Lights on the Upanishads

PRANA VIDYA

“If one were to tell this to a dried-up stump Sure, branches would shoot forth and leaves spring from it.”

Goshruti, son of Vyaghrapad, student of sacred knowledge, stayed with the teacher, as was usual in those days, for the necessary period of instruction and practical training for the knowledge of Brahman. His teacher, Satyakama, son of the servant girl Jabala, had himself gone through a long course of discipline, tapasyā, and by celibacy, brahmacarya, and service to the guru pleased and won the favour of the Gods the mystic Bull (Vayu or Indra?), Agni, the Swan, the Water-bird.¹²²

They, each in his special line, offered to teach and taught him several aspects of Brahman; indeed, he learnt the truths by their grace, received the knowledge so well that when the teacher saw him later, his very person bespoke the light of Bramic wisdom housed in it. Joyous, the Guru at the request of the disciple bestowed on him the blessings of the final touch for consummation, as if out of regard for the tradition that effective knowledge is usually propagated by the teacher to the disciple, brahmavidyāsantati. Satyakama in due course became an adept in his turn and specialised in more than one method of approach to the knowledge of Brahman. He was the teacher who initiated Upakosala, son of Kamala, into what is called Akshi-purusha Vidya. To Goshruti whom he blessed with the knowledge of Prana Vidya, he concludes his instructions with these words: “ If one were to tell this to a dried-up stump, sure, branches would be produced on it and leaves would grow.”¹²³

This is the glory of the Prana Vidya of which Goshruti received the knowledge, with the subtleties of practical application, from his master Satyakama. There is no difficulty in grasping the drift of the passage in question. If even a sapless, almost dead stump could revive itself growing to a new-born tree with fresh branches and foliage, man, living, could assuredly develop to large extent the formative powers of Life and expression of the Spirit by opening to the creative power of the Prana Vidya. The paragraphs that follow reinforce this view and in furtherance of the same proclaim that the aspirant for greatness prays for the strength by which he might become or be all this, aham eva idam sarvam asāni. By access to a conscious union with the Life-Spirit, i.e., the Spirit that dwells in and controls all life, man could re-live himself opened to a vaster existence, awaken to vistas of a larger Life, and extend his activity to a wider range of possibilities which ordinarily may seem remote for realisation. This is the trend of the text that we have taken up to illustrate the fact that the Upanishads are books as much of knowledge, jñāna, as of upāsanā, a way of approach by which the knowledge is won.

What is the character of the Prana Vidya that the Upanishad praises with a certain force of rhetoric? Is it the same as Brahma Vidya or subsidiary to it, serving a lesser purpose on the way before the goal is reached? If, as is admitted on all hands, the sole aim of all spiritual endeavour is knowledge of the param brahman, taught in the Upanishads, how is it that so many vidyās find place in them some of which are said to bring worldly gains to the sadhaka ?

Such questions arise in our attempt to appreciate the vidyā sādhanas that are broadly hinted at or noted with extreme brevity in these concluding portions of the Vedic scriptures, the texts of the Vedanta. In dealing with these questions we understand and bear in mind some fundamentals of the Upanishadic teachings. We proceed in these enquiries on the basis that the Upanishads are pre-eminently books of knowledge, records of many methods of approach to the Ultimate Reality, inspired utterances of seers who, by disciplined effort, by whole-souled devotion to their subject, by subtle and higher faculties revelatory and intuitional, developed by special means, penetrated into and broke open the seals of the secrets of subtle psychological and spiritual truths and lived the life of the Spirit.

In their effort they were, as a rule, aided by the tradition of the Vedic Rishis, by the achievements of others who had gone before them, or by the help—not unoften — proffered by the higher Intelligences and Powers of the Universal Spirit itself. Here, we stand on firm grounds relying, as we do, on the internal evidence of these scriptures supported by abiding and agelong tradition, religious and spiritual, and on the testimony of authentic minds that these truths are always verifiable by anyone who is interested and equips himself for the venture. Needless to say that it is an erroneous notion to entertain that the Upanishads are the results of revolt, rebel are the children of the parent religion of a semi-civilised Vedic past. We discard the view, foreign to the spirit and tenor of these sacred texts, that the Upanishads are metaphysical products of speculative labour, which, disrobed of the euphemism, is, in plainer language, bold conjectures of the fantastic or the fabrications of the introvert — notions that have no correspondence to verifiable truths or observable facts.

