Chandogya Upanishad 5.5.1-2 Lecture 167 on 27 December 2025

Full Transcript (Not Corrected)

Opening Invocation

ॐ जननीं सारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगदगुरुम पादपद्मे तयो: श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहु :

Om Jananim Saradam devim Ramakrishnam jagadgurum Padapadme tayoh shritva pranamami muhurmuhuh.

ॐ आप्यायन्तु ममाङ्गानि वाक्प्राणश्चक्षुः

श्रोत्रमथो बलमिन्द्रियाणि च सर्वाणि।

सर्वम् ब्रह्मोपनिषदम् माऽहं ब्रह्म

निराकुर्यां मा मा ब्रह्म

निराकरोद निराकरणमस्त्व निराकरणम् मेऽस्तु।

तदात्मनि निरते य उपनिषत्सु धर्मास्ते

मयि सन्तु ते मयि सन्तु।

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः॥

oṃ āpyāyantu mamāṅgāni vākprāṇaścakṣuḥ

śrotramatho balamindriyāṇi ca sarvāṇi.

sarvam brahmopaniṣadam mā’haṃ brahma

nirākuryāṃ mā mā brahma

nirākaroda nirākaraṇamastva nirākaraṇam me’stu.

tadātmani nirate ya upaniṣatsu dharmāste

mayi santu te mayi santu.

oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ

Translation

May my limbs, speech, vital force, eyes, ears, as also strength and all the organs become well developed. Everything is the Brahman revealed in the Upanishads. May I not deny Brahman. May not Brahman deny me. Let there be no spurning of me by Brahman. Let there be no rejection of Brahman by me. May all the virtues that are spoken of in the Upanishads repose in me who am engaged in the pursuit of the Self. May they repose in me. Om. Peace. Peace. Peace be unto all.

Introduction to Panchagnividya

We are studying the Panchagnividya which comes in the fifth section of the third chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad. In our last class, we have seen how it works.

The Concept of Yajna

Tasmin etasmin agnau devaha shraddhām juhvati tasya āhuteḥ somo rājā sambhavati.

We have elaborately discussed what is called yajna. Yajna means: just imagine there is a blazing fire and we put faggots into it or some liquid like petrol. What happens? The fire becomes even more blazing, even intenser, greater. What happens to the petrol? The petrol becomes one with the fire. That is a very beautiful analogy we have to understand.

The Analogy of Descent

Another example, though not so elegant: suppose you are on the fifth floor of a building, you want to come to the ground floor. So slowly you descend the staircase, come to the fourth floor. What do you feel? "I am on the fourth floor." Similarly, come down to another floor and "I am on the third floor, second floor, first floor" and then ground floor.

What is the idea? How we have to question here in two particular ways. When a person has a five-storied building, most of the time he doesn't live on the fifth floor. Most of his transactions are done only at the ground level. So he has to come down for most of the time. Maybe bedroom for sleeping or for some particular purposes, he might go to the fifth floor. But he has to come down for transacting the normal day-to-day activities.

The Five Questions of King Pravāhaṇa Jaivali

Now this is a kind of example we have to keep in mind. When we are talking about—and remember that the king Jaivali, Pravāhaṇa Jaivali, had put five questions and then he was answering the fifth question.

The Fifth Question: How is a Baby Born?

What is the fifth question? How is a baby born? It is not born just because the parents meet together. There are five levels there.

So the highest level is—after and presuming that this person had performed a lot of righteous, dharmic actions—he had gone to the higher world, whatever it may be. And then he has to come down. Why? Because whatever we have earned through karma, any result of karma has to get exhausted. And if we want the same result, we will have to repeat that action. This is the very nature of every action.

The Descent of the Soul

From Higher Lokas to Earth

Since a person had attained to the highest loka, and how did he attain? Through particular type of maybe righteous activities. So once he exhausts the result, he had to come down. And when he comes down also, a remnant of that good actions still remain even after he reaches the ground floor.

What is that ground floor? It's earth, our earth where we are living. This is called karma bhūmi, where we can consciously, with full thought, awareness and scheme, we can do what we like. We build our fate, good or evil, only on this earth. That is why this is the best of all the lokas.

