Verse 2.287

Sanskrit text and transliteration:

प्राणाद्ध्येवेत्यतो न्यायाद्वक्ष्यमाणश्रुतीरितात् ।
व्युत्थाप्यान्नमयं तुच्छं प्राणोऽस्मीति व्यवस्थितः ।
यस्तं मनोमयात्मानं सङ्क्रामयितुमुच्यते ॥ २८७ ॥

prāṇāddhyevetyato nyāyādvakṣyamāṇaśrutīritāt |
vyutthāpyānnamayaṃ tucchaṃ prāṇo'smīti vyavasthitaḥ |
yastaṃ manomayātmānaṃ saṅkrāmayitumucyate || 287 ||

English translation of verse 2.287:

In accordance with the principle expressed in the śruti text, “For, from the vital force, indeed,...” which will be stated (in the next chapter), the person, having moved from the false physical body, thinks “I am the vital force;” and with a view to unite him to the sheath of mind the śruti text which follows is stated.

Notes:

It is the aim of Scripture to lead the spiritual aspirant to Brahman-Ātman step by step from the sheath which is outward to that which is inside it. In the third chapter called the Bhṛguvallī there is an account of the step-by-step progress which Bhṛgu makes by discarding one after another the different sheaths which are not-Self, for none of them answers to the definition of Brahman given by his father, Varuṇa. When Bhṛgu requested Varuṇa to teach him Brahman, the latter defined Brahman as that from which all beings are born, that by which they live, and that into which they merge. Thinking that food answered to the definition of Brahman, Bhṛgu first of all thought of food as Brahman. When he realized that food which must have had a beginning could not be Brahman, he thought that the vital force (prāṇa) from which all beings are born, by which they live, and into which they merge, must be Brahman. This realization enabled him to discard his earlier notion that anna was food. Employing the same reasoning contained in the definition of Brahman as stated by Varuṇa, Bhṛgu then moved on to the next stage and thought of mind as Brahman, and so on.

The spiritual aspirant must give up the prāṇamaya-kośa also as false in the same way as he gave up the annamaya-kośa, and then move on to the next one, viz., manomaya-kośa. The śruti texts which follow beginning from tasmādvā etasmāt prāṇamayāt, anyo'ntara ātmā manomayaḥ are intended to help him attain this progress through discrimination.