Maitrayana-Brahmaya-Upanishad: Second Prapathaka

“We hear (in the sacred records) that there were once the Valakhilyas, who had left off all evil, who were vigorous and passionless. They said to the Pragâpati Kratu: ‘O Saint, this body is without intelligence, like a cart. To what supernatural being belongs this great power by which such a body has been made intelligent? Or who is the driver? What thou knowest, O Saint, tell us that.’” Pragâpati answered and said:

4. “He who in the Sruti is called ‘Standing above,’ like passionless ascetics, amidst the objects of the world, he, indeed, the pure, clean, undeveloped, tranquil, breathless, bodiless, endless, imperishable, firm, everlasting, unborn, independent one, stands in his own greatness, and by him has this body been made intelligent, and he is also the driver of it.”

6. In the beginning Pragâpati (the lord of creatures) stood alone. He had no happiness, when alone. Meditating on himself, he created many creatures. He looked on them and saw they were, like a stone, without understanding, and stancling like a lifeless post. He had no happiness. He thought, I shall enter within, that they may awake. Making himself like air (vayu) he entered within. Being one, he could not do it. Then dividing himself fivefold, he is called Prâna, Apana, Samana, Udana, Vyana. Now that air which rises tipwards, is Prâna. That which moves downwards, is Apana. That by which these two are supposed to be held, is Vyana. That which carries the grosser material of food to the Apana, and brings the subtler material to each limb, has the name Samana. [After these (Prâna, Apana, Samana) comes the work of the Vyana, and between them (the Prâna, Apana, and Samana on one side and the vyana on the other) comes the rising of the Udana.] That which brings up or carries down what has been drunk and eaten, is the Udana.

Now the Upamsu-vessel (or prâna) depends on the Antaryama-vessel (apana) and the Antaryamavessel (apana) on the Upamsu-vessel (prâna), and between these two the self-resplendent (Self) produced heat. This heat is the purusha (person), and this purusha is Agni Vaisvanara. And thus it is said elsewhere: “Agni Vaisvanara is the fire within man by which the food that is eaten is cooked, i.e. digested. Its noise is that which one hears, if one covers one's cars. When a man is on the point of departing this life, he does not hear that noise.”

Now he, having divided himself fivefold, is hidden in a secret place (buddhi), assuming the nature of mind, having the Prânas as his body, resplendent, having true concepts, and free like ether. Feeling even thus that he has not attained his object, he thinks from within the interior of the heart, “Let me enjoy objects.” Therefore, having first broken open these five apertures (of the senses), he enjoys the objects by means of the five reins. This means that these perceptive organs (ear, skin, eye, tongue, nose) are his reins; the active organs (tongue (for speaking), hands, feet, anus, generative organ) his horses; the body his chariot, the mind the charioteer, the whip being the temperament. Driven by that whip, this body goes round like the wheel driven by the potter. This body is made intelligent, and he is the driver thereof.

This is indeed the Self, who seeming to be filled with desires, and seeming to be overcome by bright or dark fruits of action, wanders about in every body (himself remaining free). Because he is not manifest, because he is infinitely small, because he is invisible, because he cannot be grasped, because he is attached to nothing, therefore he, seeming to be changing, an agent in that which is not (prakriti), is in reality not an agent and unchanging. He is pure, firm, stable, undefiled, unmoved, free from desire, remaining a spectator, resting in himself Having concealed himself in the cloak of the three qualities he appears as the enjoyer of rita, as the enjoyer of rita (of his good works).