Summary:
Chapter 2, Section 1, Verse 3: Brahman is the only reality, like an unchanging screen behind a movie. Through its creative power (māyā), which has both knowledge and power (ability to create, sustain and change), Brahman manifests the entire universe. From the knowledge aspect arises the subtle-body containing prāṇa (vital energy/intelligence/life-force), mind (processing thoughts and emotions), and senses (perception organs). The five elements emerge in sequence: space (openness and sound), air (movement and touch), fire (transformation and light), water (cohesion and taste), and earth (stability with all five attributes). These elements compose both physical and subtle bodies, which are sculpted according to past actions. All elements, laws, and experiences ultimately resolve back into Brahman's knowledge-power, just as waves depend entirely on water – there is no place in creation that is separate from Brahman.
CH 2, SECTION 1, VERSE 3: Everything arises from Brahman
एतस्मात् जायते प्राणः मनः सर्व-इन्द्रियाणि च
खम् वायुः ज्योतिः आपः पृथिवी विश्वस्य धारिणी (२.१.३)
etasmāt jāyate prāṇaḥ manaḥ sarva-indriyāṇi ca
kham vāyuḥ jyotiḥ āpaḥ pṛthivī viśvasya dhāriṇī (2.1.3)
From that Brahman are born prāṇa, mind, all senses and organs of action, space, air, fire, water and the earth which sustains entire world of life.
Purpose of Verse:
Purpose is to show whatever world is made of, it resolves into Knowledge, whose truth is Brahman.
1. Reality is Brahman (Pure Consciousness)
- Brahman is the only reality.
- Example: Like the screen behind a movie — unchanging, unaffected by the story, yet the basis for all images.
2. Brahman’s Creative Power: Māyā (Knowledge-Power)
- Māyā is Brahman’s capacity to manifest the universe.
- It has two aspects:
- Knowledge (jñāna-śakti): Intelligence to design creation.
- Power (kriyā-śakti): Energy to execute the design (to create, sustain and change that which is manifest)
- Metaphor: A seed (Brahman) contains the power (māyā) to become a tree (creation). Or light is Brahman, while the projector (māyā) shapes the light into colors/images/world.
3. Subtle-Body
From the knowledge-power arise the subtle-body (that which will later bind with a physical body and experience the physical world):
- Prāṇa (vital energy): Can be interpreted in 3 ways:
- Glue that binds the subtle-body and the physical-body.
- Intelligence that’ll make the body do things automatically without conscious intervention (such as digestion, blinking, digestion, heart beat).
- Energy (life-force) that you feel when fatigued or with caffeine.
- Mind (manas): Processes thoughts and emotions.
- Senses (indriyāṇi): Organs of perception (hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell).
4. Manifestation of the 5 Elements (start of time-space, big-bang)
Step 1: Space (Ākāśa): Container for creation.
- Symbolism: Represents the principle of openness, expansion, and potentiality.
- Attribute: Sound. Just how space accommodates all forms, silence (sound) accommodates all sounds.
- Why do we say, all creation came from sound? It means to say, all creation came from Space. But can also say sound, because poetically, sound represents an intelligent organizing principle. For instance, letter-sounds are intelligently organized into word-sounds, into sentence-sounds.
- Enables: Hearing
Step 2: Air (Vāyu)
- Symbolism: Represents the principle of movement and change.
- Attributes: Sound + Touch. EG: Wind is heard + felt on skin.
- Dependence: Needs space to move. Since it moves, produces sense of touch.
- Enables: Touch
Step 3: Fire (Agni)
- Symbolism: Represents the principle of transformation, illumination (physical light), energy, and perception.
- Attributes: Sound + Touch + Form/Light. EG: Fire is heard, felt, seen.
- Why Is Fire Associated with Light/Form? Imagine you’re in a dark room. No matter how many objects (forms) are around you, you can't perceive them, until light (fire) is introduced.
- Dependence: Needs air (oxygen) to burn and move.
- Enables: Seeing
Step 4: Water (Āpaḥ)
- Symbolism: Represents the principle of liquidity, cohesion, and flow.
- Attributes: Sound + Touch + Form + Taste. EG: Water can be heard, felt, seen, tasted (neutral).
- Dependence: Needs fire (heat) to stay liquid.
- Enables: Taste
Step 5: Earth (Pṛthivī)
- Symbolism: Represents the principle of solidity, stability, structure. EG: Dream isn’t stable as it lacks the earth element.
- Attributes: Sound + Touch + Form + Taste + Smell. EG: Earth can be heard, felt, seen, tasted, smelt.
- Dependence: Needs water to bind particles (cohesion).
5 Elements and Physical Body:
- Space: Body is in space. Heart is located in different space from liver.
- Air: In blood.
- Fire: enzymes, temperature.
- Water: Most of body is water.
- Earth: bones, muscles, skin, etc.
- Purpose of gross body: It’s given you to experience unseen pain-pleasures (according to results of actions in Causal Body).
- Why you have your body? Sculpted according to your past punya/papa.
5 Elements and Subtle Body (Mind):
- The mind is composed of the five elements (space to process hearing, air to process touch, fire to process sight, water to process taste, earth to process smell).
- Why you have your mind? Sculpted according to your past punya/papa.
Conclusion:
The purpose of the verse is to show that 5 elements, various orders or laws (such as psychological, physiological, dharma, or karma), or even the periodic table of elements — all ultimately resolve into knowledge-power, which in turn resolves into Brahman — which is always known to you right now as the self-evident “I am.”
Just as waves depend on the water – all elements, laws, and experiences depend on Brahman (is-ness). There's no place in the wave that is not the water. Water is not away. Where form is, that's exactly where it's substance is.
NEXT VERSE: Now the whole physical universe is Brahman…
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Recorded 10 July, 2025