THE THREE-FOLD CREATION

The Creator fixed for himself the three kinds of food, namely, the mind, the speech and the vital force. The mind is the real seer, not the eyes, and the mind is the real sense-organ and not the other well-known ones; because it is observed that when the mind is elsewhere the eyes will not see their objects and the senses do not act for the purpose they are intended. Thus, it is to be concluded that the mind is the principal medium of knowledge. What are generally known as desire, resolution or determination, doubt, faith, or the absence of it, patience, or impatience, modesty, understanding, fear, are all, in fact, the mind itself operating in different ways and forms. One can feel a sensation through the mind even if one is touched from the back.

Likewise, all modulations of voice and formations of sound may be said to be comprehended by the principle of speech. While speech can express the character of objects, it cannot express itself. In a similar way, Prana, Apana, Vyana, Udana and Samana are different forms of the activity of the central vital force. This central vitality is designated in this passage as 'Ana', without the prefixes attached to its other forms mentioned before. The entire personality of the individual, the whole body, is composed and consists of these three elements only, namely, mind, speech and Prana (vital force).

The principal functions in our body are speech, mind and prana, through which we do everything that we can do in this world. The words that we utter, the thoughts that we think, and the energy that we have - these are the constituent factors of our personality through which we deal with others, which we regard as our endowments or faculties of action. These have to be set in tune with the outer world which are three in number viz., thisphysical world, the atmospheric world and the celestial world, or the divine paradise.

These three functions - speech, mind and Prana - are to be identified with certain other important factors also, in meditation, namely, the Vedas for instance. Just as there are three worlds with which the three functions have been identified for the purpose of meditation, there are three Vedas, three repositories of knowledge, or wisdom, with which these functions have to be identified. The meditation suggested is that the speech-principle may be identified with the Rg Veda, the mind with the Yajur Veda and the Prana with the Sama Veda.

Just as there are three worlds, there are three types of denizens in this world. The inhabitants of these worlds are also to be identified with the three functions in meditation. The gods inhabit the heaven; the Pitrs, or ancestors, inhabit the atmospheric realm which is midway between the earth and the heaven. The human beings inhabit this physical world. These three have to be identified in meditation, so that they also become harmonized with our own being.

Thespeech is to be identified with the celestials, the mind with the Pitrs, or ancestors in the atmospheric realm, and the Prana with all created beings here in this physical world. The idea behind this meditation is that everything conceivable should be set in tune with one's own being.

The irreconcilability of our being with something or the other in the world outside is the cause of difficulties in meditation. If everything can be harmonized with what we are, the mind will go straight to its target of meditation without any problem on the way. Every problem is a kind of irreconcilability and the whole function of these meditations is to find ways and means of reconciling ourselves with anything and everything.

Also, you identify yourself with the family members. Do not have any kind of tension with them. You have a father; you have a mother; you have children in the family. Now you set your mind in tune with these in meditation, the mind as the father, speech as the mother and the Pranas as the children, because they come out of the union of speech and mind.

So, you have here symbols for meditation which take into consideration whatever is immediately present in the family, whatever is the object of your learning the Vedas, whatever is regarded by you as the entire creation, the three realms of being, the three worlds mentioned here and the inhabitants of all the three worlds. Nothing is left out; everything is brought into consideration.

The purpose of the meditation is to enable you to identify your being with all these beings. It is not a meditation on some external objects merely for the purpose of apprehending its outer character. The meditation, whatever be its nature, has its final aim in communion with the object, so that the object ceases to be an object and becomes a part of you. The intention of meditation is to abolish the existence of the object and affirm the existence of the subject only which remains there as an enhanced existence.
 
This is the central intention of this Upanishad meditation, an enhancement of the magnitude of the subject, which is achieved by the absorption of the objects into the subject so that they may not come and interfere with the meditation.

There are three types of objects - known objects, objects which are to be known, and the objects which have not been known. All these three types have to be identified with speech, mind and Prana.

What is the result that follows from this meditation? You become that very visible thing, the entire visible realm within you. The visible word shall not be an obstacle to you afterwards. It shall protect you, take care of you, help you onwards, rather than put an obstacle before you.

While speech can express things clearly, the mind is of a different nature altogether. It cannot express things as clearly as speech does. You cannot understand your own mind as clearly as you can understand what you have spoken through words. Your expressions through speech are clearer than the thoughts in the mind which are more complicated. So, the mind is something to be known, not already known clearly. Such a thing which the mind is has to be identified with everything that is capable of being known, but not yet known, the worlds that are not clearly visible, but can be inferred by deduction etc.

The faculties mentioned are to be employed for the purpose of meditation on the known realms of being and those realms that are not known, but are capable of being known by methods of knowledge, and those other realms which are unknown totally. So, the comparison made between these three realms of objects of knowledge and the instruments, namely, speech, mind and Prana is that speech expresses everything that is visible, that which is of the known world, while the mind can infer the existence of even those which are not directly known. The imperceptible also can be inferred by induction and deduction by the mind, and therefore the mind is to be meditated upon as connected with the realm which is superior to the merely perceptible or the visible.

The Prana is something inscrutable. The Prana is a different realm altogether over which we have no control. We can direct our thoughts by the employment of consciousness and we control our speech by the use of common sense, but we have no say in the matter of the movement of the Prana which has its own say. It works of its own accord by a law which is independent, as it were, of the one over which we have some say. We can stop thinking, we can stop speaking, but we cannot stop breathing or restrain the activity of the Prana, completely.

Here, in the Upanishad it has been the practice to identify the Prana with Hiranyagarbha, the Cosmic Prana, or Sutra-Atman. It is considered as the unknown. In this threefold meditation on the realms connected with speech, mind and Prana there is an inclusiveness of every realm of existence - that which is known, that which is hidden behind and not visible or perceptible, and that which is totally unknown; here is a kind of meditation on the three realms of existence - the visible, the invisible and the transcendent causal state.

The analysis provided here in these passages of the Upanishad is intended to gain entry into a realm which transcends the ordinary realm of speech, mind and Prana as individuals. By analysis of this kind, we begin to understand what is the reason behind the limitation imposed upon speech, mind and Prana. When the limitation is understood we gain mastery over the limitation. We become unlimited in our capacity over these functions, and then one does not have any imposing force in front of him. Then he becomes the lord over everything.

Asis the case with speech and mind, so is the case with Prana in its instrumentality in meditation.

If our contemplation is on infinitude, infinite is the effect that we can produce by words, speech and even breathing - if our soul is connected to the infinite. Then, every function can produce any effect. What speech can execute, Prana can do; what Prana can do, mind can do; and so on in the case of every other function. Otherwise ordinarily, each function has its own independent capacity which is different from the capacity of other functions. In the case of a Yogin, they mingle one with the other, so that anyone can perform the function of any other. Thought and speech and mind and soul differ not one from the other in the case of one who has identified himself with the infinite source of things.