Friday, September 20, 2024

Chandogya 7 (and Shankara) on Prana (vital force) and Realisation

 7.15.1. Vital force is surely greater than hope. As spokes are inserted in a hub, similarly are all things inserted in this vital force. The vital force moves with the help of the vital force. The vital force imparts vital force to the vital force. The vital force indeed is the father, the vital force is the mother, the vital foce is the brother. The vital force is the sister, the vital force is the teacher and the vital force is the Brahmin.

Beginning with name and ending with hope, all things that are arranged successively as greater and greater from the point of view of cause and effect, and source and product, (and) which have their existence due to memory, and are held together by the rope of hope just as a stem of a lotus is by the fibres-, they are in every way inserted in the vital force. And by that vital force which pervades everything internally and externally, and which is like a string, all things are strung and held together like gems in a string.

and into which the supreme Deity has entered in the form of an individual soul, like the reflection in a mirror, for manifesting names and forms. And it is the same vital force which is' the manager of God, like the minister of a king, as is stated in the text, ' "On whose depa.rture (from the body) shall I too depart, and on whose continuance in the body shall I too continue?"- thinking thus, He created the vital force' (Ke.VI.3). And that same vital force follows God like a shadow. In the we have, 'As the spokes of a wheel are fixed to the hub, as the spokes are fixed on the nave, in the same way, particular objects' are fixed on particular perceptions!, and the particular perceptions are fixed on the vital force. That vital force itself is the conscious Self 


7.16.1. 'But this one indeed transcends in speech, who transcends by virtue of-realisation of Truth.' '0 venerable sir, such as I am, I want to transcend in speech by virtue of realisation of Truth.' 'Truth indeed has to be sought for realisation.' 'Venerable sir, I seek for the realisation of Truth. 

He, Narada who was such, having heard of that vital force, which transcends everything and which is the Self of all, to be identified with his own Self, stopped by thinking that there. is nothing beyond this, so that he did not ask as he had done before, '0 venerable sir, does anything exist which is greater than the vital force?' Having found him (Narada) satisfied by knowing, in this way, this Brahman which is an unreal transformation, and thus fallen short of the highest success but yet thinking of himself as capable of transcending in speech by virtue of realisation of the highest Truth, the venerable Sanatkumara said to his competent disciple by drawing him away from that particular notion: 'But this one indeed, of whom I shall speak, transcends in speech; in reality, the knower of the vital force does not in speech.' His transcendence in speech is in relation to nameses etc. only. But he is the (real) transcender in speech, who knows the highest Truth beyond all things and called the Infinite.


(tr-Gambhirananda)





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