Mishraji further explains in The Ultimate Dialogue – “Although the mind is sentient by nature, it appears as a conscious agent capable of knowing and functioning due to its contact with Atma…. It is indivisible, without limbs or parts, and is thus unlimited. It has no attributes, being neither harmonious or contradictory nor spontaneous and divisions arise in it suddenly.”

These apparent divisions of the anthaha-karna (self-consciousness) are – mana (mind or brain), ahamkara (ego or the ‘seat of the self’), buddhi (intellect) and ananda (supra-mind) at an individual level. All this is supported by the physical body and the brain in the material realm that is termed bhootakasha.

The energies of the Supreme Mind are collective. These are invoked by the mantras of the ‘external’ Vedas and are called Vaishwanara, Taijasa, Prajna and Turiya. This constitutes a higher order of infinite than the chit-akaska of the individual mind[1] and is therefore called chid-akasha.

Vak or speech therefore is the outward expression of our inner self-energy. It precipitates through the layers of our consciousness as para, pashyanti, madhyama and vaikhari. The acronym of these four states is Pranav that is the sum total of all words. The opposite of this is Aum and is the involution or drawing inwards of all these energies. Hence it is the universal mantra. The entire Creation closes in on this ‘sound’ and it is also the pratyahara[2] of the names of the four Vedas – Atharva, Yaju, Rik and Sama thus representing the entire gamut of the Universe.

1. K. Mishraji has done an invaluable contribution to the lineage of scholarship of Ojhaji and Motilal Shastriji. He has knitted the concepts so brilliantly in an intricate, contemporary tapestry of words, that at the end, one paradoxically still feels wanting for more – beyond The Ultimate Dialogue.