This post is the fourth of the Upanishad series.
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THE BREATH OF LIFE
May we hear only what is good for all.
May we see only what is good for all.
May we serve you, Lord of Love, all our life.
May we be used to spread your peace in earth.
ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्ति
QUESTION I
1. Sukesha, Satyakama, and Gargya,
Kausalya, Bhargava, and Kabandhi,
Who were all seeking Self-realization,
Approached with love sage Pippalada
For his guidance on the spiritual path.
2. The sage told them: “Live with me for one year,
Practicing sense-restraint and complete trust.
Ask me questions at the end of the year
And I will answer them if I can.”3. After a year Kabandhi asked the sage:
“Master, who created the universe?”
4. The sage replied:
The Lord meditated and brought forth prana
With rayi, the giver of name and form:
Male and female, so that they would bring forth
Innumerable creatures for him.
5. “Prana is the sun; rayi is the moon.
Matter is solid, matter is subtle;
Rayi therefore is present everywhere.
6-7. “The sun gives light and life to all who live,
East and west, north and south, above, below;
It is the prana of the universe.
8. “The wise see the Lord of Love in the sun,
Rising in all its golden radiance
To give its warmth and light and life to all.
9. “The wise see the Lord of Love in the year,
Which has two paths, the northern and the southern.
Those who observe outward forms of worship
And are content with personal pleasures
Travel after death by the southern path,
The path of the ancestors and of rayi,
To the lunar world, and are born again.
10. “But those who seek the Self through meditation,
Self-discipline, wisdom, and faith in God
Travel after death by the northern path,
The path of prana, to the solar world,
Supreme refuge, beyond the reach of fear
And free from the cycle of birth and death.
11. “Some look upon the sun as our father
Who makes life possible with heat and rain
And divides time into months and seasons.
Others have seen him riding in wisdom
On his chariot, with seven colors
As horses and six wheels to represent
The whirling spokes of time.
12. “The wise see the Lord of Love in the month;
Rayi is the dark half, prana the bright.
The wise worship in the light of wisdom,
Others in the darkness of ignorance.
13. “The wise see the Lord of Love in the day;
Rayi is the dark night, prana daylight.
Those who use their days for sexual pleasure
Consume prana, the very stuff of life;
But mastered, sex becomes a spiritual force.
14. “The wise see the Lord of Love in all food;
From food comes seed, and from seed all creatures.
15. They take the lunar path who live for sex;
But those who are self-controlled and truthful
Will go to the bright regions of the sun.
16. “The bright world of Brahman can be attained
Only by those who are pure and true,
Only by those who are pure and true.”
QUESTION II
1. Then Bhargava approached the sage and asked:
“Master, what powers support this body?
Which of them are manifested in it?
And among them all, which is the greatest?”
2. The sage replied: “The powers are space, air, fire,
Water, earth, speech, mind, vision, and hearing.
All these boasted, ‘We support this body.’
3. But prana, vital energy, supreme
Over them all, said, ‘Don’t deceive yourselves.
It is I, dividing myself fourfold,
Who hold this body together.’
4. “But they would not believe these words of prana.
To demonstrate the truth, prana arose
And left the body, and all the powers
Knew they had to leave as well.
When prana Returned to the body, they too were back.
As when the queen bee goes out, all the bees
Go out, and when she returns all return,
So returned speech, mind, vision, and hearing.
Then the powers understood and sang this song:
5. ‘Prana burns as fire; he shines as the sun;
He rains as the cloud; he blows as the wind;
He crashes as the thunder in the sky.
He is the earth; he has form and no form;
Prana is immortality.
6. ‘Everything rests in prana, as spokes rest
In the hub of the wheel: all the Vedas,
All the rituals, all the warriors and kings.
7. ‘O prana, you move in the mother’s womb
As life to be manifested again.
All creatures pay their homage to you.
8. ‘You carry offerings to gods and ancestors
And help sages to master their senses,
Which depend upon you for their function.
9. ‘You are the creator and destroyer
And our protector. You shine as the sun
In the sky; you are the source of all light.
