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JULY, 1897.]
THE MANDUKYA UPANISHAD.
173
Vyása, too, commenting on the Yoga Darsana, says :
The recitation of Om and the constant presentation to the mind of its signification : these are the two means of Upasana, of true worship. The Yogin who constantly does both, developes concentration, or, as has elsewhere been stated, the aforesaid recitation and realisa. tion develope concentration, and concentration facilitates realisation till, by the continual action and re-action of both, the light of the supreme divinity begins to fully shine in his heart.'
Of such a Yogin or Sannyasin Mr. Rudyard Kipling has given us a most interesting and delightful picture in the story of Pûran Bhagat. A man of world-wide culture, the prime minister of a Native State, who for many years had been par excellence a man of affairs, one day renounces all, and goes quietly forth with leopard-skin and almsbowl to dwell in the forest and to meditate on God.
That day saw the end of Pûran Bhagat's wanderings. He had come to the place appointed for him - the silence and the space. After this, time stopped, and he, sitting at the mouth of the shrine, could not tell whether he were alive or dead ; a man with control of his limbs, or a part of the hills, and the clouds, and the shifting rain, and sunlight. He would repeat a Name softly to himself a hundred hundred times, till at each repetition he secmed to move more and more out of his body, sweeping up to the doors of some tremendous discovery; but, just as the door was opening, his body would drag him back, and, with grief, he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of Pîran Bhagat.
In all V&dic literature the most sacred mame is Om. Whereas other names of the Supreme also express or imply phenomena, or things that pass, this word alone indicates the Eternal, expresses the nou menon. But this is not all. The deepest and in truth the highest reason,' says the Vedantist, is that the signification of Om is the Key-note of the realisatsion of the Divine Spirit. The several letters of Om, with anparalleled exactness, mark the snccessive steps of meditation by which one rises to the realisation of the true nature of Divinity.'?
This sacred syllable consists of three letters, A, U, M, and these by the Mandákya are made the model expressions of the First Cause, the means of the self-development of the Divine along the three planes of Vyavabara, Pratibhasa and Paramartha. #represents jagrat, the wakeful phase ; 3 gvapna, the dreaming ;'and sushupti, tho slamberiug.' In brooding over the meaning of the devotee has, in mind the Deity ng Framer of systeins and of worlds, as Brahma emerging from Brahman, a divine self-protection into infinite space, resulting in the music of the spheres and in Nature as the manifold manifestation of Mind. As regards motive for jagrat the Indian Yogi would probably agree with the Persian Sufi: I was a hidden treasure and I longed to be known, so I called forth Creation that I might be comprehended.'
Reflection on 7 leads to a thought of the sapreme Being as tarning in upon Himself to review the results of His previous act of Creation. The exquisite play of light and shade, the full-toned tints and forms of star and tree and flower; all the high harmonics of this so solid. seeming world are seen and heard as in a dream, until, in that matchless line of Dante - Ciò ch'io vedeva, mi sembrata un riso Dell' universo ! - or in the words of that surpassing poem - Genesis : ! God saw all that He had made, and lo! it was very good!
The Deity viewed as Himself the embodiment of all idoas and principles is the meaning of Creation and contemplation are over. The objective world has ceased to be. It is sarvoparamatvat. The All again becomes the One. Behind and above all that appears is that which Is, das Werden is again das Sein. For is mitra, that which measures all, is - the Resort of all. The Chándogya tells us : 'that Self abides in the heart. And this is the
> SGtras xxvii. and xxviii.
• Gura Vidyarthi's Vidic Magazine, July, 1898.
