THEOSOPHY – THE WORD

PRANA

---

SEPTENARY DIVISION IN DIFFERENT INDIAN SYSTEMS
Esoteric Buddhism	Vedantic	Taraka Raja-Yoga
2. Prana	Pranamaya Kosa	Sthulopadhi

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p157]

Then: “The functions of Jiva on this Earth are of a five-fold character.
In the mineral atom it is connected with the lowest principles of the Spirits of the Earth (the six-fold Dhyanis); in the vegetable particle, with their second – the Prana (life); in the animal, with all these plus the third and the fourth; in man, the germ must receive the fruition of all the five. Otherwise he will be born no higher than an animal”; namely, a congenital idiot. Thus in man alone the Jiva is complete. As to his seventh principle, it is but one of the Beams of the Universal Sun. Each rational creature receives only the temporary loan of that which has to return to its source; while his physical body is shaped by the lowest terrestrial lives, through physical, chemical, and physiological evolution. “The Blessed Ones have nought to do with the purgations of matter.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p224]

On our globe this Substance is the second principle of the septenary Element – Earth.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p525fn]

----------

Now many people do not know the full meaning of such terms as Samana and Vyana, Prana and Apana, explained as being “life-winds” (we say “principles and their respective faculties and senses”), being offered up to Udana, the soi-disant principal “life wind,” (?) said to act at all the joints. Therefore the reader, who is ignorant that the word “fire” means in these allegories both the “Self” and the higher divine knowledge, will understand nothing in this; and will therefore entirely miss the point of our argument, as its translators and even its editor, the great Oxford Sanskritist, Max Müller, has missed the true meaning of Narada’s words. Exoterically, all this enumeration of “life winds” means, of course, approximately, that which is surmised in the foot-notes; namely:

“The sense appears to be this: The course of worldly life is due to the operations of the life-winds which are attached to the SELF, and lead to its manifestations as individual souls (?). Of these the Samana and Vyana are controlled and held under check by the Prana and Apana. . . . . The latter two are held in check and controlled by the Udana, which thus controls all. And the control of this, which is the control of all five . . . . leads to the Supreme Self”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p567-8]

... Prana and Apana, though shown as subordinate (because less gross or more purified), have the FIRE between them: the Self and the secret knowledge possessed by that Self.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p569]

DIAGRAM WITH ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES
II Prana, LIFE, the active power producing all vital phenomena	OXYGEN	The supporter of combustion; the life-giving gas; the active chemical agent in all organic life.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p593]

---

When two bodies similarly electrified meet they mutually repel each other. Apply this to the human system. A person in health is charged with positive vitality – prana, od, aura, electro-magnetism, or whatever else you prefer to call it: one in ill-health is negatively charged: the positive vitality, or health element, may be discharged by an effort of the healer’s will into the receptive nervous system of the patient: they touch each other, the fluid passes, equilibrium is restored in the sick man’s system, the miracle of healing is wrought, and the lame walk, the blind see, deaf hear, dumb speak, and humours of long standing vanish in a moment! Now, if besides health, power of will, knowledge of science, and benevolent compassion on the healer’s part, there be also faith, passivity, and the requisite attractive polarity, on that of the patient, the effect is the more rapid and amazing.

[C.W.IV, p383]

... the Upanishads, “the only Veda of all thoughtful Hindus in the present day ... every word, as its very name implies, has a secret meaning underlying it. This meaning can be fully realized only by him who has a full knowledge of Prana, the ONE LIFE.

[C.W.IV, p579]

Without any doubt Jiva or Prana is quite distinct from the atoms it animates. The latter belong to the lowest or grossest state of matter – the objectively conditioned; the former – to its highest state: that state which the uninitiated, ignorant of its nature, would call the ‘objectively finite,’ but which, to avoid any future misunderstanding, we may, perhaps, be permitted to call the Subjectively Eternal, though at the same time, and in one sense the subsistent existence – however paradoxical and unscientific the term may appear. Life, the occultist says, is the eternal uncreated energy, and it alone represents in the infinite universe, that which the physicists have agreed to name, the principle, or the law of continuity, though they apply it only to the endless development of the conditioned.

