by Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL No. 39
May. 2004

ATTEMPTS TO DESCRIBE BRAMHAN - Part 13

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

The Mundaka tells us that this prana or the vitality also has the Bramhan as its origin. How do the beings function? They function by desiring in their mind to function and being influenced by the demands from the five senses that we possess. What activates the senses? What enlivens the mind to cognise the desire? Here again as the Mundaka Upanishad tells us, the senses including the mind, draw their vitality from Bramhan alone. So not only the entire creation is Bramhan, the very vital energy that activates the creation and keeps it activated is also Bramhan.

Etasmaat jaayate praano manah sarvendriyaani ca

From "that" the vital force and all sense organs including the mind originate.

The question then arises, what is the nature of this energy? Where from does it come? Our common perception of energy comes from sun, stars or the lightening flashing in the sky etc. Are they the sources of this creation?

The Mundaka again explains this in a very poetic sloka:

Na tatra suryah bhaati na

candrataarakam

Na imaa vidyutah bhaanti kutoyam agnih

Tameva bhaantam anubhaati sarvam Tasya bhaasa sarvam

idam vibhaati

Not the sun, moon and the stars, not even the fire of lightening provide the energy to Bramhan. So where from comes this energy?

kutoyam agnih?

The answer comes, Tameva bhaantam anubhaati sarvam. Tam eva- That alone- when lights up everything gets lit up. Everything gets enlivened because He lives. That vitality by which everything assumes vitality, is His vital force. He does not depend on any energy or shakti, from any separate source. He is the vital source from whom all borrow their vitality. Tasya bhasa by which sarvam idam vibhati.

Praano heisa yah sarvabhuteirvibhaati. He is verily the prana, the single life force that shines through all divergent beings as multiplied in the creation.

This clarifies amply what Isa Upanishad said:

Isaavaasyam idam sarvam yat kincaa jagatyaam jagat

(Everything in this creation is pervaded by the Lord)

and what also the Bramhasutras started with Janmaadyasya yatah. (the coming into being, their existence and the modifications they undergo, for every thing the source is Bramhan) .