The Upanishads, then, represent a fragment of the cumulative knowledge of profound truths perceived and lived by the Vedanic seers. The Chhandogya from which we have taken the instance of Prana Vidya for a general appreciation of these Vidyas, is, like the Brhadaranyaka, one of the four or five brāhmaṇa-upanişads which bear the stamp of antiquity among the twelve major texts. It makes an easy and natural use of the terms and symbols of ritualistic worship which formed part of the externals of the Vedic religion. The Gods of the Vedic pantheon—Agni, Vayu, Indra, Surya — are frequently mentioned as having a double function as Nature-powers in the universe, adhidaivatam, and as the lords of the senses, life, mind and other instruments of the soul within us, adhyātmam.

When we speak of the Gods of the Upanishads it is necessary to mention that they occupy a relatively subordinate position in these teachings, while in the Rig Veda generally, they are lords in their sovereign right; each one of them is supreme in his place, is indeed the whole Godhead within and behind him, is one front or facet of the Supreme Deity, retaining the particular features for his special function, a distinct Personality for the purpose. But we know that there is one dominant note vibrating throughout the Upanishads and that is the famous dictum that “All this is, verily, Brahman”, sarvam khalvidam brahma. If all is Brahman, how can the Gods—Agni, Vayu, Indra, Surya — symbolised by Nature-powers, be excluded from being parts or forms of the Brahman? Certainly any object associated with purity, holiness, strength or something sublime could be chosen as a fit object in which the Supreme Deity could be worshipped. In the Upanishads the gods are taken for forms of worship of Brahman, to meditate upon. But when they are closely related to ritualistic worship, the upāsanā is treated as part of the ritual, karmānga vidyā, said to bring worldly benefits and this need not engage our attention here.

There are still other upāsanās which are indirectly parts of brahmopāsanā. For there are two kinds: one is worship indirect, partial, symbolic; the other is direct wherein is made a nearest approach through meditation employing methods and forms which correspond to certain aspects of the character of Brahman as seen and taught by the seers of the Vedanta. This is mukhya, the chief or main upāsanā to which we shall revert later on: the other is the angopāsanā and technically called pratika upāsanā, worship of a limb or part or subsidiary to the main worship. Pratika means a limb, anga or a part in later Sanskrit: it is a Vedic word which originally meant ’face, that which moves fronting you, prati eti; later it came to mean any part of the body, not merely the face, the frontal aspect. There are instances in the Riks where the word is so explained by Sayana.¹²⁴

The Upanishads seem to have had still some memory of the pratika character of the Vedic Gods as distinct facets or Personal fronts of the One Supreme Godhead; but in practice, they are regarded as respectable parts or limbs and symbols of worship, mediums for meditation on Brahman. There are many pratikas mentioned in the Upanishads for upāsanā and of all of them the Sun is the most glorious symbol of God advocated for worship, adityo brahmetyupāsita. There are two factors that contribute to an effective course of the symbolic worship. The conception of Brahman as specially focussed in the Golden Person that resides in and presides over the Solar world and not the mere solar body as object of worship is an essential element in this pratika upāsanā. And this is the other factor the teachers of the Vedanta have warned that one should not identify oneself with the pratika one worships, i.e., the symbols in which one worships Brahman. This caution was found necessary to avert a possible equation deduced from the two well-known affirmations of the Vedanta:

