The Triad of Adhyatma, Adhibhuta and
Adhidaiva
Divine Life
Society Publication: Chapter 2 – Yoga as a Universal
Science by Swami Krishnananda
The whole of our experience in
this universe is made up of two aspects, namely, Purusha and Prakriti,
consciousness and matter, the seer and what is seen. The Yoga texts tell us
that our experience, as constituted of the seer and the seen, is what can be
called in Sanskrit Vyavaharika Satta. It means empirical experience. It is
empirical, Vyavaharik or of practical utility, because, though it is workable
and seems to be the only reality available to us, it is not the whole of
reality. The aspect of the seer and the aspect of the seen, the consciousness
aspect and the object aspect, the Purusha aspect and the Prakriti aspect, are
often designated in the ancient texts as the Adhyatma and the Adhibhuta.
The Adhyatma is the inward
perceiving, seeing consciousness; lodged with the individuality of the seer.
The Adhibhuta is the universe of objects, or what appears as the material
expanse before us. And a third principle
which may be called the Adhidaiva or the superintending Divinity, transcending
the subject and the object, Purusha and Prakriti. Because, the connection
between the seer and the seen cannot be explained merely by the two isolated
realities, seer and the seen. Two demarcated principles cannot come in contact
with each other and cannot know each other. The possibility of the perception
or awareness of something as an object outside by the consciousness within can
be accounted for only by the presence of something that is there as a
connecting link between the subject and the object. This is invisible to the
limited eyes. But, logical deduction requires or demands the presence of such a
principle, without which it is not possible to explain how we are aware of the
existence of the world.
How can anyone know that there
is something outside, something that is totally cut off from the one that
beholds that thing? That things are not entirely severed from the seer of the
things implies again that there is a link between the seer and the seen, which
is something transcending both the seer and the seen. So, beyond the Adhyatma
and the Adhibhuta, there is the Adhidaiva. The one infinite Being or the
Adhidaiva appears as the two, namely, Purusha and Prakriti, or the Adhyatma and
the Adhibhuta, the subject and the object. But it remains yet as a unity.
There is no internal
transformation of the Supreme Being into the world. If that had taken place
really, there would be no possibility of the world returning to God, in the same
way as there is no chance of curd returning to milk. Such a transformation has
not taken place in God, and it cannot take place, inasmuch as the Supreme Being
is indivisible, and indivisibility cannot undergo transformation of any kind.
Thus, the unitary aspect of the Supreme Being is maintained in spite of its
apparent division into the seer and the seen, the subject and the object. Thus,
behind the diversity of experience, there is the unity of a transcendental
principle which persists in spite of the multiplicity and the duality of
existence. So, there is a tripartite creation, we may say, over and above the
dual concept of creation.
On the one side we have the
universe which is the Adhibhuta, on the other side there is the Adhyatma, the
viewer, the beholder of the whole universe, and above these two, we have the
connecting link, the transcendental. We may call it the Divinity, we may call
it the Devata, we may call it God, we may call it the Angel or the Spirit of
the Cosmos. Plato, for instance, speaks about there being a superintending
archetype as he calls it, transcending the world of opinion, sensory perception
and mental cognition. Two things cannot relate to each other, unless a third
thing is there. This third thing was called by Plato as metaphysical principle.
And, in Indian philosophical parlance, we generally designate this third
principle as the Devata or the Divinity.
Generally, people think that
in the religions of India there are many gods, resulting in a sort of
polytheism. This is a thorough misconception of the philosophical foundation of
India. There are not many gods. The many gods are the manifold levels through
which the one Supreme Being manifests Itself by different densities of descent,
becoming grosser and grosser, coming further and further down, for the purpose
of maintaining the relationship between the subject and the object. As there
are several levels of descent, it appears as if there are many gods, but they
all are but different levels of the one supreme connecting Principle. Several
levels of manifestation of one and the same thing cannot be regarded as many
things; so, there are not many gods. This wrong idea of many gods should be
brushed aside from the mind. There is only one God and this superintending
Principle is the Adhi Devata, the very, very essential Reality without which no
experience can be accounted for.
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The Triad of Adhyatma, Adhibhuta and Adhidaiva: Chapter 2 – Yoga as a Universal Science by Swami Krishnananda
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