Latest revision as of 18:51, 8 October 2020

[edit] On creation

Pranav Khullar, September 16, 2020: The Times of India

Six young men meet Sage Pippalada to unravel the mystery of prana, breath. The six questions they ask form the inquiry in the Prashna Upanishad. The tenor is set by the first question: From where are we born? Pippalada answers by setting down the matter-energy matrix as the principal source of creation. Mixing of rayi, matter and prana, energy has manifested all species. Pippalada then details the bioplasmic origin of life – rayi also means food, from where semen is formed and from which humans are born. This bioplasmic mix reflects the matter-energy matrix.

The second question goes into the relationship of the senses with the life-force. Pippalada defines prana as the essential life-force that sustains all sensory organs, allegorically stating it as the Queen Bee; all other bees go out when the queen goes out and all bees settle down when the Queen Bee settles down. Pippalada explicitly defines the mind, too, along with the other sense motor organs as dependent on and originating from this life-force – a prod to all seekers to go into the origin of thought itself.

The third question is on the origin of prana itself, wherein the sage goes into the core of vedantic thought, seeing prana as emanating from Atman, of how energy is ‘born’ out of the cosmic womb, the Hiranyagarbha and covers the Being much as a shadow spreads over a body. It has no separate existence other than the Brahmn-Atman but mysteriously, can draw a veil over the real nature of the latter, by hypnotising the mind with the dazzle of external forms. Shankara was to develop his own theory of Maya, and later predicated on this very thought.

The fourth question takes the aspirant into an analysis of the three states of human consciousness, especially the dream-state and dreamless deep sleep, wherein the question asked is: Which part of the human being sleeps? Who sees and remembers the dream? Pippalada sees the dream state as being viewed by the mind. When all other senses are withdrawn, the mind is both perceiver and the perceived in this dream state, as it recreates the impressions of the waking state.

Finally, in dreamless sleep, the mind, too, gets absorbed back into the Atman and each being fleetingly goes back to the cosmic womb.

The fifth question draws the seeker into the meditative world of the Shabda-Brahmn, wherein the mystic syllable Aum, Pranava, controller and life-giver of prana, being the primordial sound created at the time of creation, is to be meditated upon. Meditation on the Pranava as beej mantra of the cosmos outlined by Pippalada here, and in the Mandukya Upanishad as well, was later developed into an entire philosophy of Shabdatattva by Patanjali and Bhartihari.

To the sixth and final question of where the Purusha, the unmanifested Source is, Pippalada points to the physical body. The spiritual dimension is also within us, waiting to be activated, beyond the conditioned mind. In that instant we become aware of the Source, Brahmn, not only as transcending, but as underlying everything. The unmanifest Absolute is known by its manifestation, the human body, but real knowledge makes us alive to the fact that the manifest is merely a projection that originates from Brahmn only.