1. All is Brahman, sarvam khalvidam brahma.
   2. I am Brahman, aham brahmasmi.

Therefore I am the All which includes the pratika and I am pratika. It is to avoid such a misconception, it is stated, that the worshipper, upāsaka, should not conceive himself as any of the pratikas he worships, na pratike na hi sah;¹²⁵ on the other hand, he should have the sublime conception, the supreme idea of Brahman applied to the pratika; even here the pratika is not to be thought of as Brahman; for although the superior has sway over the inferior and includes it, it is not itself the inferior. Therefore it is the highest conception, the Brahman-Idea that is the ruling principle of all pratikopā sanās, brahmodrstir utkarşāt.”:¹²⁶

Now let us turn to the direct and chief methods of approach to Brahman, muķhya brahmopāsanā, and see closer into the real character of prāņa and fix the sense in which the Upanishads speak of it as Brahman itself. When prāņa is taken in a limited sense and narrowed down to the vital air, life-breath in the creatures, it is used as a pratika representing Brahman in a comparatively tangible manner and recommended as a means used on the path to reach the goal of Brahmic knowledge. Examples of such pratikas as prāņa, life, manas, mind, ākāśa, ethereal substance co-extensive with space, are to be found in the Chhandogya and other texts for Sadhana; but some of these are directly related to Brahman and are comprehensive, apparently realistic, appealing forms of brahmopāsanā itself; ākāśa and prāņa are two most important of them indicating as they do two essential aspects or Brahman. Indeed almost all the Sadhanas, especially in the Chhandogya, are, broadly speaking, covered by three Vidyas which have immediate reference to three terms of Brahman, conceived as ātman, ākāśa and prāņa. Let us put succinctly what exactly we mean by Atman. If " All this ", idam sarvam, is the last term of Brahman, the first term is Atman, the Self, by which is meant the foremost principle of Being, the Self in itself, the Self of All that is and has come to be, the Self of all selves, the Self which sees, and is not the seen; this Sole Seer is He, the Self-aware Purusha, the One Eternal, Immortal. All the Sadhanas which lay stress upon this aspect of Brahman, come under what is called Purusha Vidya.

Thus Brahman, the Atman, is intelligible. But how can Akasha be termed Brahman? Akasha is well-known to be the primary element wherein resides the quality of sound. How can Brahman be termed a mere element, jadā, insentient, while Brahman is Intelligence itself? We can get an idea of what they mean by Akasha, if we carefully look into some of the relevant passages of the texts. “ Akasha is the support, pratisthā, it is the goal, gati, the ultimate resort of the world, parāyaṇam." “ All beings rise from Akasha and set in Akasha.” “Verily, it is Akasha that manifests Name and Form and that within which they are is Brahman, that the Immortal, He is the Atman."¹²⁷ It is not necessary to multiply instances from other Upanishads also where Akasha is explained as the substance out of which all existences are manifested, all worlds are built, without which nothing can exist, none live, breathe, ko hyevānyāt, kaḥ prānyāt. In fact it is the very body of Brahman as it were, ākāśa-śaſiram brahma, whose nature is Delight, ākāśa ānanda. In a sense, we can say that it is the very Nature, the unmodified Prakriti of all existences, not the insentient Prakriti of the Sankhya system, but the Conscious Prakriti of the early Vedantas. Still, the difficulty is not solved; for the question remains whether what we call the elemental bhūta ākāśa is the same as what the Upanishads refer to as the Delight-body, ānanda sariram, what we may call the Prakriti, the Substance, the material Cause, so to say, of all existences.

