The Mundakoupanishad : Post-24. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, March 03,  2023. 08:00.

Chapter 2: Section 1 : 

Mantram-6&7. (Rituals and means to perform them are also born from the imperishable.)

POST-24.

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Mantram-6.

" rcah sāma yajūmsi dīksā 

yajñaś ca sarve kratavo daksināś ca, 

samvatsaraś ca yajamānaś ca lokāh 

somo yatra pavate yatra sūryah." (2.1.6) : 

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Translation :

"From Him  also Gods of various orders, the celestials, the men, the beasts (cattle), the birds, the in-breaths, the out-breaths, the corn, and barley, thought, devotion, truth, self-control and values of life(were born)."

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Bhashyam (Vyakyanam) :

From this Being, everything proceeds, it is said. The Vedic verses, mantras, are also emanations of this Being, which means the truths contained in the Veda mantras are eternally there as projections of certain aspects in the manifestation of Brahman tattva. The chants, the Yajurveda mantras and the formulae that are employed in the performance of sacrifices, the rites connected with these yajnas, the ceremonies of various types, the gifts and so on, even the time chosen for the sacrifice, and the worlds purified by the Sun and the Moon which the soul will attain after the departure from this body, all these are conditioned by that original tapas of Brahman. Our past, our present, as well as our future are in the hands of God. This is what is actually meant by this passage. The condition into which we are born in this world, the community in which we find ourselves, the length of life for which we will be living in this world, and the experiences which we will pass through are all written down while we are still in our mother's womb.

Jati, ayuh, bhoga are already predetermined even before we come out of the womb of our mother. We cannot change one inch of it. Jati is the category of life into which we will be born—the community, so-called. Ayuh is the length of life. Bhoga is the joy or the sorrow that we have to reap in this world. In a similar manner are all these things mentioned here, the total concept of events taking place in all the worlds.

Not only the visible, tangible objects of sense, but also the processes of perception and the motive force that causes this perceptional process, are also to be regarded as conditioned by this original tapas of Brahman. And there is then nothing left for the jiva to contemplate individually. The individual remains merely as an instrument of action in the hands of that great tapas of Brahma-shakti. Here creation is considered in a total sense, not merely in a linear descending series, and is taking place from all sides, like winds sometimes blow from all sides and not only in one direction. It is not a single direction that the will of Brahman has taken in the production of effects from causes, but everywhere there is a spread-out series of causes, infinite in number, producing infinite products, or effects, from these countless causes everywhere, just as we have countless cells in the body, and they do not move only in one direction. They do not move in just a linear vertical, horizontal or whatever direction. There is a rounding-up of activity through the harmonious action of the cells from all directions.

Creation, therefore, is a multidirectional activity. It is not a single direction that is taken as we walk on the road, for instance. We walk only in one direction, but the will of Brahman does not act in that manner. It acts from all directions, and it is as infinite as Brahman itself is. This is why it is said that the creation of Brahman is infinite. The Infinite produces the infinite, limitlessness comes from Limitlessness, and Eternity produces eternity, as it were, we may say, in a most remarkable sense.

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Next
Mantram-7.
To be continued

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