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it is
allowed, into the higher.</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
IV. THE
TRIPLE AGNI</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Agni is the divine spark in man,
the flaming consciousness in the mortal which purifies and uplifts
<I>(p<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>vaka) </I>mortality into
immortality. It is the god &quot;seated in the secret heart, who is
the possession of infinity and the foundation of existence,&quot; as
Yama says to Nachiketas.&sup1;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Indeed, it was to this godhead
that Nachiketas turned and he wanted to know of it and find it, when
faith seized on his</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2>&sup1; <I>Katha,
I</I>.1.14.</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-19</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
pure heart and he aspired for
the higher spiritual life. The very opening hymn of the Rig Veda,
too, is addressed to Agni, who is invoked as the vicar seated in the
front of the sacrifice, the giver of the supreme gifts.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
King Yama initiated Nachiketas
into the mystery of Fire Worship and spoke of three fires that have
to be kindled if one aspires to enter the heaven of immortality.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The three fires are named
elsewhere Garhapatya, Dakshina, and Ahavaniya.&sup1; They are the
three tongues of the one central Agni, that dwells secreted in the
hearth of the soul. They manifest as aspirations that flame up from
the three fundamental levels of our being, the body, the life and the
mind. For although the spiritual consciousness is the natural element
of the soul and is gained in and through the soul, yet, in order that
man may take possession of it and dwell in it consciously, in order
that the soul's empire may be established, the external being too
must respond to the soul's impact and yearn for its truth in the
Spirit. The mind, the life and the body which are usually
obstructions in the path, must discover the secret flame that is in
them too – each has his own portion of the Soul's Fire – and
mount on its ardent tongue towards the heights of the Spirit.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Garhapatya is the Fire in the
body-consciousness, the fire of Earth, as it is sometimes called;
Dakshina is the Fire of the moon or mind, and Ahavaniya that of
life.&sup2; The earthly fire is also the fire of the sun; the sun is
the source of all earth's heat and symbolises at the same time the
spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar
fire is also the fire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being
the consorts or powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic
experience, the intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has
its symbol in lightning, electric energy being its vehicle.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.45cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Agni in the physical
consciousness is called <I>grhapati, </I>for the body is the house in
which the soul is lodged and he is its keeper, guardian and lord. The
fire in the mental consciousness is called <I>daksin<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">;
</FONT></I>for it is that which gives discernment, the power to
discriminate between the truth and the falsehood, it is that which by
the pressure of its heat and light</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.45cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2>&sup1; C<I>hhandyogya,
IV, </I>11. 12, 13; <I>V, </I>18.2.</FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<font size="2">&sup2; C<I>hhandyogya, IV, </I>11.
12. 13; <I>V, </I>18,2.</font><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-20</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=justify STYLE="line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
cleaves the wrong away from the
right. And the fire in the life-force is called <I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>havan<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ī</FONT>ya;</I>
for <I>pr<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>na</I> is not only the
plane of hunger and desire, but also of power and dynamism, it is
that which calls forth forces, brings them into' play and it is that
which is to be invoked for the progression of the Sacrifice, for an
onward march on the spiritual path.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Of the three fires one is the
upholder – he who gives the firm foundation, the stable house where
the Sacrifice is performed and Truth realised; the second is the
Knower, often called in the Veda <I>j<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>taved<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT></I>,
who guides and directs; and the third the Doer, the effective Power,
the driving Energy – <I>vai<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ś</FONT>v<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>nara</I>.</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
V. THE
FIVE GREAT ELEMENTS</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The five elements of the
ancients – earth, water, fire, air and ether or space – are
symbols taken from the physical world to represent other worlds that
are in it and behind it. Each one is a principle that constitutes the
fundamental nature of a particular plane of existence.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Earth represents the material
world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest
form. It is the basis of existence, the world that supports other
worlds <I>(dhar<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>, dharitr<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ī</FONT>)</I>,<I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">
</FONT></I>the first or the lowest of the several ranges of creation.