[C.W.V, p111]

... the “lower principles” mentioned in the footnote are – the 1st, 2nd and the 3rd. They cannot include the Kamarupa, for this “rupa” belongs to the middle, not the lower principles. And, to our correspondent’s further query, “do the atoms of these (the 4th and the 5th) also re-form after going through various transmigrations to constitute over again the 4th and the lower 5th of the next incarnation” – we answer – “they do.” The reason why we have tried to explain the doctrine of the “life atoms” at such length, is precisely in connection with this last question, and with the object of throwing out one more valuable hint.

[C.W.V, p117]

Jiva or Prana (Life principle). The word “Jivatma,” used only by the Buddhists, who make no difference between manifested and unmanifested Life outside of Esotericism, was through oversight erroneously used in Fragment No. I, and since then rectified. Jivatma is the 7th principle with the Vedantees and the Theosophists have agreed to use it but in the latter sense.

[C.W.V, p117]

That the remaining four principles, or rather the – 2 ½ – as they are composed of the terrestrial portion of Manas, of its Vehicle Kama-Rupa and Linga Sarira – the body dissolving immediately, and prana or the life principle along with it – that these principles having belonged to the false personality are unfit for Devachan.

[C.W.VII, p180]

Then comes the definition of the third root-substance. This is attached to the body only during life, the body being the fourth substance, pure matter; and after the death of the latter, separating itself from the corpse – but not before its complete dissolution – it vanishes in thin air like a shadow with the last particle of the substance that generated it. This is of course Prana, the life-principle or vital form.

[C.W.VII, p202]

And he [Subba Row] adds:
... Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three distinct Upadhis (bases), in each of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three Upadhis can be separated by an adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution.

Most decidedly he cannot. But this again holds good only with regard to his lower three principles – the body and its (in life) inseparable prana and linga sarira. The rest can be separated, as they constitute no vital, but rather a mental and spiritual necessity. As to the remark in the same article objecting to the fourth principle being “included in the third kosa (sheath), as the said principle is but the vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind,” I answer: Just so. But as the higher attributes of the fifth (Manas), go to make up the original triad, and it is just the terrestrial energies, feelings and volitions which remain in the Kama loka, what is the vehicle, the astral form to carry them about as bhoota until they fade out – which they take centuries to accomplish? Can the “false” personality, or the pisacha, whose ego is made up precisely of all those terrestrial passions and feelings, remain in Kamaloka, and occasionally appear, without a substantial vehicle, however ethereal? Or are we to give up the seven principles, and the belief that there is such a thing as an astral body, and a bhoot, or spook?
Most decidedly not.

[C.W.VII, p298-9]

The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles, given in The Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism, leads to another apparently perplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. In Plate I, it will be seen that the principles numbered 3 and 2, viz., Linga-Sarira and Prana, or Jiva, stand in the reverse order to that given in Diagram I. A moment’s consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric enumeration, as printed in Plate I, and the esoteric order given in Diagram I. For in Diagram I, Linga-Sarira is defined as the vehicle of Prana, or Jiva, the life-principle, and as such must, on the esoteric plane, of necessity be inferior to Prana, not superior as the exoteric enumeration in Plate I would suggest.

The colored part of the Plate is profoundly esoteric, but the old and more familiar exoteric enumeration has been used to force upon the attention of the student the fact that the principles do not stand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence, their order depending upon the superiority and predominance of one or another principle, and therefore differing in every man.

The Linga-Sarira is the double, or protoplasmic antetype of the body, which is its image. It is in this sense that it is called in Diagram II the parent of the physical body, i.e., the mother by conception of Prana, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the birth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although, like all sacred Mythoi, this has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho-physical application. To close the subject, Prana, the life-principle, can, in sober truth, have no number, as it pervades every other principle, or the human total. Each number of the seven would thus be naturally applicable to Prana-Jiva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body esoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not through or by number, but geometrically, i.e., following the proportions of numbers.

[C.W.XII, p547]

Prana, or Life Principle Orange Re 6 Critical State

[C.W.XII, p562]

Prana among Hierarchies.

[C.W.XII, p568]

Prana the Breath of Life, the same as Nephesh. At the death of a living being, Prana re-becomes Jiva.