The Ascent and the Means

So the soul had gone up through five stages again, just like a person from the ground floor had to climb each floor. But I have to add another detail. So instead of climbing, if he has got an escalator, or what you call sometimes when people become incapable of climbing, there is an escalating chair. And then that will take from the ground floor to higher floors. You can say lift.

So like that, there are divine beings propelled or transformed by one's own virtuous actions. As soon as this body is left out, the whole personality, he will be taken up until he reaches the relevant state which he earned through his righteous actions.

Bodies in Higher Lokas

There he will be given an appropriate dress. You know, we have so many dresses: bathroom dress, swimming dress, dining hall dress, office dress, hospital dress, etc. So to exhaust the results of one's past karma, he will be given a particular body. It is just like our physical body. And without physical body, it is not possible to exhaust anything.

And that is why there are some souls who will have to remain without body. They are called preta. Preta means after departing from here, they have no physical body. They have complete gamut of desires, but they remain unfulfilled because the instrument for the fulfillment is not there.

So the person will be given an appropriate dress. Gods have their own physical body which is far refined, superior than our bodies. And at the same time, they have a mind also. A complex combination of body-mind-complex is necessary to exhaust, to enjoy, either to do activity or to reap the results of one's activity. A physical and a mind, both are absolutely necessary.

The Limitation of Karma

But as I said, that since karma is limited, result of karma will also be limited. So that person has to come down at the exhaustion. Kṣīṇe puṇye martya lokam viśanti—and that is the process that is being described as the fifth answer to the fifth question.

But we have to presume that at one time of this person's life, he was on this Martyaloka or Karma Bhūmi. This is called Karma Loka, where a person can create karma and thereafter enjoy the result of the karma.

No New Karma in Other Lokas

So it is said: when a person goes to higher lokas, he cannot create new karma. When he goes even to lower, suffering or unhappy-giving worlds, he cannot change it. Only change can be done on this earthly world. That is why even divine beings who want to progress further in life wish to come and be born as human beings. This is well noted, well accepted in Vedantic scriptures.

The Journey of the Soul

The Metaphor of Travel

So this—before we understand how the soul comes down after the exhaustion of the karmaphala again to continue his journey where he has left—it is like you can say a person is traveling a long distance in a car and on the way he has to eat and maybe he has got, earned a lot of money through good means. So he comes across a beautiful hotel restaurant and he likes the food served there, enjoys it. But at the end of it he has to again start his travel.

Like that, every soul has to wend its way through ups and downs until he understands that what I am seeking is not what I am doing now, but it is somewhere else.

Brahman in the Heart

Where is it? Hṛdaya kamalā madhye ajitam, or asmin brahmapure dahara kāśe brahma upasthitaḥ. So there is Brahman in the heart of hearts in this sacred city called Brahmapuri. That is why human body is considered Devo devalayo prāptaḥ—this body is considered as a most sacred temple.

What is a temple? That which houses, that which makes for us easy to contact God, that is called a temple. So this is what is done.

Understanding the Process of Descent

Becoming One with Fire

But why am I referring to the last mantra? The second mantra of the last answer: Tasmin etasmin agnau. Now, before I go further, I have to also add one more point.

What happens when you put something into the fire? That itself becomes fire, becomes one with the fire. So also, a person who is coming down, he becomes one with the lower world and then he comes down to the still lower world until he reaches this human world to restart his karmaphala.

The Role of Śraddhā

But to understand all these things, how did he, this person, this soul, first of all go up? He did a lot of wonderful, righteous, dharmic actions. And how come? When others are not doing, this person is propelled to do it. In fact, he cannot but do it. He cannot help himself but do the righteous things. How come? Because our scriptures use a word that is called śraddhā.

What is śraddhā? That something is absolutely true, even though it is invisible to me. That is the idea we have to keep all the time in our mind. If I see something, I don't need faith. It is a fact. Only when something I don't see and it is most beneficial, most sought after, and some wise person tells us, "If you travel and come to this place, then you will get the highest happiness," then the person who is listening—and in this case, a student is having complete faith in the guru and guru has complete faith in this scripture. Guru also, most of the times, he attains what he is preaching.