In man it is his body. The principle here is that of stability,
substantiality, firmness, consistency.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Water represents the next rung –
the vital world, the world life-force <I>(pr<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>na).
</I>Physiologically also we know that water is the element forming
three-fourths of the constituents of a living body and that dead and
dry are synonymous terms; it is the medium in which the living cells
dwell and through which they draw their sustenance. Water is the
veritable sap of life – it is the emblem of life itself. The
principle it represents is that of movement, continuity, perpetuity.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.35cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Fire represents the Heart. It is
that which gives the inner motive to the forces of life, it is the
secret inspiration and aspiration that drive the movements of life.
It is the heat of consciousness, the ardour of our central being that
lives in the Truth and accepts nothing, nothing but the Truth. It is
the<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.35cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-21</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
pure and primal energy of our
divine essence, driving ever upward and onward life's course of
evolution.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Air is Mind, the world of
thought, of conscious formation; it is where life-movements are taken
up and given a shape or articulate formula for an organised
expression. The forms here have not, however, the concrete rigidity
of Matter, but are pliant and variable and fluid – in fact, they
are more in the nature of possibilities, rather than actualities. The
Vedic Maruts are thought-gods, and lndra (the Luminous Mind), their
king, is called the Fashioner of perfect forms.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Ether or Space is the infinitude
of the Spirit, the limitless Presence that dwells in and yet
transcends the body, the life the heart and the mind.</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
VI. THE
SCIENCE OF THE FIVE FIRES</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The Science of the Five Agnis
(Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and illustrates the
process of the birth of the body, the passage of the soul into earth
existence. It describes the advent of the child, the building of the
physical form of the human being. The process is conceived of as a
sacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression
of their vision and perception of universal processes of Nature,
physical and psychological. Here, the child IS said to be the final
fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the process being:
(i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v) Child. Soma means
Rasa – physically the principle of water, psychologically the
'principle of delight – and symbolises and constitutes the very
soul and substance of life. Now it is said that these five principles
– the fundamental and constituent elements – are born out of the
sacrifice, through the oblation or offering to the five Agnis. The
first Agni is Heaven or the Sky-God, and by offering to it one's
faith and one's ardent desire, one calls into manifestation Soma or
Rasa or Water, the basic principle of life. This water is next
offered to the second Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain,
again, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings forth
Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the Father or
Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid.<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-22<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Finally, this fluid is offered
to the fifth Agni, the Mother or the Female, who delivers the Child.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.35cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The biological process,
described in what may seem to be crude and mediaeval terms, really
reflects or echoes a more subtle and psychological process. The
images used form perhaps part of the current popular notion about the
matter, but the esoteric sense goes beyond the outer symbols. The sky
seems to be the far and tenuous region where the soul rests and
awaits its next birth – it is the region of Soma, the <I>own Home
</I>of Bliss and Immortality. Now when the time or call comes, the
soul stirs and journeys down – that is the Rain. Next, it enters
the earth atmosphere and clothes itself with the earth consciousness.
Then it waits and calls for the formation of the material body, first
by the contribution of the father and then by that of the mother;
when these two unite and the material body is formed, the soul
incarnates.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Apart from the question whether
the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak
for another order of reality, and even taking it at its face value,
what is to be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic
cycle that proceeds through the principle of sacrifice. If it is asked
what there is wonderful or particularly spiritual in this rather <I>na&iuml;f
</I>description of a very commonplace happening that gives it an
honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is that it <I>is
</I>wonderful to see how the Upanishadic Rishi takes from an event
its local, temporal and personal colour and incorporates it in a
global movement, a cosmic cycle, as a limb of the Universal Brahman.