10. ‘When you pour yourself down as rain on earth,
Every living creature is filled with joy
And knows food will be abundant for all.
11. ‘You are pure and master of everything.
As fire you receive our oblations;
It is you who gives us the breath of life.
12. ‘Be kind to us with your invisible form,
Which dwells in the voice, the eye, and the ear,
And pervades the mind. Abandon us not.
13. ‘O prana, all the world depends on you.
As a mother looks after her children,
Look after us. Grant us wealth and wisdom.’ ”
QUESTION III
1. Then Kausalya approached the sage and asked:
“Master, from what source does this prana come?
How does he enter the body, how live
After dividing himself into five,
How leave the body at the time of death?
How does he support all that is without
And all that is within?”
2. The sage replied: “You ask searching questions.
Since you are a devoted aspirant
Seeking Brahman, I shall answer them.
3. “Prana is born of the Self. As a man
Casts a shadow, the Self casts prana
Into the body at the time of birth
So that the mind’s desires may be fulfilled.
4. “As a king appoints officers
To do his work in all the villages,
So prana works with four other pranas,
Each a part of himself, to carry out
Different functions in the body.
5. “The main prana dwells in eye, ear, mouth, and nose;
Apana, the downward force, in the organs
Of sex and of excretion. Samana,
The equalizing force in the middle,
Digests food and kindles the seven fires.
6. “Vyana, distributor of energy
Moves through the myriad vital currents
Radiating from the heart, where lives the Self.
7. At the time of death, through the subtle track
That runs upward through the spinal channel,
Udana, the fifth force, leads the selfless
Up the long ladder of evolution,
And the selfish down. But those who are both
Selfless and selfish come back to this earth.
8. “The sun is the prana of the universe,
And it rises to bring light to our eyes.
The earth draws the lower fire of apana;
The space between sun and earth is samana,
And the moving air is vyana.
9. “Fire is udana. When that fire goes out,
The senses are drawn back into the mind
And the person is ready for rebirth.
10. Whatever the content of consciousness
At the time of death, that is what unites us
To prana, udana, and the Self,
To be reborn in the plane we have earned.
11. “Those who realize this go beyond death.
Their children too follow in their footsteps.
12 Those who perceive how prana rises,
Enters the body, and becomes fivefold
To serve the Self, they die not; they die not.”
QUESTION IV
1. Then Gargya approached the sage and asked him:
“Sir, when a man is sleeping, who is it
That sleeps in him? Who sees the dreams he sees?
When he wakes up, who in him is awake?
When he enjoys, who is enjoying?
In whom do all these faculties rest?”
2. The sage replied: “As the rays of the sun,
When night comes, become all one in his disk
Until they spread out again at sunrise,
Even so the senses are gathered up
In the mind, which is master of them all.
Therefore when a person neither hears, sees, smells,
Tastes, touches, speaks, nor enjoys, we say he sleeps.
3. “Only the fires of prana are burning.
Apana is like the holy hearth-fire
Ever burning in the householder’s shrine;
Vyana is like the fire that faces south
For carrying offerings to our ancestors;
And prana is the fire that faces eastward.
4. Samana is the equalizing fire
That balances inward and outward breath,
The offerings made by the mind.
Udana is the fruit of dreamless sleep,
In which the mind is led close to the Self.
5. “The dreaming mind recalls past impressions.
It sees again what has been seen; it hears
Again what has been heard, enjoys again
What has been enjoyed in many places.
Seen and unseen, heard and unheard, enjoyed
And unenjoyed, the real and the unreal,
The mind sees all; the mind sees all.
6. “When the mind is stilled in dreamless sleep,
It brings rest and repose to the body.
7. Just as birds fly to the tree for rest,
All things in life find their rest in the Self.
8. Earth, water, fire, air, space, and their subtle
Elements, the eyes and what can be seen,
The ears and what can be heard, the nostrils
And what can be smelled, the palate and what
Can be tasted, the skin and what can be touched,
The tongue and what can be spoken,
The hands and what can be held, the organ
Of sex and its object of enjoyment,
The organ of excretion and what is
Excreted, the feet and what they walk on,
The mind and what it thinks, the intellect
And what it knows, the ego and what
It grasps, the heart and what it loves, the light
And what it reveals: all things in life
Find their rest in the Self in dreamless sleep.”
