Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantabreathing motion is prânâyâma. Pranayama is practised to get mastery over thismotion; the end is not merely to control the breath or to make the lungs strong.That is Delsarte, not Pranayama. These Pranas are the vital forces whichmanipulate the whole body, while they in their turn are manipulated by otherorgans in the body, which are called mind or internal organs. So far so good. Thepsychology is very clear and most precise; and yet it is the oldest rational thoughtin the world! Wherever there is any philosophy or rational thought, it owessomething or other to Kapila. Pythagoras learnt it in India, and taught it in Greece.Later on Plato got an inkling of it; and still later the Gnostics carried the thought toAlexandria, and from there it came to Europe. So wherever there is any attempt atpsychology or philosophy, the great father of it is this man, Kapila. So far we seethat his psychology is wonderful; but we shall have to differ with him on somepoints, as we go on. We find that the basic principle on which Kapila works, isevolution. He makes one thing evolve out of another, because his very definitionof causation is "the cause reproduced in another form," and because the wholeuniverse, so far as we see it, is progressive and evolving. We see clay; in anotherform, we call it a pitcher. Clay was the cause and the pitcher the effect. Beyondthis we cannot have any idea of causation. Thus this whole universe is evolved outof a material, out of Prakriti or nature. Therefore, the universe cannot beessentially different from its cause. According to Kapila, from undifferentiatednature to thought or intellect, not one of them is what he calls the "Enjoyer" or"Enlightener". Just as is a lump of clay, so is a lump of mind. By itself the mindhas no light; but ate see it reasons. Therefore there must be some one behind it,whose light is percolating through Mahat and consciousness, and subsequentmodifications, and this is what Kapila calls the Purusha, the Self of the Vedantin.According to Kapila, the Purusha is a simple entity, not a compound; he isimmaterial, the only one who is immaterial, and all these various manifestationsare material. I see a black-board. First, the external instruments will bring thatsensation to the nerve-centre, to the Indriya according to Kapila; from the centre itwill go to the mind and make an impression; the mind will present it to theBuddhi, but Buddhi cannot act; the action comes, as it were, from the Purushabehind. These, so to speak, are all his servants, bringing the sensations to him, andhe, as it were, gives the orders, reacts, is the enjoyer, the perceiver, the real One,the King on his throne, the Self of man, who is immaterial. Because he isimmaterial, it necessarily follows that he must be infinite, he cannot have anylimitation whatever. Each one of the Purushas is omnipresent; each one of us isomnipresent, but we can act only through the Linga Sharira, the fine body. Themind, the self-consciousness, the organs, and the vital forces compose the finebody or sheath, what in Christian philosophy is called the spiritual body of man. Itis this body that gets salvation, or punishment, or heaven, that incarnates andreincarnates, because we see from the very beginning that the going and thecoming of the Purusha or soul are impossible. Motion means going or coming, andwhat goes or comes from one place to another cannot be omnipresent. Thus far wefile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selv...ksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (102 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:34 AM