The Upanishads contain passages which a puritanical mentality may
perhaps describe as 'pornographic'; these have in fact been put by
some on the <I>Index expurgatorius. </I>But the ancients saw these
matters with other eyes and through another consciousness.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
We have, in modern times, a
movement towards a more conscious and courageous, knowledge of things
that were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower,
darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into
the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with
such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an
unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs
on the same lines, but, with the<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.4cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-23</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
unveiling and the natural –
and not merely naturalistic – delineation of these under-worlds
(concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective <I>sub
specie aeternitatis. </I>The sexual function, for example, is easily
equated to the double movement of ascent and descent that is secreted
in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakriti in the
cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and
moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and
profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is
taught to consider and to mould all his movements-of soul and mind
and body-in the light and rhythm of that integral Reality.&sup1;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.45cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The central secret of the
transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the
mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental,
universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement,
conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release
and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or
processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to
the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the
descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher
means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the
descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the
former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same
idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the
gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the
supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an
egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to
sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic Being – Visva Purusha – and
that alone received which comes from Him.</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.45cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.46cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&sup1; The secularisation of
man's vital functions in modem ages has not been a success. It has
made him more egocentric and blatantly hedonistic. From an occult
point of view he has in this way subjected himself to the influences
of dark and undesirable world-forces, has made an opening, to use an
Indian symbolism, for Kali (the Spirit of the Iron Age) to enter into
him. The sex-force is an extremely potent agent, but it is extremely
fluid and elusive and uncontrollable. It was for this reason that the
ancients always sought to give it a proper mould, a right continent,
a fixed and definite channel; the moderns, on the other hand, allow
it to run free and play with it recklessly. The result has been, in
the life of those born under such circumstances, a growing lack of
poise and balance and a corresponding incidence of neurasthenia,
hysteria and all abnormal pathological conditions.<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.46cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page-24</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
VII. THE
COSMIC AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The Supreme Reality which is
always called Brahman in the Upanishads, has to be known and
experienced in two ways; for it has two fundamental aspects or modes
of being. The Brahman is universal and it is transcendental. The
Truth, <I>satyam, </I>the Upanishad says in its symbolic etymology,
is 'This' (or, He) and 'That' <I>(syat </I>+ <I>tyat </I>i.e. <I>sat
</I>+ <I>tat). </I>'This' means the Universal Brahman: it is what is
referred to when the Upanishad says:</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
I<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">śÄ</FONT>v<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>syamidam
sarvam : All this is for habitation by the Lord;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
or, <I>Sarvam khalvidam brahma:
</I>All this is indeed the Brahman;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
or, <I>Sa evedam sarvam: </I>He
is indeed all this;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
or, <I>Ahamevedam sarvam: </I>I
am indeed all this;</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
or, <I>Atmaivedam sarvam: </I>The
Self indeed is all this; or again, <I>Sarvamasmi: </I>I am all.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The <I>Chhandyogya&sup1; </I>gives
a whole typal scheme of this universal reality and explains how to
realise it and what are the results of the experience. The Universal
Brahman means the cosmic movement, the cyclic march of things and
events taken in its global aspect. The typical movement that
symbolises and epitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is that
of the sun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the
fivefold <I>s<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ma. S<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ma
</I>means the equal Brahman that is ever present in all, the
Upanishad itself says deriving the word from <I>sama. </I>It is <I>S<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ma
</I>also because it is a rhythmic movement, a cadence – a music of
the spheres. And a rhythmic movement, in virtue of its being a wave,
consists of these five stages: (i) the start, (ii) the rise, (iii)
the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the fall. Now the sun follows this
curve and marks out the familiar divisions of the day: dawn,
forenoon, noon, afternoon and sunset. Sometimes two other stages are
added, one at each end, one of preparation and another of final lapse
– the twilights with regard to the sun – and then we have seven
instead of five <I>s<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>mas</I>.<I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">.
