When the five senses quarrelled: A Vedanta story || Acharya Prashant, on Chhandogya Upanishad (2022)

Acharya Prashant (AP): What’s happening here, firstly I will read it out to you and then explain. Once, the five senses disputed among themselves about their personal superiority. The five senses quarreled as to who is superior among them. So, once the five senses disputed and each of them was saying,’I am superior’.

Those senses approached the father Prajapathi and said, “Respected Sir, who is the best among us?” He replied, “He among you is the best on whose departure, the body would appear its worst, as it were.”

So, the five of you are there, which of you is the most superior, he said, the one, upon whose departure, the body would become the worst is the highest or the most superior. So, it’s an experiment. The judgement has not been passed. An experiment has to be conducted, and the result would decide the winner. Alright, so, the experiment begins.

Speech departed. Speech is the first sense to leave the body to conduct the experiment. Staying a year out, it came back and asked, “How have you been able to live without me? So, what has been your condition, once I am gone, how you have been living? So, the others replied, “Just like the dumb! You are gone, so, living like a dumb person. Not speaking, yet alive with the breath, seeing with the eyes, hearing with the ear and thinking with the mind.”

So, this much is your worth. Even after you are gone, the mind is functional and thinks, the eyes are functional and see, the ears are functional and hear and the breath is functional, so the organism is alive. So, the speech got an appraisal of its worth and re-entered the body. Now, the speech knows the value it holds.