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The Upanishads, Part 1

By Max Müller

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VIII, 6

SIXTH KHANDA.
1. Now those arteries of the heart consist of a brown substance, of a white, blue, yellow, and red substance, and so is the sun brown, white, blue, yellow, and red.

2. As a very long highway goes to two places, to one at the beginning, and to another at the end, so do the rays of the sun go to both worlds, to this one and to the other. They start from the sun, and enter into those arteries; they start from those arteries, and enter into the sun.

3. And when a man is asleep, reposing, and at perfect rest, so that he sees no dream 1, then he has entered into those arteries. Then no evil touches him, for he has obtained the light (of the sun).

4. And when a man falls ill, then those who sit round him, say, 'Do you know me? Do you know me?' As long as he has not departed from this body, he knows them.

5. But when he departs from this body, then he departs upwards by those very rays (towards the worlds which he has gained by merit, not by knowledge); or he goes out while meditating on Om 2 (and thus securing an entrance into the Brahmaloka).

And while his mind is failing, he is going to the sun. For the sun is the door of the world (of Brahman). Those who know, walk in; those who do not know, are shut out. There is this verse 1: 'There are a hundred and one arteries of the heart; one of them penetrates the crown of the head; moving upwards by it a man reaches the immortal; the others serve for departing in different directions, yea, in different directions 2.'

Footnotes
133:1 Svapna in Sanskrit is both somnus and somnium. Hence one might translate also, 'so that he is not aware that he is asleep,' which in some respects would seem even more appropriate in our passage; cf. VIII, 11, 1.

133:2 According to the explanation given of the Om in the Upanishads, and more particularly in the Dahara-vidyâ contained in this Prapâthaka.