We must pause and look around to see what we mean by bhūta ākāśa, before we can find the right answer. Certainly, it is easy to state that Akasha is not this external visible Akasha, but the Inner, Spiritual, what is called cidākāśa that is meant by the term, for that is the Eternal Being, sat, brahman. But then, there is the danger of excluding the physical Akasha from being in any way related to the original Substance of Being. Besides, ordinarily our notion of Akasha is that we perceive space and that it is a void. Though such a conception is natural and inevitable, constituted as the human mind at present is, we can still appreciate the fact that our mind cannot conceive of space without a boundary, nor of boundary without space. This is because what we actually see is form and not the formless space which is nothing but an extension provided for differentiation in the beginning of things, an extension without which there could not be knowledge of differences, formation of distinct objects or forces of contact. And this Extension itself is finally and at first spiritual in character while in the intermediate term for Manifestation it assumes a subtle and psychological figure in the subjective and in the objective existence a grosser visual vastness imaging the Infinitude of the Eternal Being, Brahman. Nor is it an extension in the Void; it is an extension in and of the Substance whose real nature is Ananda, Delight of Being and is present everywhere. Therefore Akasha is the term applied to Brahman as the source and substance of all existences. It includes the Akasha, the element of our gross conception, though the latter is just an aspect of the Infinitude presented to the outward mind. Because it is all-pervasive and subtle to grasp and yet impressive in a way and is the nearest image in the Physical of the Infinite, it is treated as synonymous with Brahman in those passages of the Upanishads where the source and support and substance of all creation or manifestation of world-existence are mentioned.

Indeed the Akasha conception proves itself an effective means to predispose the mind to allow the Idea-image or thought-vision of the Infinite to influence, dominate and face it from many fronts, above, within, outside and everywhere, so that the mind learns by habit to sense the Infinite, as it were, even in some of its aimless and mechanical runnings. And in order that such meditations on Akasha shall not be a dull and dry affair, the Upanishad teaches that it is to be discovered within, in the heart of the living and the conscious, in the deepest centre of one’s being, in the small, dahara, ākāśa. But it takes care to say that though this ākāśa is stated to be small, dahara, to the outward mind trying to draw inward, it is really as great as this ākāśa outside; it is Bhuma, yavan vā ayam ākāśaḥ tāvān eşontar hrdaya ākāśaḥ.

Now that we have an idea of Brahman the atman and Brahman the ākāśa, we can proceed to the third term, Brahman the prāņa to which reference has already been made. If ātman is the Sole Being, the Self-aware Spirit, puruṣa, and if ākāśa is the Substance, the Delight of Self-being, the sole essence of the All Existence, then prāņa is the term applied to the active conscious element inherent in the puruṣa. Resting on the Self-awareness of the Spirit it acts on the Substance of Self-Delight and brings out the World-being in countless forms and spheres of the One Immense Existence, sat. Here a question may arise. Is it proper to extend the connotation of prāņa to Brahman as the active Conscious Power inseparable from the Spirit? If so, what is the justification? For usually, by prāņa we understand Vayu, the vital air, life-breath or life itself. And what do the Upanishads mean when they apply it to Brahman? Certainly they do not use it in the sense that because All is Brahman, prāņa also is Brahman. The word is used in a special sense to denote an aspect of the Supreme Truth, a function if we may say so, of the Spirit that is the Supreme and the Self, an active principle by which the One Existence lends itself to the All Existence, the One Being turns into many becomings, the One Self radiates into many selves, the One Formless moulds itself into many forms.