9. “It is the Self who sees, hears, smells, touches,
And tastes, who thinks, acts, and is pure consciousness.
The Self is Brahman, changeless and supreme.”
10. “Those who know the supreme Self as formless,
Without shadow, without impurity,
Know all, gentle friend, and live in all.
11. Those who know the Self, the seat of consciousness,
In whom the breath and all the senses live,
Know all, gentle friend, and live in all.”
QUESTION V
1. Satyakama approached the sage and asked:
“Those who have become established in ॐ,
What happens to them after death?”
2. The sage replied: “ॐ is both immanent
And transcendent. Through it one can attain
The personal and the impersonal.”
3. “ॐ has three sounds. Those who meditate on a
Come back to earth, led by the Rig Veda,
To lead a pure life, full of faith and love.
4. Those who meditate on the first two sounds,
A and u, led by the Yajur Veda,
Go to the lunar world, full of pleasure,
From which they come back cloyed to earth again.
5. But those who meditate on a, u, and m
Are led by the Sama chants to the sun,
Where freed from sin, as a snake sheds its skin,
They see the supreme Lord, who lives in all.”
6. “These three sounds when they are separated
Cannot lead one beyond mortality;
But when the whole mantram, a, u, and m,
Indivisible, interdependent,
Goes on reverberating in the mind,
One is freed from fear, awake or asleep.
7. “The Rig Veda brings one to earth; the Yajur
Escorts one to the region of the moon;
The Sama leads one to the solar world,
To which the sage attains through the mantram.
Established in this cosmic vibration,
The sage goes beyond fear, decay, and death
To enter into infinite peace.”
QUESTION VI
1. Then Sukesha approached the sage and said:
“Master, the prince of Kosala asked me
This question once: ‘Sukesha, do you know the Self
With his sixteen forms?’ ‘I don’t,’ I replied.
‘If I did, I would certainly tell you;
For he who speaks an untruth perishes
Like a tree without roots.’ The prince mounted
His chariot and went away silent.
Now may I ask you, where is that Self?”
2. The sage replied: “Within this body dwells
The Self with his sixteen forms, gentle friend.
3. The Self asked himself, ‘What is it that makes
Me go if it goes and stay if it stays?’
4. So he created prana, and from it
Desire; and from desire he made space, air,
Fire, water, the earth, the senses, the mind,
And food; from food came strength, austerity,
The scriptures, sacrifice, and all the worlds;
And everything was given name and form.
5. “As rivers lose their private name and form
When they reach the sea, so that people speak
Of the sea alone, so all these sixteen
Forms disappear when the Self is realized.
Then there is no more name and form for us,
And we attain immortality.
6. “The Self is the hub of the wheel of life,
And the sixteen forms are only the spokes.
The Self is the paramount goal of life.
Attain this goal and go beyond death!”
7. The sage concluded: “There is nothing more
To be said of the Self, nothing more.”
8. The students adored their teacher and said:
“You are our father; you have taken us
Across the sea to the other shore.”
Let us adore the illumined sages!
Let us adore the illumined sages!
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NOTES
2024.08.08
I’m not sure if any amount of commentary will make this make sense to me . . .
Prana and rayi seem close to yin and yang but also strikingly different. There is feminine and masculine here, but it seems quite focused on consciousness (prana) vs. physical (rayi) compared to the ineffable yin and yang. At some points prana reminds me of qi.
[3.7] So udana, the fifth force of prana, is in charge of karma? Selfish down, selfless up, mix of both stay? Man . . .
[4.9] “It is the Self who sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes, who thinks, acts, and is pure consciousness. The Self is Brahman, changeless and supreme.”
[5.3-5] Confused about this part on AUM.
[6.4] Desire created from prana? Similar to desire from conatus?
[6.5] Ocean again. Reminds me of Zhuangzi 17: “Autumn Floods.”