Commentary on the Panchadasi : - Post-3. Swami Krishnananda.

 


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Discourse -1.
Chapter - 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality
Slokam : 1 to 5.
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Wednesday, June 30, 2021. 7:21. AM.

Slokam-3 :

Sabda sparsa dayo vedya vaici tryāj jagare pṛthak, tato vibhakta tat saṁvit aika rupyanna bhidyate (3).

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Sabda sparsa : 

There are five objects of cognition or perception: sound, touch, form or colour, taste and smell. The eyes cannot hear and the ears cannot see, but there is someone who sees and hears at the same time. We can sometimes see, hear, touch, smell and taste at the same time, though the five functions differ from one another. One sense organ cannot perform the function of another sense organ. The ear cannot even know that there is such a thing called the eye, etc. How does it become possible for someone to know that there are five kinds of perception?

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That ‘someone’ is none of these perceptions. The one who knows that one perception is different from another is none of these. It is not the eye, it is not the ear, it is not any of these senses that proclaims “I know, I see, I hear” and so on. This consciousness which is essential for the perception of the unity that is behind the variety of sense functions has to be different from the sense functions. Vibhakta is ‘different from’; vichitra is ‘variety’. In the waking condition, jagare, the variety of perception of objects is made possible on account of the variegated functions of the sense organs. 

We know this very well. It does not require much of an explanation. Thus, it does not require much time for us to appreciate that the knower of the difference of these functions cannot be any one of these functions. That knower is awareness, pure and simple—consciousness, samvid. On account of the transcendence and the unitary character of consciousness above the diversity of the senses, consciousness has to be established as existing, transcending, ranging above the sense functions in the waking condition. In the next verse we will realise that this is the state of affairs in dream also—tatha svapne.

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End.

Next - Slokam-4: Tatha svapne’tra vedyam tu na sthiram jāgare sthiram, tad behdo’tastayoḥ samvid ekarūpa na bhidyate (4).

To be continued ...



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