The Mandukya Upanishad : 8.3.- Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Tuesday, February 16, 2021. 11:45. AM.

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Section 8: The Atman as the Pranavam-3.

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There is, then, the comparison between Makara and the deep sleep state of consciousness. Sushuptasthanah prajno makarastritiya matra: Makara is the third Matra of Om, and it is comparable with Prajna, the third state, causal, of the Atman. Miterapiterva: It is the measure of all things, and it is the dissolver of all things. When we chant Om, Akara and Ukara merge in Makara, as all the impressions of waking and dream merge in Prajna, deep sleep, the causal state. Just as you end the chant with Makara, you end all experience in deep sleep; and as you can repeat the chant subsequent to the closure of the recitation by Makara, waking life commences once again as an offshoot of the deep sleep state, which is the cause of waking. Deep sleep can be called the cause of waking in one sense, the effect of it in another sense. The waking is due to the agitation of the unfulfilled impressions lying buried in the deep sleep state. In this sense we may say that waking is an effect of the state of deep sleep. Deep sleep is the cause, and all experiences in waking and dream are its effects. 

As Isvara is the cause of all things, the deep sleep state seems to be the cause of our waking and dreaming, in one sense, namely, that we wake up from sleep on account of unfulfilled desires. If all our desires are fulfilled, we would not be waking up from sleep, at all. Why should we wake up? What is the purpose? There is something unfulfilled, unexecuted, and therefore we wake up. The Prarabdha-Karma agitates, urges us into activity, wakes us up into the world of objects. Thus, in one sense, Prajna (sleep) is the cause of experience through Visva (waking) and Taijasa (dreaming). 

But, in another sense, Prajna may be regarded as the effect, because Prajna is nothing but that state of consciousness where all the impressions, unfulfilled, unmanifested, lie latent, and these impressions are nothing but the consequences of perception and experience in the waking state. In that sense, the condition of deep sleep is an effect of waking. Makara is of that nature in Om. We may say that the chant commences with Makara or closes with Makara, as in the series of chants of Om. Just as we can have a series of chants or recitations of Pranava, we have a series of wakings and sleepings, and wakings and sleepings. The sleep state measures (Miteh) all things in the sense that the waking and dreaming experiences are determined by the impressions that are there as Sanchita-Karma in the Anandamaya-Kosha (causal state), manifesting itself in the sleep state. 

The Sanchita-Karmas are those group of unfulfilled Samskaras and Vasanas which are there in the state of deep sleep, Prajna, and which sprout forth shoots in the form of experiences in waking and dream. In this sense we measure our experiences in terms of tendencies present in the deep sleep state. The dream and the waking experiences are measured by the potencies already present in the state of sleep, as unfulfilled Vasarras and Samskaras. It is, therefore, the measure (Miti) of experience. And, so is Makara regarded as the container of the processes of chants. Just as the contained is supported by the container, Akara and Ukara seem to be contained in Makara with which one closes the chant. Just as all experiences get submerged in the deep sleep state, even as all our efforts cease when we go to sleep, the recitation of Pranava ceases when Makara commences.

 'A' and 'U', merge themselves in 'M'. Minoti ha va idam sarvam: One, who meditates thus, has the capacity to measure all things, that is, to know everything – he becomes Sarvajna. He becomes Isvara Himself. He becomes the measure of all things; he becomes the yardstick for the cognition of everything in creation. Everything is referred to him; he does not refer himself to other things. He becomes the reference for the whole of creation, the centre of all experience in the cosmos. Apitisca bhavati: Everything merges in him; as the verse in the second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita says, everything enters into him, as rivers enter the ocean. Isvara is the Merger of all creation, and when you become Isvara, the whole creation merges in you. You realise this state by this meditation on the unity of Makara and Prajna, the causal state of Pranava and the causal state of Consciousness, both individually and cosmically.

Now, as there are three relative conditions of the Atman, Jagrat, Svapna and Sushupti – waking, dream and deep sleep – Akara, Ukara, and Makara of Pranava, or Omkara, may be regarded as its relative conditions. But, just as there is a transcendent state of the Atman which has been described as 'Nantah-prajnam, na bahih prajnam, no-'bhayatah-prajnam', etc., there is a transcendent condition of Pranava, or Omkara, which is not constituted of Matras or syllables, but is Amatra, without any measure or syllable. Even as we cannot designate the Atman as either this or that, so we cannot specify this Amatra condition of Om as either this or that. It is a vibration of being, and not a state of sound, and there is no material content in this vibration. It transcends the physical, the subtle and the causal states, and it is not even merely the vibration which sets creation in motion. It is subtler than even the causal vibration with which creation commenced. The only word the Upanishad uses to name this state is Amatra, immeasurable. As the Atman is ungraspable, unrelatable, indescribable, unthinkable, so is this Amatra condition of Omkara measureless in every way.

To be continued ...

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