The organs of action
Among these five elements: from the rajas part of space the organ of speech came to be; from the rajas part of air, the hands; from the rajas part of fire, the feet; from the rajas part of water, the organ of generation; from the rajas part of earth, the organ of excretion. From the joined rajas parts of these, the five vital breaths came to be.
Among these five elements, the organ of speech arose from the rajas of space; the hands from the rajas of air; the feet from the rajas of fire; the organ of generation from the rajas of water; and the organ of excretion from the rajas of earth. From the combined rajas of all five arose the five vital airs (prāṇas).
Speech, hands, feet, and the rest are traced here to the rajas of the elements rather than their sattva. What does this placement tell you about them?
- They are the powers by which you reach out and act, distinct from the powers by which you receive and know
- They are subtler and higher than the organs of knowledge
- They are the seer itself, now finally located in the body
- They belong to the gross body, not the subtle body
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The organs that act, and the breath that moves them
The elements were sorted once already for their clear, receptive quality, and out of that came the organs that know: hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell, and the inner instrument that holds them. Now the same elements are sorted again, this time for rajas, the strand of motion and reaching out. From it come the five organs of action: speech, the hands, the feet, the organ of generation, the organ of excretion. The body of knowing and the body of doing are built from the same five elements, but from different qualities in them.
The pairing carries the teaching. You do not grasp with the eye or see with the hand. Receiving and acting are two different powers, and each is traced to its own quality: the still quality gives the senses that take the world in, the restless quality gives the limbs and organs that push back out into it. Activity is born of the active strand. This is almost obvious, and that is the point. The make of the person is orderly, not arbitrary, and it can be looked at and learned.
From the joined rajas of all five elements arises a further thing, the five vital airs, the one moving energy by which the whole instrument is kept alive and working. Speech would not sound, the hand would not close, without that breath beneath them. So the doing half of the subtle body is complete: the organs that act, and the life that moves them.
And still none of this is the one we are after. Every faculty named here is something the self has, a power it works through, a part of the equipment it is loaned. Each can be watched, named, traced to its source. The watcher is not on the list. So the counting goes slowly and carefully, that when the inquiry turns, you already know the seer is none of these, however near and however much your own they feel.
Which of your powers do you take to be you, when in truth they are only what you act through?
In the commentaries
The same five elements that gave the knowing organs from their sattva now give the doing organs from their rajas: speech, the hands, the feet, the organ of generation, the organ of excretion. Rajas is the strand of motion and projection, so what reaches outward and acts is born of it, just as what receives and knows was born of stillness, sattva. The pairing is the point. One does not see with the hand or grasp with the eye; knowing and doing are distinct powers, each traced to its own quality in the elements. From the rajas of all five together arise the five vital airs, the single moving force by which the whole instrument is held in life. None of this is yet the seer. It is the equipment the seer is loaned, the moving half of the subtle body, still a thing known and therefore not the knower.