Page 46 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

or the birth of Communism even or the French Revolution or the October Revolution. Its historical nature is suprahistorical really because it sets a pace to the transformation of the relationship that man bears to the All, the Divine. In this sense the Advent of Christ Jesus and Crucifixion of the Son of Man transcend the ordinary historical. But this aspect is something foreign to Professor Haas's understanding. Every one of the Advents narrated in the Indian Puranas is a significant transcendence over the animal and the human, a new step made in History conceived as the History of Spirit - the Lila* of the Divine, the most wonderful phenomenon of providence descending into the scheme of His creation to give meaning and direction and eternity to the temporal play of events and planes and personalities.
There is a sense in which we can hold that the identity consciousness is fully transcendent to the temporal when it is a swoon into the infinite. Such a swoon is the desideratum according to some philosopher mystics, as the ecstacy is incomparable and irresistible and there is an actual impossibility of severance or return to the separative consciousness. It is this merging that is acclaimed highest by Advaita Vedanta. Some thinkers hold that without this inner coalescence and loss of individuality and personality there can be no real liberation. It may involve the total negation of the world and all creative process - nisprapancikaranam - so far as that soul is concerned. The abolition of Time is considered accordingly to be the business of the mystical or ahistorical consciousness.
But we are aware of another approach to the problem of Time in the Upanisads. The prasnopanisad begins with an elucidation of this problem in a sense. The great sage of the Atharvana Veda, Pippalada speaks of the creation form Prajapati in the following way. Prajapati was at the beginning. He brought into being out of Himself Prana and Rayi (souls and matter); Prana is Surya and Rayi is Candramas. Then Rsi Pippalada states that Prajapati is Samvatsara or Year. This Samvatsara has two ayanas the Uttarayana and Daksinayana. The former is Prana, the latter is Rayi. Then Prajapati is said to be the Day which contains the day and the night, the former is praja and the latter is rayi. He who would like to live the Mystic Life, Brahmacharya, must not waste his prana during the daytimes*.