The Difference Between Guru and Śiṣya

So what is the difference between a guru and a śiṣya? I am talking about true guru and true śiṣya. A true guru is one who has followed, like a scientist following an experiment and experienced the result promised through this experiment and then he knows. It is no more a faith, it is the truth. It is a fact. Therefore, his words carry so much of value.

But what about the student? Like a child, baby, having total faith in its mother—Śrī Ramakrishna refers to it. You know, "There is a bogey man in that room." There is no bogey man. But what happens? If a bogey man is really present in that room which is harming the baby, that is present. Maybe some powerful electrical equipment is there. And if the baby accidentally touches something, it would do great harm to the baby. So that is the bogey man, mother says. And the baby has 100% faith in mother's words and fearfully looks at that room.

Śrī Ramakrishna's Example

And Śrī Ramakrishna also tells: if mother tells, showing somebody, say a Brahmin lady tells her child, "This is your brother," and the person will have absolute faith. "My mother"—he will not even say whether my mother is telling truth or not. That doubt will never enter a baby's mind. It is 100% the truth, taken for granted. "This is my brother."

So even that person whom the mother is telling "He is your elder brother," that person may be of low caste, is not a Brahmin, but the mother tells because she trusts that man that like me, this person also will look after my baby. Śrī Ramakrishna's marvelous story: "Dādā Madhusūdana, your elder brother Madhusūdana"—that is referring to Krishna—"is in the forest. Why do you fear traveling? You just have to call him and he will come." That story we have to remember. That is called śraddhā. It is a marvelous story in many ways and it is a parable for us.

Śraddhā as Faith and Experience

So these great rishis, they are telling us that when this soul, after exhausting the result of his righteous actions, has to come down, then śraddhayā yudhyati—so as it were, the faith is there.

What is the faith? "I will go back where I started and again I will not deviate from this path. Again I will do." Because now I know through experience that what the scripture promised is absolutely true. Previously it was faith. Now it is a fact. So at every step we must have that śraddhā.

And what is śraddhā? That which never allows us to do anything else excepting what we believe as the real fact, truth. So that is the power of the truth. And then truth always bestows upon the person who has that śraddhā ānanda. That is represented by this soma. So the person is coming down happily not to suffer. But he knows "I have enjoyed it, but my payment is over, exhausted. I will have to redo if I want to come back again." But he is endowed with śraddhā.

The Transformation Process

So as I said, when we pour petrol or in this case ghee, clarified butter, it becomes one with fire and it transforms itself into the fire by becoming even more powerful blazing fire. So this is the steps, all the four steps we have to understand.

Just like a person coming down to the fourth floor, now he says "This is the fourth floor, I am on the fourth floor," and that is a fact. And when he comes down to the third, he says "This is the third floor. It is not fourth, it is not the fifth, it is not the second, but it is the third floor." So at every step, he accepts it as a fact. Then he comes down.

Rebirth According to Karma

Auspicious vs. Inauspicious Births

Next point: when a person is coming down from the highest world, he will not be reborn as Tom, Dick, and Harry, as we say in English. He will be born in a very auspicious family, devotees' family, people endowed with faith.

Whereas, a person who had done some good, but a lot of evil, what happens to him? So he goes up to enjoy the little result of what little good he had done. But when he comes down, he may be born either as a human being or even worse, as an animal, as a bird, as a plant or as an insect, where it will take a long time for that person to progress.

The Power of Faith

Now, as I said, we must have complete faith in what the scripture says. Faith is the root of everything. In fact, Śrī Ramakrishna says, "If a man has achieved faith, he has achieved everything." That is what Bhagavad Gītā also completely confirms: yo yat śraddhāḥ sa eva saḥ—a man is absolutely what his faith is. Because his whole life will be ruled over just as a spirit sits on the head of a person and makes him do what are, in Bhagavad Gītā's words, like a puppeteer who makes the puppets move according to his will. Śraddhā is one which moves.

No Eternal Hell

If a person is a wicked person, then he will be born in lower births, which means it will take a longer time. But in Hinduism, there is nothing called eternal hell, because the result of karma is limited. Therefore, even evil karma is also limited. Therefore, the result of evil karma is also limited.