</FONT></I>Like the Sun, the Fire – that is to say, the sacrificial
Fire – can also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i) the
lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering 
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<font size="2">* </font> <I><font size="2">Chhandyogya, II, III.</font></I><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.05cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; page-break-after:avoid; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<I>Page-25</I><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
and finally (v) extinction –
the fuel as it is rubbed to produce the fire and the ashes may be
added as the two supernumerary stages. Or again, we may take the
cycle of five seasons or of the five worlds or of the deities that
control these worlds. The living wealth of this earth is also
symbolised in a quintet – goat and sheep and cattle and horse and
finally man. Coming to the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his
five senses, basis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm,
to I bring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad refers
to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity: (i) the
threefold Veda, the Divine Word that is the origin of creation, (ii)
the three worlds or fields – earth, air-belt or atmosphere and
space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively
these worlds – Fire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions,
emanations or embodiments – stars and birds and light-rays, and
finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these worlds – to earth
belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the Gandharvas and to heaven
the ancient Fathers.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Now, this is the All, the
Universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness.
And that can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself
with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's
individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate
life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast.
It is thus that man shares in the consciousness and energy that
inspire and move and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most
emphatically enjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or
deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan
mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness that
one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially:
<I>Sarvamanveti jyok j<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ī</FONT>vati.</I></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.44cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Still the Upanishad says this is
not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and
consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies
the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience
in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often
conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and
worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered
not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad – the whole gamut, as it were, 
consisting of 21 notes or syllables. <BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 26<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The
Upanishad says, this number does
not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This
is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme
Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as
being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words,
99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality
beyond, the Transcendent.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.36cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Elsewhere the Upanishad
describes more graphically this truth and the experience of it. It is
said there that the sun has five-we note the familiar five-movements
of rising and setting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to
North, (iii) from West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from
above-from the Zenith-downward. These are the five normal and
apparent movements. But there is a sixth one; rather it is not a
movement, but a status, where the sun neither rises nor sets, but is
always visible fixed in the same position.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Some Western and Westernised
scholars have tried to show that the phenomenon described here is an
exclusively natural phenomenon, actually visible in the polar region
where the sun never sets for six months and moves in a circle whose
plane is parallel to the plane of the horizon on the summer solstice
and is gradually inclined as the sun regresses towards the equinox
(on which day just half the solar disc is visible above the horizon).
The sun may be said there to move in the direction
East-South-West-North and again East. Indeed the Upanishad mentions
the positions of the sun in that order and gives a character to each
successive station. The Ray from the East is red, symbolising the
<I>Rik, </I>the Southern Ray is white, symbolising the <I>Yajur, </I>the
Western Ray is black symbolising the <I>Atharva. </I>The natural
phenomenon, however, might have been or might not have been before
the mind's eye of the Rishi, but the symbolism, the esotericism of it
is clear enough in the way the Rishi speaks of it. Also, apart from
the first four movements (which it is already sufficiently difficult
to identify completely with what is visible), .the fifth movement, as
a separate descending movement from above appears to be a foreign
element in the context. And although, with regard to the sixth
movement or status, the sun is visible as such exactly from the point
of the North Pole for a while, the ring of the Rishi's utterance is
unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.39cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 27<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
refer to a fact of inner
consciousness-that is at least what the physical fact conveys to the
Rishi and what he seeks to convey and express primarily.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Now this is what is sought to be
conveyed and expressed. The five movements of the sun here also are
nothing but the five <I>s<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>mas </I>and
they refer to the cycle of the Cosmic or Universal Brahman. The sixth
status where all movements cease, where there is no rising and
setting, no ebb and flow, no waxing and waning, where there is the
immutable, the ever-same unity, is very evidently the Transcendental
Brahman. It is That to which the Vedic Rishi refers when he prays for
a constant and fixed vision of the eternal Sun –<I> jyok ca s<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>ryam
dri<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ś</FONT>e.</I></P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.43cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
It would be interesting to know
what the five ranges or levels or movements of consciousness exactly
are that make up the Universal Brahman described in this passage. It
is the mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in
<I>things – madhuvidy<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>. </I>The
five ranges are the five fundamental principles of delight –
immortalities, the Veda would say – that form the inner core of the
pyramid of creation. They form a rising tier and are ruled
respectively by the gods Agni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahma-with
their emanations and instrumental personalities-the Vasus, the
Rudras, the Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest that
these refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or nodi
of consciousness or something very much like them. The Upanishad
speaks elswhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras of Tantric
system lie in the same line. The first and the basic mode is the
physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni and the Vasus are
always intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles
(it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second
in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism
of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God <I>(cf.