If we examine the texts of the Brahmanas of which the Upanishads form the crowning part where the beginning of things, creation, is described, we invariably find an idea expressed in the same or similar way in these words: “He, the sole Being, saw, aikșata, He desired, willed, akāmayata, aicchat, that He might become the Many, bahu syām; tense in tapas, He created, tapo tapyata asrjata” By tapas, the creative incubation, He fashioned and hatched the Cosmic Egg, brahmānda. Again, we find it stated in the Chhandogya “By the life, jivena, that is the Self, ātmanā, I shall enter in (these divinities) and manifest vyākaravāni, Name and Form.”¹²⁸ Here, it is by the Jiva which is the same as prāņa that the manifestation is effected. Thus we find that it is the Power of the Spirit, the active gaze of the Purusha, the tapas, which is the Self-contained Force of Consciousness, the Supreme Life that is the life of all lives that makes possible all activity and movement in the infinite field of the Indivisible limitless sat, Purusha. It is this principal aspect of Brahman which is termed prāņa that is the efficient cause while ākāśa is the material, upadāna käraņa, of created Existence. For it is the dynamic factor that causes all manifestation and is indicated by various terms such as cit-sakti, Tapas or the Supreme prāņa. That prāņa is not mere life but a Conscious Power is reiterated by mention made of it as Consciousness in these texts, prāṇaḥ prajñātāmā or yā vai prajñā să prāṇaḥ yo vai prāṇaḥ så prajña—"What is Consciousness is Life, and what is Life is Consciousness.” Other texts declare that prāņa (Vayu) is the Deity that never sets, anastamita devatā. That prāņa or the Supreme Life is used in the sense of tapas, of Conscious Force which is creative and dynamic, will be still more clear from the famous hymn of Parameshthin in the Rig Veda—"That One breathed without air by the power of its own being”, anid avātam svadhayā tad ekam.¹²⁹ Here, anit, simply breathed, shows that the One Being is in its own way active, or at least disposed to be active; it lives; it breathes, not by any means outside of it, but by its own way of holding itself, by svadhā which in later Sanskrit is svadharma, self-nature or self-law. When nought was there, no differentiation or duality could be thought of, that One existed with its own Nature of creative breath—this is the substance of the Rik. This natural Breath is the same as prāņa, the dynamic agent, the cause of all formation, of all manifestation.

That prāņa, like ākāśa, is meant to refer to Brahman in the sense we have made explicit will be still more evident from the verdict of Badarayana in the Vedanta Sutras.¹³⁰ There is one other circumstance we may note in passing which goes to show that the Chhandogya seriously declares that ākā śa and prāņa are Brahman, the Uncreated, the Immortal. In affirming the creative Triad of Tejas, Ap, Anna,¹³¹ it has omitted to mention the two primary elements, Akasha and Vayu. This position is greatly strengthened by passages in other Upanishads¹³² that ākāśa and prāņa are the Immortal amſtam and whatever is other than the two is mortal. But the fact that they are in usage understood to be elements was recognised by the ancient teachers and the author of the Brahma-sutras had to clear the misconception and establish that even ākāśa and prāna as elements are created,¹³³ though he had earlier in the first chapter concluded that they were terms of Brahman as already explained.

We have so far dwelt on the three terms of Brahman that mattered not a little to the upāsakās of the Chhandogya branch of the Vedic learning. Put briefly, they are atman, akāśa, prāna—each is absolutely the Brahman, inseparable from the other two. It is the sole Supreme Reality that is at once Atman the Self-aware Being; the Akasha Ananda, the Substance that is the Delight of Being; the Prana which is variously termed Chit-shakti (Consciousness that is Force), Tapas, Creative Incubation, the Supreme Life of all that lives and becomes. The basic conception of Brahman, then, is that it is the One in the Three as well as the Three in the One and certainly corresponds to the later triple formula of Sat-Chit-Ananda.

This fundamental idea is sure to go some way in aiding us to appreciate the Prana Vidya with which we started. All those Sadhanas taught in the Upanishads that take the life principle for the starting-point in the Sadhana are covered largely by what is named Prana Vidya. Even as this Upanishad starts with Akasha in its grosser aspect as an image of the Infinite, so it does with prāņa as an image, however gross and dark and refractory, of the Supreme prāņa, the Tapas in its highest form. For the Original prāņa is the Supreme, founding its forms in the lower manifestation, supporting its own fragments, reflections or radiations in the living beings here, so much so that the Upanishads speak of two kinds of prāņa. The mukhya prāņa is the basis for individual life here, hence is called the Chief; all activities of the main life, of what we would call the sense-mind, are spoken of as prāņa. For the Upanishad which starts with concrete objects in Nature using them as symbols for upāsanā, it is easier to advise the use of any of the prāņas — voice, seeing, hearing, all are termed prāņas here—by special means known to the Sadhakas of the age, for effecting their union with the mukhya-prāņa, their Chief from which they branch out for their different functions. It is the mukhya-prāna which is the individual centre here of the Supreme prāņa, that has to become its true image. The culmination of the Prana Vidya is the correct expression, the ideal formation of the Life Supreme in the individual that is at once a real reflection, a substantial figure, a canalised current, a focussed and focussing centre and vehicle in constant and conscious union with its Source, the Original and Omnipotent prāņa of the Creative Self, the Tapas of Ishwara.