[C.W.XII, p607]

Prana, on earth at any rate, is thus but a mode of life, a constant cyclic motion from within outwardly and back again, an out-breathing and in-breathing of the ONE LIFE or Jiva, the synonym of the Absolute and Unknowable Deity. Prana is not abstract life, or Jiva, but its aspect in a world of delusion. In The Theosophist, May, 1888, p. 478, Prana is said to be “one stage finer than the gross matter of the earth.”

[C.W.XII, p607fn]

Within the blue Auric Egg we find the orange macrocosmic pentacle of LIFE, Prana, containing within itself the (red) pentagram which represents man.

[C.W.XII, p623]

See also p 529, 530, 531, Dia. opp. 532

Prana and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and again as Jiva it is the same as the Universal Deity. The seven steps of antaskarana correspond with the Lokas.

[C.W.XII, p672]

For the Heart is the organ of the Spiritual Consciousness; it corresponds indeed to Prana, but only because Prana and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and because again as Jiva it is the same as the Universal Deity.

[C.W.XII, p694]

THE SPLEEN
The Spleen corresponds to the Linga-Sarira, and serves as its dwelling-place, in which it lies curled up. As the Linga-Sarira is the reservoir of life for the Body, the medium and vehicle of Prana, the Spleen acts as the centre of Prana in the Body, from which the life is pumped out and circulated. It is consequently a very delicate organ, though the physical Spleen is only the cover for the real Spleen.

THE BLOOD
The circulation of Life, Prana, through the Body is by way of the Blood. It is the vital Principle in us, Pranic rather than Prana, and is closely allied to Kama and to the Linga-Sarira. The essence of the Blood is Kama, penetrated by Prana, which is universal on this plane. When Kama leaves the Blood it congeals. So that the Blood may be regarded as Kama-Rupa, the “form of Kama” in a sense. While Kama is the essence of the Blood, its red corpuscles are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration oozing out of every cell of the various organs, and caused to exude by electrical action. They are the progeny of the Fohatic principle.

[C.W.XII, p699-700]

Although the student can no longer look on Prana as one of the Seven Principles, since it is the Universal Life, he must not forget that it vivifies all, as Pranic energy. Every Principle is a differentiation of Jîva, and the life-motion in each is Prana, “the Breath of Life.” It is Nephesh: and Jiva becomes Prana only when the child is born. Thus Kama depends on Prana, without which there would be no Kama. Prana wakes the Kamic germs to life, and it makes all desires vital and living.

Prana is not, it must be remembered, the production of the countless “lives” that make up the human Body, nor of the congeries of the cells and atoms of the Body. It is the parent of the “lives,” not their product. As an example, a sponge may be immersed in an ocean; the water in the sponge’s interior may be compared to Prana; the water outside is Jiva. Prana is the motor-principle in life. The Body leaves Prana, Prana does not leave it. Take out the sponge from the water, and it becomes dry -- symbolizing death.

[C.W.XII, p707]

The following quotation (Monism or Advaitism?, p. 28) : –
“The Prana, or breath of the human organism, is a part of this universal vital principle. The moon also is shown to have its share in nourishing all organic matter, and in regulating the ebb and flow of the Prana of nature. With every phase of the moon the Prana of man changes its course. These changes, minutely observed, established the fact that the breath of the human organism changes from right to left, and vice versa every two hours. In these two hours each of the five Tattwas . . . obtain their course."

[C.W.XIII, p71-2]

At a meeting held at Maycot, June 16, 1887, a discussion arose as to the aura and magnetism of any individual. Magnetism, it was stated, is an emanation which arises from all things, the earth, animal and vegetable life; it is a physiological thing and arises from prana; which is the individual life principle. The aura is an individualization of a Universal Life Principle (Jiva) and endures with a man in spite of his periodical changes of state and planes. The aura is the origin of the feeling of sympathy and antipathy; it is a magnetic emanation of prana but in combination with manas and buddhi. In this connection it may be noted that memory is the effect of buddhi upon manas.

[C.W.XIII, p364]

Then the term Hayah, “to be”, as passive, changeless, yet manifested existence may perhaps be rendered by the Sanskrit Jivatman, universal life or sould in its secondary or cosmic meaning; while “Hayah”, “to live”, as a “motion of existence”, is simply Prana, the ever-changing life in its objective sense.

[C.W.XIV, p189]

--oOo--