We started this series of presentations defining what the Etheric Envelope or double was. Today we are going to take an in-depth look at Prana or vitality. It is known to occultists that there are at least three separate and distinct forces which emanate from the Sun and reach our planet. There may be countless other forces, for all we know, but at any rate, we know of these three. They are: –
1. Fohat, or Electricity
2. Prana, or Vitality
3. Kundalini, or Serpent-Fire
Fohat or Electricity, comprises practically all the physical forces we know of, all of which are convertible into one another, such as electricity, magnetism, light, heat, sound, chemical affinity, motion, and so forth. Prana, or Vitality, is a vital force, the existence of which is not yet formally recognised by orthodox Western scientists, though probably a few of them suspect it. Kundalini, or Serpent-Fire, is a force known currently to very few. It is entirely unknown and unsuspected by orthodox Western science.
These three forces remain distinct and none of them can at this level be converted into either of the others. This is a point of great importance, which we need to grasp clearly.
Further, these three forces were thought to have no connection with the Three Great Outpourings; the Outpourings being a definite effort made by the Solar Deity. Fohat, Prana and Kundalini, on the other hand, seem to be rather the results of the Solar Deity’s Life, His qualities in manifestation without any visible effort. However, in The Chakras by C.W.Leadbeater, it is stated that the three forces mentioned are connected with the Outpourings, as follows:
The First Outpouring, from the Third Logos, is the Primary force which manufactured the chemical elements. This appears to be Fohat. The Second Outpouring, from the Second Logos, has Prana as one of its aspects. Kundalini is a further development, on the ascending arc, of the First Outpouring. Consider what has just been said, for in it lies many deep mysteries.
Prana is a Sanskrit word, derived from pra, forth, and an, to breathe, move or live. Thus pra-an, Prana, means to breathe forth, life-breath or life-energy being the nearest English equivalents of the Sanskrit term. As in Hindu thought, there is but one Life, one Consciousness, Prana has been used for the Supreme Self, the energy of the One, the Life of the Logos. Hence, Life on each plane may be spoken of as the Prana of the plane, Prana becoming the life breath in every creature.
“I am Prana… Prana is life,” says Indra, the great Deva who stands as the Head of the hierarchy of life in the lower world. Prana here clearly means the totality of the life force. In the Mundako panishat, it is stated that from Brahman the One comes Prana – or Life. In this case, the entity being referred to is Brahman, not Brahma; remember the difference? Brahman is equivalent to the Absolute and Brahma is the 3rd Logos of creation. Prana is also described as Âtmâ in its outgoing activity: “From Âtmâ this Prana is born”. Shankara says that Prana is Kriyâshakti – the Shakti of doing, not of knowing. Note this distinction; it implies that Prana is linked more to the matter than the consciousness aspect of the Trinity. It is classed as one of the seven Elements, which correspond to the seven regions of the universe, the seven sheaths of Brahman, and so forth. These are Prana, Manas, Ether, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.
The Hebrews speak of the “breath of life”, which they call Nephesch, breathed into the nostrils of Adam. Nephesch, however, is not strictly speaking Prana alone, but Prana combined with the next principle, Kama. Kama is emotional matter. These together make the “vital spark” that is the “Breath of life in humanity, in beast or insect, of physical, material life. “
Translated into more Western terms, Prana, on the physical plane, is best described as Vitality, as the integrating energy that coordinates the physical molecules, cells, etc., and holds them together as a definite organism. It is the life breath within the organism, the portion of the universal Life-Breath, appropriated by a given organism during the period of bodily existence that we speak of as “a life.” Were it not for the presence of Prana, there could be no physical body as an integral whole, working as one entity; without Prana, the body would be nothing more than a collection of independent cells. Prana links up and connects these into one complex whole, playing along the branches and meshes of the “life-web,” that shimmering golden web of inconceivable fineness and delicate beauty, formed out of a single thread of Unity (46) or Essential matter, a prolongation of the Sutratma, within the meshes of which the coarser atoms are built together. Remember, the Sutratma is the Life Thread that connects to the heart chakra.
Prana is absorbed by all living organisms, a sufficient supply of it seeming to be a necessity of their existence. It is not, therefore, in any sense a product of life, but the living animal, plant, etc., are its products. Too much of it in the nervous system may lead to disease and death, just as too little leads to exhaustion and ultimately death.
