THE MANDUKYA UPANISHAD -3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, July 08, 2022. 08:00

POST-3.

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There are four functions of the psychic organ. The internal psyche, which is generally called manas—or mind, in ordinary language—has four functions. In Sanskrit these four functions are designated as manas, buddhi, ahamkara and chitta. Manas is ordinary, indeterminate thinking—just being aware that something is there. That is the work of the mind; that is manas. Buddhi determines, decides and logically comes to the conclusion that something is such and such a thing. That is another aspect of the operation of the psyche —buddhi, or intellect. The third form of the mind is ego, ahamkara, affirmation, assertion. “I know that there is some object in front of me and I also know that I know. I know that I am existing as this so-and-so.” This kind of affirmation attributed to one's own individuality is the work of ahamkara, known as egoism. The subsconscious action, memory, etc., are called the chitta, which is the fourth function. Thus, manas, buddhi, ahamkara and chitta are the four basic functions of the internal organ, the psychological organ.

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Hence we have five senses of knowledge, five organs of action, five pranas and four operations of the psyche, totalling nineteen. Consciousness grasps objects from outside through these mouths. We feel secure and happy because all these nineteen aspects are acting at the same time, in some form or other, with more or less emphasis. Any one of the nineteen can act at any time under special given conditions. Inasmuch as any one can act at any time, it is virtually saying that all are acting at the same time. Therefore, we are actively, objectively conscious through the nineteen operative media of the individual consciousness in the waking condition. We are aware of this vast world of sensory perception, and we go on contacting these objects of the world through these media.

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In this connection, it is also mentioned that we can conceive this form of perception in a cosmic way. Cosmic-consciousness can be conceived to be operative in this manner in a cosmic waking condition. Just as we are individually conscious of objects in this waking condition of ours, in a similar manner we can conceive that the Universal consciousness is awake to the world of daylight. The whole universe is the object of the consciousness of a consciousness, in a manner similar to an individualised, circumscribed world becoming the object of our individual consciousness in the waking state. The terms for this waking state are jagrat-avastha, jagrat-sthana. For instance, ‘visva' is the word used to designate consciousness in the waking, individualised state. Our consciousness, the jiva tattva, this individuality of ours during this moment of waking, is called visva. And, this very waking world of universal expanse in space and time, animated by a universal consciousness, is called vaisvanara or virat. ‘Virat' is the word sometimes used. There is a consciousness pervading all things, as we know already. If this consciousness—which is universal and is hidden behind all things—is to be aware of the whole cosmos as we perceive in our waking condition, that cosmic, waking awareness of the whole universe may be regarded as virat tattva, Cosmic-consciousness of the whole physical world—the entire cosmos of physicality.

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We have heard that Sri Krishna manifested the virat-svarupa before Arjuna. In the Purusha Sukta also, we have some sort of description in which the Cosmic Being is conceived as animating the whole physical cosmos. We have to understand here that the physical cosmos is not merely this earth, but is all the layers of externality—which are computerised, as it were, into fourteen categories, known in Sanskrit as bhulok, bhuvarlok, svarlok, maharlok, janalok, tapolok and satyalok. The whole cosmos, in all the levels of its manifestation, is at once an object of the awareness of this Cosmic Being. Such an awakened waking state, as it were, of the Cosmic-consciousness is virat—known also as vaisvanara in the language of the Upanishads. Individually, the microcosmic aspect of this virat is visva, your own or my own waking experience as it is available just now, for instance.


To be continued ....


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