</I>Swadhishthana of the Tantras-the navel centre). lndra, in the
Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of
dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is more often
considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the
present passage, Indra is taken in his second aspect and instead of
the Maruts with whom he is usually invoked has the Rudras as his
agents and associates.<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.43cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 28</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The third in the line of
ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of
the large Mind and its lights -perhaps it can be connected with
Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the
Maruts-this seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and
keen and sweeping aspirations-the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth
is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the
Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending
inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you
pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the
Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate,
indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns,
<I>never – na ca punar<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>vartate na
ca punar<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>vartate.</I></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
VIII. HOW
MANY GODS?</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
&quot;How many Gods are there?&quot;
Yajnavalkya was once asked.1 The Rishi answered, they say there are
three thousand and three of them, or three hundred and three, or
again, thirty-three; it may be said too there are six or three or two
or one and a half or one finally. Indeed as the Upanishad says
elsewhere, it is the One Unique who wished to be many: and all the
gods are the various glories <I>(mahim<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>)
</I>or emanations of the One Divine. The ancient of ancient Rishis
had declared long long ago, in the earliest Veda, that there is one
indivisible Reality, the seers name it in various ways.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.35cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
In<B> </B>Yajnavalkya's
enumeration, however, it is to be noted, first of all, that he
stresses on the number three. The principle of triplicity is of very
wide application: it permeates all fields of consciousness and is
evidently based upon a fundamental fact of reality. It seems to
embody a truth of synthesis and comprehension, points to the order
and harmony that reigns in the cosmos, the spheric music. The
metaphysical, that is to say, the original principles that constitute
existence are the well-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit,
Ananda; and (ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mind-this being a
reflection or translation or concretisation of the former. We can see
also</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT><I>Brihadaranyaka
III.9.</I></FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; font-style:normal; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 29<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
here how the dual principle
comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya
refers. The same principle is found in the conception of
Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad
says<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT> yet again that the One
original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so for a companion
he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle
signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what
is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means
that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate,
independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the
Manichean system, but that it is a portion, a fraction of the One.
And in the end, in the ultimate analysis, or rather synthesis, there
is but one single undivided and indivisible unity. The thousands and
hundreds, very often mentioned also in the Rig Veda, are not simply
multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its
many-sidedness; it indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete
completeness (p<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>r<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ņ</FONT>asya
p<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>r<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ņ</FONT>am)
of the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a rounded
totality, a full circle. The hundred-gated and the thousand-pillared
cities of which the ancient Rishis chanted are formations and
embodiments of consciousness human and divine, are realities whole
and entire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.43cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Besides this metaphysics there
is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a
well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take
special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a
general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and
subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the
chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of 
division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a 
genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, 
the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is bi-une in respect of
manifestation-the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one
reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as
dividing into three forms or aspects -the well-known Brahma, Vishnu
and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or
primary emanations. </P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.43cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.43cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT> <I>Brihadaranyaka
</I>1.4.</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.43cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 30<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
Now, each one of them in
its turn has its own emanations – the eleven Rudriyas are familiar.