But then, if we have faith, and if anyone has faith, he will not do evil actions because nobody willingly, knowingly does anything that brings on suffering. So lower naraka, hell, means suffering. Heaven means its opposite, enjoyment.

The Return Journey

Divine Escort

So, we have to keep—the person who has done something good, very righteous, very great good—and he goes up, he enjoys, he comes down again and now he knows, he is endowed with that faith. That is why the gods—gods means the deities who are ruling that higher world—they bid goodbye to this soul. "Now you go back, earn some more puṇyam or virtue and come back again, you will be welcome."

And not only that, in Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, we say how to know where to go, so you don't need to worry. It is like some government, suppose, invites a Swami, give talks. They will make arrangements for his travel, for his hotel. So, boarding, lodging, travel, all these are taken care of. Exactly in the same way, the gods do. They send the transportation and they themselves come and they escort the person to the highest loka and that fact is called the path of the gods, devayāna, path of light. And the opposite is called path of darkness and pitṛyāna, it is said, but worse than pitṛyāna. We will talk about it. I am only telling.

The Five Fires Revisited

Why am I telling? Because this person is coming down. So, the king has not answered the first few questions. He is answering the last question, and therefore he is describing this person had already reached that higher loka, and he becomes one with that higher loka. And that is another point I want to emphasize, even though I have spoken many times, these are marvelous truths.

Identification with Different Lokas

Example of Brahmaloka

Supposing the scripture tells, so a person deserves to go to Indra Loka, Prajāpati loka, or Brahma loka. So, let us take Brahmaloka as an example. What is Brahma Loka? That happiness which Brahmā experiences because he is the everything of his world. So, if somebody by contemplation on such a Brahmā, I becomes identified with that Brahmā—Brahmā, sorry, not Brahman, Brahmā—and he feels really, "I am Brahmā. I am not XYZ. I was not, I was a human being. Now, I have identified myself with Brahmā. So, I am Brahmā."

And then he enjoys—this fact in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, in the second chapter called Brahmānandavallī, we have referred to—so what happens to a person? So, he becomes one with Brahmā. Brahman—a contemplator of Brahman, becomes Brahman. And as Brahman, he enjoys every happiness that is there.

Temporary Nature of Higher Lokas

So, the same thing is being said here. This person goes to this higher world. If it is Brahma loka, he became Brahmā. If it is Prajāpati loka, he became Prajāpati. But now, it is a temporary—every higher dualistic loka is not permanent. That is not liberation. That is not mokṣa, mukti. So, he has to come down and he has to, in fact, renounce these things because that which a person transmigrates from one place to the other place, from time to time, that which is changeable is not Brahma. Even Brahmaloka is a temporary world. So, that is how we have to understand.

So, there he becomes one with Brahmā and enjoys. And then, as if the gods tell, "Now you have to again, if you wish, come up and you have to do certain things." So, how do they send?

The Five Stages of Descent

The Five Floors

So, if we imagine Brahmaloka is the fifth floor, in this instance, because Pañcāgnividyā, five agnis are described—that is why I say five floors. Then he has to come down to the fourth floor, then third floor, then second floor, then first floor. Then what is the fifth floor? Asau lokaḥ—that Brahma loka. As an example, it could be, as I said, Prajāpati loka, Indra loka, Chandra loka, etc., etc. Pitṛ loka, whatever loka. No loka is permanent. Only Brahman is eternal, infinite, and permanent.

So this person, he comes down to the fourth floor, and then third floor, then second floor, then first floor. So this is how five steps are described in this Pañcāgnividyā.

The Transformation Sequence

So the highest is that fifth fire. How does this person, this soul, comes down to the fourth one? So first of all, that world itself becomes fire. Secondly, he becomes rain, water. Agni becomes water. Water becomes earth. Earth becomes food. And that food, in the form of the seed, living seed, is put into or offered into the fifth fire, which is called the woman.

So, the present yonder world, the soul, from there he becomes one with that agni. Agni transforms that descending soul into rain. That is the essence of all this Pañcāgnividyā.

