Updated: March 17, 2025
Brahma Sutras Continued. अतः एव प्राणः ataḥ eva prāṇaḥ and the direct translation, Prāna refers to Brahman. So let's explore this. Let's forget the original commentaries for the moment they're useful. But let's explore what this is saying. Basically, it's saying is consciousness, energy is consciousness. OK. Try this. Raise your arm. How did you do that? OK. Believe it or not, science doesn't have an answer because you started with an intention, right? And I said raise your arms. If you had the intention, the intention is not a physical phenomenon, right? It is it's a thought and it has no location in space time as a physical entity.
Although you can see it's neural correlate in the brain. So the intention is a nonmaterial thought and this seems to be a very physical activity, right? So if mind and body are two different things, then how does the mind create the activity of the body? That's not only the hard problem of consciousness, but it violates the laws of thermodynamics. If mind and body are two separate things, then what mediates this interaction of mind and body? OK. Yes, that's one of the hard problems of consciousness that we cannot explain mind, body interactions. If we think of mind as non physical and the body is physical. Ok. Now, look at an object, look at me, look at your own computer, look at anything. And the current scientific explanation is that photons are coming into your eyes, they're sending electrical currents to your brain and there's electro chemistry in your brain, but you don't experience electro chemistry, you experience everything that you're experiencing right now. These words which are also electro electrical signals to your brain.
You're seeing, hearing these words, you're thinking your own thoughts, you're looking at the computer elsewhere, et cetera. So very interesting. I asked you to look at something and suddenly something appeared, whatever it was, then you look elsewhere and something else appeared, then looked at your own body and that appeared. OK. But in all this, according to current science, all that was going to your brain was photons. How did this experience happen? OK. How did photos give you the experience of a material world? That's also a hard problem of consciousness. So we are stuck as far as science is concerned, we are stuck trying to explain these mind body interactions. So the other alternative is the whole thing is physical. OK. The the thought is physical, the mind is physical, the body is physical, the world is physical. But then explain how does the physical world create ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, imagination energy again, problem. OK. Matter only is a problem and mind that matters two different entities is also a problem. So we're left with the third entity, possibility, consciousness-only monism consciousness, which is a non material nonphysical field of possibilities is modifying itself into an activity that we call thought mind.
And also an activity that we call perception which we then interpret as the physical body and the physical world and even the stars and Galaxies in the universe, it's all consciousness. And so is energy consciousness. This required energy prana. But what is prana? It's a word or energy is a word to explain the movement of activities that result in objects moving. In fact, in fact, the best definition of energies is something that is capable of work, moving, thinking, feeling, seeing, perceiving all requires energy.
But the energy itself is a modified form of consciousness. And YOU ARE THAT. You as consciousness, modify yourself as mind, brain body, energy information and matter. And then we create stories around this, how the universe was created black holes, singularities, event horizons, big bangs all excellent models for explaining our perceptual and cognitive activities which in turn are modified forms of the Self. The self organizing itself as the universe with everything in between Tat Tvam Asi, Brahmasi So Prana is an activity of the universe..