These are secondary and there are tertiary and other graded
emanations – the last ones touch the earth and embody physico-vital
forces. The lowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one
or other of the primaries and their nature and function partake of or
are an echo of their first ancestor.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Man, however, is an epitome of
creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of
consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest
Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his
true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect
or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his
individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the
more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man
is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite
line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now
understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an
ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper
of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational
understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant
conclusion that leads one to choose a path of religion or
spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of
being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has
descended, it is the secret affinity – the spiritual blood-relation
as it were – that determines the choice and adherence. And it is
this that we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and
bitterness which attend such adherence and which go &quot;by the
&quot;name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., a;e a
deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret
loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is
not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For
it must not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original is
one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is
global and not exclusive. And the human being that attains such a
status is not bound or wholly limited to one particular formation:
its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the
two can go together: an individual<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.4cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 31<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
can be impersonal in
consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The number of gods depends on
the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane
there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms
(adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a
second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose
number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness
that reveals itself.</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>IX. NACHIKETAS' THREE BOONS</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
The three boons asked for by
Nachiketas from Yama, Lord of Death, and granted to him have been
interpreted in different ways. Here is one more attempt in the
direction.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Nachiketas is the young aspiring
human being still in the <I>Ignorance-naciketa, </I>meaning one
without consciousness or knowledge. The three boons he asks for are
in reference to the three fundamental modes of being and
consciousness that are at the very basis, forming, as it were, the
ground-plan of the integral reality. They are (i) the individual,
(ii) the universal or cosmic and (iii) the transcendental. 
</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The first boon regards the
individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It
asks for the maintenance of that individuality so that it may be
saved from the dissolution that Death brings about. Death, of course,
means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution
pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with
the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body
gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and
the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas
wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the
earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital
based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity
for the aspiring mortal-for, it is said, the body is the first
instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true
personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body,
beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region that Death
lords it over. That is the divine world,
<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.41cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 32<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
the Heaven of the
immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth
secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of
Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the
threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and
the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out
of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns
the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when
one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and
experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all
existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual
and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead
that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all
the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has
entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in
multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as
the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the
series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and
realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by
Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple
work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the
vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to
the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human
soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life.
Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called
<I>j<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>taved<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>s,
</I>he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to
life.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The third boon is the secret of
secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence
that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is
there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual
into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can
the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would
be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside
manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there
existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinction -Death in
his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer
immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing
the question over which<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.38cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 33<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
people were confounded, as he
said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha
was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the
pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and
not,waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond
that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
But Yama did answer and unveil
the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge-the knowledge of
the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that
the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord
of creation and the Inner Master<I> – sarvabh<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>lt<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>ntar<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>tm<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>,
antary<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>m<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ī –</FONT>
is </I>called <I>brahmajam, </I>born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the
process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience
first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a
definite line along which the human consciousness (or
unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The
first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the
Pleasurable <I>(<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ś</FONT>reya </I>and <I>preya).
</I>The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the
false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher
truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the
consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental
preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In
the midst of the death-ridden consciousness – in the heart of all
that is unstable and fleeting – one has to look for Agni, the
eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time
through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Man has two souls corresponding
to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is
involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of
grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it
looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and
then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection
of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence
tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance
and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly
ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher
and then of its highest<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.42cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 34<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
status. It is true, however,
that the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the
cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same
breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each
other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the
Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or
cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to
enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys
itself in the cosmos-he goes abroad, <I>sa paryag<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>t:
</I>and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the
particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds
itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The teaching of Yama in brief
may be said to be the gospel of immortality and it consists of the
knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher
of immortality than Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The
first immortality is that of the physical existence and
consciousness, the preservation of the personal identity, the
individual name and form – this being in itself as expression and
embodiment and instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality
enshrines the second immortality – the eternity and continuity of
the soul's life through its incarnations in time, the divine Agni lit
for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and
final immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time,
beyond all relativities, the absolute and self-existent delight.<BR>
		</P>
<P LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.42cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
Page – 35</P>
<P ALIGN="right" STYLE="text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"> 
<a href="-00_Ccontent"><img src="/Nolini/Volume-2/_Gif_Image/home03a.gif" width="39" height="50" border="0"></a></P>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>
</BODY>
</HTML>