Rain as the Second Fire

And what does rain do? It has to fall with the help of the air in the form of clouds, etc., on earth. So rain becomes the second fire. What is the second fire? The jīvātma becomes identified with the fire, what is called rain. And then again it doesn't stop there. It comes down slowly.

Earth as the Third Fire

So now the third fire: this water has to rain down. And where it has to fall? As if rain is the oblation and this earth is the fire. And that oblation called rain is poured into this fire called earth. And he becomes as one with the rain. He falls into this earth. Now that rain, a leaf, is transformed into food. And this jīvātma, now he becomes food.

The Male as the Fourth Fire

And then that food is oblation which is put into the male human being. Male, any being, it doesn't matter. Here we are talking about because animals we don't talk—they go to heaven or hell. Only human beings and that too, not every human being.

Conditions for Karma Phala

To reap karma phala, one has to fulfill certain conditions:

First of all, he must know what he is doing.
Second, he must desire to do that.
Third, he must feel, "I am the doer."
Fourth, he has to do what he decided to do.

And then only the karma fala will be there. What is important: a person consciously assuming "I am the doer," and he feels regret if he doesn't attain what he wants to attain. And if he attains, he feels satisfied, "I have accomplished"—that feeling of egotism is very much necessary, then that person will really reap the karmaphala.

Why Animals Don't Accumulate Karma

Even though we discussed this point, these are very important points. So animals, they don't scheme because they don't think about the past and about the future. Then some of you might be more clever than me and question "How do the squirrels, they store the nuts just before the winter season?"

It is not a conscious action. It is an instinctive action. So that is very important for us to learn.

Examples of Instinctive Behavior

Another example is a bear in the arctic area: it goes on eating and accumulating fat. Why? Because it has to hibernate. And nearly six months it has to hibernate. It will be in a comatose or semi-sleeping state. And that is when the females also happen to give birth. In that process of after giving birth, when the baby bear is born, it is a small dot and it has to be fed like any other human baby and the mother has plenty of milk for the babies and the babies instinctively they start traveling towards the source of the food.

But somebody described it: just imagine a baby trying to reach Mount Everest—for the bear babies to reach the source of milk, source of food, mother's milk, it is like that. But even in that state, yā devī sarva bhūteṣu mātṛ rūpeṇa saṃsthitā—so the mother bear instinctively, it knows it could crush a human head with its paw. But it so gently takes the babies—maybe one, two, three, four, whatever—and slowly with its huge palm, slowly pushes up and up until the babies reach the source of food and start nibbling. And by the time six months is over or few months are over, then these are quite grown up. They are able to walk with the mother, though fumbling now and then. This is a marvelous thing we have to understand.

The Complete Cycle of Rebirth

The Five-Stage Process

So that is how. So the puruṣa, every living creature, but we are here talking because descendants of the soul from the highest level, loka, here and to the back to the pavilion. So for that purpose the person has to come down. So he reaches first through the rain, then to the earth. Then he becomes food, he becomes one with rain. He becomes one with earth. He becomes one with the food.

And then when the food is eaten, a jīvātma enters, a male being, and he becomes one with that male being. And but this jīvātma has a very, very special type of part of the male human body. And that becomes when the ripe time comes into the form of what is called śukram or the reproductive liquid.

Food as Yajña

But that will not complete the cycle. And this person becomes identified—as if eating food is a yajña. Food turning into this liquid capable of reproducing and that is another fire. And this jīvātma becomes identified, "I am that liquid." And then for it to fulfill the final destination, this reproductive liquid has to be poured into the counterpart woman.

The Woman as the Fifth Fire

And woman also produces the eggs, what we call, that is a reproductive part, and that is also a living cell. And these two living cells, they come together. That is another fire. It becomes. And this jīvātma becomes one with that fire. And then he forms slowly according to his karma, saṃskāra.

Saṃskāra Determines the Birth

Saṃskāra is the root cause. He becomes either male, female, and he may be born into a rich family, poor family, beautifully described in the Bhagavad Gītā. What happens to great spiritual sādhakas with some unfulfilled desires left out? Śucīnāṃ śrīmatāṃ gehe yoga-bhraṣṭo abhijāyate. But if a person has ascended and is ready for the final mukti, athavā yoginām eva kule bhavati dhīmatām.

