Mandukya Upanishad (3)

The third in the series of five sessions on the Mandukya Upanishad given at Mandala Yoga Ashram in 2002. Here we continue the text from the third verse.

In verse two we saw the author dividing existence into four parts. Now in verse three he talks of the first quarter as Vaishwanara, the waking state. The material world as it appears to the ego. It’s symbolised by the ‘A’ of AUM.

In this verse, and also verse four, we come across the idea of this state of being having ‘seven limbs and nineteen mouths’. Swamiji’s explanation of this (which is not in the recording) is as follows: the seven limbs being the six chakras plus Sahasrara, and the nineteen mouths being
– the five gyana Indriyas (senses)
– the five karma Indriyas (organs of action)
– the five pranas (prana, apana etc)
– the Ahamkara (ego-sense)
– the Manas (functional mind, concerned with organising the body)
– the Chitta (subconscious) 
– the Buddhi (faculty of access to Awareness)

In verse four, the second quarter (Taijasa) is described as the dream state, the ‘shimmering’ state. In this state the ego perceives the inner world of objects to be as real as the world of material objects. Swamiji’s talks of how we maybe don’t pay enough attention to the dream world, which is also the subconscious level.

But it becomes clear that there is overlap between these first two states; what about daydreaming, or simply being in thoughts of past or future? This too is a kind of dream state but in waking life.

The deep sleep state
is the projection of
Pure Consciousness
onto the first two states.

The fifth verse looks at the deep (dreamless) sleep state. Swamiji explains that in this state the ego is not functioning, so there are no desires, neither are the seven limbs and nineteen mouths functioning. He equates this state with the ‘Collective Unconscious’, and with the ‘world of archetypes’ which are projected onto the waking and dreaming states. Swamiji uses the analogy of undifferentiated light shone through a reel of film in a movie projector. The light seems to become the characters and scenes in the movie. In the same way in the waking and dreaming states, the world of archetypes is taken on by the ego.