The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Ch-1. THIRD BRAHMANA : Chapter-1.THE SUPERIORITY OF THE VITAL FORCE AMONG ALL FUNCTIONS - 3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, September 19, 2021. 9:00. AM.
Chapter - I : THIRD BRAHMANA : 

Chapter-1.THE SUPERIORITY OF THE VITAL FORCE AMONG ALL FUNCTIONS - 3. 
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The gods, then, thought and decided: "Somebody else has to chant; the speech is defeated; it is not chanting properly; it is uttering wrong things; it blabbers; it flounders." Then they asked the other organs to chant, one by one. The eye was asked to chant. The speech is not able to do what is required. So the eye, the principle of seeing, was requested by the gods: "You will chant the Sāman for us." The eye rose up into action and then started chanting. The Asuras understood this also. They attacked the eye with evil. So, we can see good things and also not good things with the eye. We can see the same object in two ways. We can visualise an object in two manners: in a manner that is conducive to proper judgment, and in a manner which is not proper judgment. The eye is capable of doing both, and that weakness of the eye to see wrong, evil, and misjudge things, is the result of the Asuras affecting it. 

Thus, the eye also could not do this work. Then, the gods told the ear: "Will you chant? The speech has found itself incapable, because the Asuras attacked it. Ear, can you chant?" The ear said: "Yes, I can." And it chanted. The Asuras understood that the ear is chanting. So, they attacked the ear with evil. Then what happened? The ear can hear both good and bad. We can receive good things and bad things through the ear. The ear is an open door; it is never closed. Anything can enter through it, and the capacity of the ear to receive what is not proper, what is not right, what is not good, is the result of the demons attacking it. Likewise, every organ was affected. We can taste good and bad; we can smell good and bad; we can hear good and bad; and touch good and bad. The gods requested the mind, and it, too, got affected with the habit of thinking what is improper. Then, what is the alternative? What is to be done now? The Devas had no way of escape. "Everywhere the Asuras are attacking us, from all sides. We cannot even chant the Mantra; they are spoiling everything."

Then they asked the internal unifying Prāṇa-Śakti, ultimately: "Can you chant the Sāman Mantra, Udgītha, for us? All the sense-organs have failed. Even the mind could not chant." When the mind was asked to chant, the Asuras attacked the mind. So they say, the mind can think right things and also wrong things. All thoughts are not really correct thoughts. So, everything went a fiasco; it was not successful. There was something which the gods could think of as the medium or the instrument for the chant of the Sāman, namely the Prāṇa. The Prāṇa does not belong to any sense-organ. It is a single force that works through the entire system, and without this element, principle, or vitality, which is the Prāṇa, no sense-organ can function – the eye cannot see, the ear cannot hear, etc. So, it is an impersonal unifying force. 

The total power of the organism, we may say – that is what is indicated by the word, Prāṇa here. And the Prāṇa was requested by the gods: "Will you chant the Sāman, Udgītha, for us?" "Yes." And the Vital Energy started chanting, and the Asuras wanted to attack it. "Oh, we see; this Vital Energy is chanting the Mantra; we shall attack." When the Asuras attacked the Prāṇa, what happened? They could not overcome the Prāṇa. They were thrown back and broken to pieces, and flung in all directions, as a clod of earth would be rendered to dust when it is struck against a rock, says the Upaniṣhad. A little ball of dry earth, if thrown against a hard rock, will break to pieces. The rock will not be affected; the ball will go to pieces. The Asuras went to pieces when they hit this inner Śakti the Power, the Prāṇa. 

Then, there was success for the gods, and the gods assumed their original positions which they had lost on account of their being subjected to the evil of the Asuras. The gods became what they were. One who knows thus becomes himself, and his enemies are crushed. This is a very interesting narrative. But, here is not merely a story; it is a cosmic phenomenon explained in an analogical language.

To be continued ...


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