The Yajña Analogy

So, this is very helpful analogy we are giving here. So, what is that? Every descent to the lower loka is considered a yajña. And what is this yajña? Fire is kindled. And into that fire, the soul, either in the form of the somarasa or śraddhā first, then somarasa next. Then in the form it transforms itself into rain. And rain becomes the fire or oblation, which is poured into the fire called earth.

Then earth becomes the oblation. Earth means food. Food becomes the oblation. And that oblation is poured into the fire called puruṣa. And then that produces the result—called this jīvātma becomes identified with that reproducible liquid. And that becomes oblation. And that oblation is finally poured into the fifth fire, which is called a woman. Such a marvelous description.

The Union of Male and Female Principles

And then the half of the other formation in the form of the egg and in the form of this liquid, this is called Prakṛti-Puruṣa-saṅyoga. And they come together. They become one whole. And it is also described in Prāśna Upaniṣad, giving a peculiar example.

Both the man and woman's seed and egg are like the—if you see ground nut seed, you open the groundnut seed as if in the middle these whole seed can be divided into two, as if these two have become one. But when you fry and then you understand they get separate. Like that in the fifth fire, they become—those which are separate, they come together and then the resultant will be the baby and this is this baby.

Determination of Birth Circumstances

Which Family?

How is, where, which fire? That is to say, food is common to every human being, male and female. But into which fire of the both human, both male and female, this jīvātma enters, that depends upon—again, the pūrva janma karma phala decides, like the sorting of the eggs.

So a person with little dharma or virtue, he will be born in a little bit of fortunate family. With huge dharma—dharma means in the form of saṃskāra—so he will be, according to the saṃskāra, into that family which has most marvelous saṃskāras. There or where there is a tremendous chance for this person, for this jīvātma to grow up and even become a better person.

The Power of Apūrva

So that is how, whether he is a male or female, is born in a which jāti or is born into which happy family, unhappy family, rich family, poor family, spiritual family, worldly family, etc. It's all automatically decided by a peculiar special power. And that power which belongs to God actually is called apūrva. That is a technical term.

What is apūrva? That power which decides where this jīvātma is going to go up and come down and be reborn. All these are regulated by this power called apūrva and another name for that apūrva is called vidhi or we say Citraguptā or vidhi, God's special power, etc. But it doesn't matter.

The Necessity of Śraddhā

So this is what happens. If you have grasped that one, then we can proceed safely to the next one. But we must have that śraddhā in order to understand, believe, so that everybody wants only—nobody wants unhappiness, suffering. Everybody wants not only happiness. It is the instinctive nature of every soul to seek higher and still higher and still higher happiness. It is inbuilt into the very nature of every soul.

Swami Vivekananda's Teaching

That is what Swami Vivekananda condensed: each soul is potentially divine. And every soul, first of all, he has got what is called objective happiness, viṣaya ānanda. Then he refines his brain, medhā ānanda. Then he enters into even finer, higher type of ānanda. It is called kalā ānanda. And even greater than that is called dharma ānanda. And the highest, final is called Brahmānanda.

Stages of Evolution

So every soul bending its way has to go through all these fires, whether it is a mosquito fire or a plant fire or an insect fire or an animal fire, a bird fire, finally a human fire. All these are gradual matters for what is called evolution. That is what we have to understand. With this example, it is very easy to understand.

The Second Fire: Rain

So the next—this is what we have discussed actually. That what happens to this person, this śraddhā is poured into it. That śraddhā makes him—what does it make him? That final loka becomes a fire and that fire produces this because of the śraddhā, it becomes soma or ānanda. So he went up in ānanda and then he comes down as ānanda. But that ānanda now comes in the form of rain.

Tasmin etasmin agnau devāḥ somam rājānam juhvati tasyā āhuteḥ varṣam sambhavati.

Such a marvelous description. I have no words to speak about it.

The Production of Soma

So, tasmin etasmin agnau, in that fire, devāḥ, here we have to understand deva means those apūrva in technical language and the power of God. What do they do? Somam rājānam juhvati. They produce this somarasa, ānandarasa. When a person is coming down, he is coming down happily. Soma means happiness, rasa. And it produces wonderful intoxication, elevating intoxication, not making a person worse or unconscious. That is why somarasa is so much praised in our ancient yajñas.