H.P. Blavatsky compares Prana, the active power producing all vital phenomena, to oxygen, the supporter of combustion, the life-giving gas, the active chemical agent in all organic life. A comparison is also drawn between the Etheric Double, the inert vehicle of life and nitrogen, an inert gas with which oxygen is mixed to adapt the latter for animal respiration and which also enters largely into all organic substances.
The fact that the cat is pre-eminently endowed with Prana has given rise to the popular idea of the cat having “nine lives”, and appears to have been indirectly connected with the reasons for this animal being regarded as sacred in Egypt.
On the physical plane, Prana builds up all minerals and is the controlling agent in the chemical/physiological changes in protoplasm, which lead to differentiation and the building of the various tissues of bodies and plants, animals and Humanity. They show its presence by the power of responding to stimuli.
The blending of emotional with physical Prana creates nerve-matter, which is fundamentally the cell and which gives the power to feel pleasure and pain. The cells develop into fibres, as the result of thought, the Prana pulsating along those fibres being composed of physical, emotional and mental Prana.
Within the physical plane of atoms themselves, the Prana courses along the spirillae. In our Chain, in the First Round, the Monadic Life, flowing through the Spiritual Triad (Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or Lower Spiritual-Unity-Causal), vivifies the first set of spirillae, and these are used by the pranic currents, which affect the dense physical body. In the Second Round, the Monad vivifies the second set of spirilla, and through them runs the Prana connected with the Etheric Double. In the Third Round, the third set of spirilla is awakened by the Monadic life and through them courses the kamic or emotional Prana, which makes the sensation of pleasure and pain possible. In the Fourth Round, the Monadic life awakens the fourth set of spirilla, which becomes the vehicle for the Kama-manasic or emotional-mental Prana, thus making the atoms fit to be built into a brain for thought. What rounds are we talking about here? The rounds of evolution we have gone through in the 4th, the Earth Chain.
This is as far as normal humanity has progressed. Certain Yoga practices, which if done must be done with great caution to avoid brain injury, bring about the development of the fifth and sixth set of spirilla, which serve as channels for higher forms of consciousness.
The Secret Doctrine speaks of Prana as the “invisible” or “fiery” lives, which supply the microbes with “vital constructive energy,” thus enabling them to build the physical cells, the size of the smallest bacterium relative to that of a “fiery life” is as that of an elephant to the tiniest single-celled organism. “Every visible thing in the universe was built by such lives, from conscious and divine primordial Humanity, down to the unconscious agents that construct matter.” “By the manifestation of Prana, the spirit which is speechless, appears as the speaker. The whole constructive vitality, in the universe and Humanity, is thus summed up as Prana.
An atom is also a “life”, but the consciousness is that of the Third Logos. A microbe is a “life,” the consciousness being that of the Second Logos, appropriated and modified by the Planetary Logos and the “Spirit of the Earth.” What is Blavatsky saying here when comparing an atom to the consciousness of the Third Logos and a microbe to the consciousness of the Second Logos? The difference is the same as the step in evolution between a primary and secondary atom. What is the difference? The primary atom is potentially, but not actually conscious. The secondary atom is passively conscious. It becomes so at the “Second Outpouring”, a topic we have discussed before.
The Secret Doctrine also speaks of a “fundamental dogma” of occult science, that the Sun is the storehouse of Vital Force and that from the sun issue those life-currents which thrill through space, as through the organisms of every living thing on earth. The old Aryans sang that Surya was “hiding behind his Yogi, robes his head that no one could see.” The dress of the Indian ascetics is dyed a red-yellow hue, with pinkish patches on it and is intended, figuratively, to represent the Prana in Humanity’s blood, the symbol of the vital principle in the sun, or what is now called the chromosphere. The nerve centres themselves are of course provided by the “food-sheath” or dense body, but Prana is the controlling energy which acts through the nerve centres, making the food-sheath obedient and fashioning it for the purpose which the “I”, seated in the higher intelligence, demands.
It is important to note that although the nerves are in the physical body, it is not the physical body, as such, which has the power of feeling. As a sheath, the physical body does not feel: it is a receiver of impressions only. The outer body receives the impact, but in its cells does not lie the power of feeling pleasure or pain, except in a very vague, dull and “massive” way, giving rise to vague, diffused feelings, such as those of general fatigue, for example.
That is enough excitement for one day. In the next presentation, we will continue to examine Prana in all its manifestations.