Though the scriptures do not give the actual method of the Sadhana and no book could ever give the Sadhana — one fact is quite obvious from the passages of the text which refers to a symbolic rite in connection with the Prana Vidya we are considering. There is a prayer here in brāhmaṇa prose. Thou art Strength (ama) by name; “ All this ’ is, verily, at home in Thee; for He is the Most Senior (pre-eminent) and Excellent, King and Overlord. Let him lead me to pre-eminence and supremacy, kingship and overlordship. Let me be ’All this ?."¹³⁴ What is remarkable in this prayer is to be found in the last line. It throws light on the fact that the prayer is not conceived in a narrow sense; it does not arise in the heart of a soul who is actuated by greed, impelled by passion for power and tossed by the dark and limiting forces of ignorance and egoism. Here ensouling the prayer, there is a will, a knowledge, a recognition that there is One who is the most senior, jyestha, the One who is the Excellent, śrestha, who is the Sole real Sovereign and Overlord and it is His supremacy and overlordship that one prays for, for share and enjoyment.¹³⁵ And this is possible only when one realises that “all this” is for the enjoyment (food) for the One and lives in complete union with Him, the Sole Life, offering whatever one egoistically is, in order to become “ all this ” which is really for that Supreme’s enjoyment, like food.

That this is the spirit of the prayer becomes transparent to us from the Rik which is used immediately in the symbolic rite, for concentration and prayer " Of Savitri Divine we embrace that enjoying, that which is the best, rightly disposes the all, reaches the goal, even Bhoga’s, we hold by the thought."¹³⁶

In the light of what has been stated about the profound character of prāņa it is hardly necessary to strike a note of caution that the prāna vidyā should not be mistaken for prāņāyāma, the breath-control or similar devices of the Yoga Sadhana of later times. It is idle to attempt to go back to a distant past and discover the exact form and details of the Upasanas of the Upanishadic teachers from whom we are removed by a space of two to three millenniums. Even when we grasp the spirit of these ancient teachings, it is unreasonable to suppose that we receive the substance in the same form — time cannot be annihilated that way. Nor is it necessary; for the spirit and ideas of these Vidya Sadhanas have survived, though in fragments, forming the bases of many systems of practical value, of spiritual disciplines that have come down to us in different forms suited to the changing conditions through the ages. But to know about these Sadhanas is just to be informed of them and is at best a mental equipment and a preparation. When all is said, the fact remains that a definite entry into the Sadhana, the awakening into the Spirit within, the actual building of the inner Life, usually begins only when one has a Satyakama, the teacher, to transmit the tangible secret and light the life within of the seeker or one happens to be a Satyakama, the disciple, whom the Gods looked upon with favour opening his eye of vision to the Supreme Truth.

The Upanishads, then, are not a book of dry knowledge, they are throughout moistened with the rasa of Sadhanas inseparable from every aspect of the Truth that is aimed at severally or conjointly, for realisation. Of all the Vidyas of the ancient Vedantas, the prāņa vidyā is the most powerful, for in the higher and wider reaches of the Sadhana, it is Brahma Vidya, par excellence. It is the living Breath of the puruṣa, the Puissance of the Creative Consciousness, the Power of the Sole Indivisible Spirit that is the basis of the prāņa vidyā; its aim is not laya, absorption, or going to the Beyond, — there are other Sadhanas that aim at it — but the realisation and successful formation of the individual Life—a Life that carries out its function as the function of the Life Universal, having no divided Will of its own, but the One free Will and Tapas of the Ishwara, and extends its activity as part of the Life of the Supreme Spirit to a wider range, quite naturally, in such a way that one can exclaim with Satyakama:

“If one were to tell this to a dried-up stump Sure, branches would shoot forth and leaves spring from it."