Joyful Descent

So this ānanda is coming down with great joy. Why is he great joy? Is he not coming down? It is just like after holidays, person joyfully comes down to his family so that the whole family comes down and live on that reminiscences. We would like to go to that place again and for that we have to earn the proper payment. We have to do that. In the same way, this soul also comes.

And that in this second fire, what is produced was—varṣam sambhavati—that is, the jīvātma now mingles with rain. He becomes one with the rain. And up to here, we have seen.

The Sixth Section: Earth as Fire

Now we will, ṣaṣṭa khaṇḍa, sixth section we are going. Since I have already outlined the thing, it should not be too difficult for us to understand.

So sixth section:

Pṛthivī vāva Gautama agniḥ

Tasya saṃvatsara eva samit

Ākāśo dhūmo

Rātriḥ arciḥ

Diśo aṅgārāḥ

Avāntaradiśo visphuliṅgāḥ

Translation and Explanation

So the earth indeed is the fire, O Gautama. Of that, the year is the fuel. Ākāśa is the smoke. Night is the flame. The directions are the embers. And the intermediate directions are the sparks.

Earlier I have discussed, whenever we lit a fire, it also produces side effects, a blazing fire. And it becomes blazing only when you put some appropriate fuel into it. And then there will be some embers, there will be some sparks, and there will be some smoke. And all these things we see. Whenever we get up a fire, where there is smoke, there is fire. This is one of the analogies for understanding the what is called inferential statement.

The Inferential Example

Somebody sees smoke rising behind another building. What does this person say? "So there is a fire, somebody is burning something." So like that.

The Six Components

Here also, a fire, whenever we lit a fire, these six components: fire is the first component, fuel is the second component. And when the fire is blazing, then four other components are visible. So taking them as a analogy, at every step we are being told by this king to Gautama, this is how what is the second fire or jīvātma becomes one that is called parjanyaḥ. Parjanya means rain.

The Earth's Cycle

That rain has to fall. Where from it falls? From this place, ākāśa. That is called ākāśa. And then the whole year is what is called few year. What does it mean? It means earth has to wait for every whole year, 12 years, all the seasons change. And there is a every season is fit for a particular type of manifestation.

What is called spring season is for giving birth. Then comes a summer season. Then comes the rainy season. And because of the proper rain, lot of crops, they grow and yield abundant yield in the form of food. And that food is enjoyed by every living creature. And that turns into the reproducible living cells. And they have a very special function. All cells are living, but other cells have other functions. But this particular cell has its own special, specialized function. That is why it is called the living seed, both in the male as well as the female.

The Importance of Mating

Whether it is flower or animals or mosquitoes, mating is very—mating means these two parts of the reproducible generative liquids have to be combined. So whole year there is a proper time when the rains come down and for that the earth has to be kept ready because you can't go on producing everything whole year. It has to be given some rest also. That is called keep the land fallow for some time and then it will recover and it is ready to receive the rain. It is ready to replenish plenty of corn, rice, other words food. That is why it is called fuel.

The Components Explained

And then ākāśo dhūmaḥ—because the rain comes down from the ākāśa or space. Rātri arciḥ—so the light that comes out, the flame that comes out, that means what we eat in the daytime, we go on digesting at night time when we go to bed, the cows chewing the cud, etc. That analogy is applied here. And all the different directions, as it were, are the what is called sparklings, etc. So, avāntaradiśaḥ visphuliṅgāḥ—this is the analogy given.

Fertility of the Earth

So the productivity of the earth is stimulated by time in the shape of the year. That is to say, lying fallow, exposed to air, water and sun for a period of time until the earth becomes, recovers and becomes fertile once more. That is why the air is called fuel, because it is thus the energizing agent. Because what is called rain comes from the space, that is why it is called ākāśa. That the night resembles the earth in not being bright. So that keeping fallow for some time is also very necessary. So like that, similarities are given.

Conclusion

Then that is the third fire that we have been discussing. We will discuss this in our future class.

Closing Prayer