VII. Prana (IV)
This Prana is then a mighty being, and if its localized manifestations were to work in unison, and with temperance, doing their own duty, but not usurping the time and place of others, there would be but little evil in the world.
But each of these manifestations asserts its sole power over the bewildered human soul. Each of these claims the whole life of man to be its own proper domain:
“The akasa, the vayu, the agni, the prithivi, the apas, speech, sight and hearing – all of them say clearly that they are the sole monarchs of the human body.”
The principal prana, he whose manifestations all these are, tells them:
“Be not forgetful; it is I who sustain the human body, dividing myself into five.”
If the five manifestations of Prana with all their minor subdivisions revolt against him, if each begin to assert its own lordship and cease to work for the general benefit of the lord paramount, the real life, misery makes its sad appearance to harass the poor human soul. “But the manifestation of prana, blinded by ignorance,” would not “put forth” in the admonitions of their lord. “He leaves the body, and as he leaves, all the other minor pranas leave it too; they stay there as he stays.” Then their eyes are opened. “As the bees follow the queen bee in every posture, so does prana; these, speech, the mind, the eye, the ear, follow him with devotion, and thus praise him.”
“He is the agni, the cause of heat; he is the sun (the giver of light); he is the cloud, he is the Indra, he is the Vayu, he is the prithivi, he is the rayi, and the deva, the sat, and the asat, and he is the immortal.
[Rayi and asat are the negative, deva and sat the positive phases of life-matter.]
“Like the spokes in the nave of a wheel, everything is sustained in prana: the hymns of the Rik, the Yajur, and the Sama Veda, the sacrifice, the Kshatriya, and the Brahmin, etc.
“Thou art the Progenitor; thou movest in the womb; thou art born in the shape of the father or the mother; to thee, O Prana, that puts up in the body with thy manifestations, these creatures offer presents.
“Thou art the carrier of offerings to the deva, thou art the carrier of oblations to the fathers; thou art the action and the power of the senses and other manifestations of life.
“Thou art, O Prana, in power the great lord, the Rudra [the destroyer] and the Preserver; thou movest in the sky as the sun, thou art the preserver of the light of heaven.
“When thou rainest, these creatures are full of joy because they hope to have plenty of food.
“Thou art Prana, pure by nature; thou art the consumer of all oblations, as the Ekarshi fire [of the Atharva; thou art the preserver of all existence; we are to thee the offerers of food; thou art our father as the Recorder [or, the Life-giver of the Recorder].
“Make healthy that appearance of thine which is located in the speech, the ear, the eye, and that which is stretched towards the mind; do not fly away.
“Whatever exists in the three heavens, all of it is in the power of prana. Protect us like a mother her offspring; give us wealth and intellect.”
With this I conclude my description of Prana, the second principle of the Universe, and the human body. The epithets bestowed upon this mighty being in the above extract will be easy of understanding in the light of all that has gone before. It is now time to trace the working of the universal Tatwic Law of Breath on the next higher pane of life, the mind (manomayakosha).