The Total Picture of Creation
Divine Life
Society Publication: Chapter 4 A Study of
the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
Sankhya
is the knowledge of the placement of a person in this universe. Work, activity
and any motion for that purpose – is guided by the circumstances prevailing at
that given moment of time.
Now, your location in this
universe can be known only by a study of the whole process of creation.
Doctrines of creation are adumbrated in schools of thought such as the Sankhya
and the Vedanta. In the context of the discussion of the nature of
consciousness, I mentioned to you that
the primary principle is the pure ‘I-amness’, Pure Consciousness adapting and
adjusting itself to its own Self, as it were. The Sankhya calls this
indivisible absolute consciousness Purusha. You may call it by any other name –
God, if you like, the Supreme Absolute. It is absolute because it is not
related to anything outside. It is a non-related, indivisible omnipresence,
conscious of itself alone, and there is no consciousness of anything else. ‘I
am what I am’ – aham asmi. This is the
consciousness of the Supreme Purusha.
The process of creation is
supposed to start with the emergence of the activity of Prakriti, which is the
cosmic impulsion of this Universal Consciousness to delimit itself in a certain
fashion for the projection of this cosmos. This Prakriti, this cosmic impulsive
objectivity, is made up of three forces called sattva,
rajas and tamas – dynamis,
statis and equilibration. Prakriti, so-called, is compared to a rope with
strands. The rope is not different from the strands. You cannot say the strands
are the qualities or the properties of the rope. The threefold operation of sattva, rajas, tamas is itself
Prakriti.
Purusha consciousness is
universal awareness minus activity or motion, and Prakriti is only motion or
activity minus consciousness of Universality. So how can these two, inactive
consciousness and active unconsciousness, be clubbed together?
The analogy of the Sankhya
philosophy describes two persons, one who is blind but can walk, and another
who is lame but can see. These two people join together because they both want
to move in the same direction. The lame person who sits on the shoulders
of the blind walking person can see, and directs him where to go, and so it is
a very good understanding between them. Universal Consciousness, which is
inactive, operates in conjunction with the activity of Prakriti, which is
unconscious. When these two processes are blended together and Purusha and
Prakriti jointly act, what happens first is that Prakriti, in its sattva aspect, reflects the
Universal Consciousness within itself, as light can be reflected in a glass.
The glass here, which is sattva, is not
perfectly clean where the light passes unaffected and undisturbed, but there is
a little disturbance and the consciousness, which is universal Purusha, gets
delimited to some extent, though in a very insignificant manner.
As space is a part of
Prakriti, then Purusha, which is independent of Prakriti, cannot be said to be
all-pervading in a strictly logical sense. It is just Being-as-such, Pure I-am,
and cannot be called all-pervading. But it appears to be all-pervading on
account of its reflection in the sattva guna of
Prakriti, which also has other qualities – rajas and tamas. After Purusha there is
Prakriti, and after Prakriti there is Mahat. Mahat is the third principle –
Cosmic-consciousness, the Pure I-am, Be-ness-as-such. The Absolute Existence
becomes conscious as all-pervading, omnipresent. This Mahat, or the Great Being
Mahat-tattva, is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. This is the God of the
universe, you may say if you like.
Pure God, by Himself, creates
nothing. He is just All-in-All. Creativity is attributed to God on account of
His so-called reflection in the sattva
omnipresence of Prakriti, and God becomes Mahat-tattva, also known as
Hiranyagarbha in Vedanta terminology. Mahat may be said to be Hiranyagarbha,
the all-knowing creative principle, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent
consciousness. When omnipresence becomes conscious of itself – I-am,
omnipresent – it becomes cosmic Ahamkara. So first is Purusha, second is
Prakriti, third is Mahat, fourth is Ahamkara. Ahamkara here is to be understood
as Cosmic Self-awareness – the whole universe becoming conscious: ‘I am.’ It is
not merely omnipresence as such; it is consciousness of one’s being
omnipresent.
In the state of Ahamkara,
Cosmic I-amness, or consciousness of one’s being omnipresent, a threefold
activity is supposed to take place: the threefold division of the supreme
Self-consciousness into the subjective perceiver adhyatma,
the objective universe adhibhuta, and a
third connecting link adhideva.
The adhibhuta prapancha, or the
universe of material existence, we may say, is originally a space-time
vibration complex. Space, time and motion – this is the beginning of creation.
Space means a sudden vacuum, as it were, created before the omnipresence. In
order that you may become something other than what you are, you have to cease
to be what you are at present. If God has to become the object, He has to cease
to be the subject. Now, He cannot cease to be the subject as He is the Pure
Subject, so a sudden vacuous condition is created, as perhaps is done by a
juggler who creates an illusion. Suddenly a thing which is not there will be
projected before you. Your consciousness is interfered with by the juggler’s
magic or his slight-of-hand. Immediately he creates a vacuous condition of your
mind by his action so that you forget what you saw and you begin to see what is
not there. God is sometimes called Mahamaya, which means the Great Juggler who
can project a thing which is not there. God created the heaven and the Earth,
says the Bible. Out of what substance did He create them? If there is nothing
outside God, out of what substance did He create it?
You will find later on, by a
deep analysis of the process of creation, that creation is a vacuous projection.
It has no substance by itself because substance is God only, and if the
universe also had a substance independently, there would be a conflict between
the two substances.
God seems to be creating a
vacuous situation to create a universe that is also basically a vacuum. Hence,
there is non-substantiality in the whole universe. Everyone, everything,
including you and I, are basically vacuous. There is no substance in us. The
substance is only a jugglery. It is a mix-up of space-time and certain elements.
Thus, creation might have taken place, or creation might not have taken place.
You may say the juggler has really created something because you can see it,
and therefore God has created the world because you are seeing it. But the
juggler has created nothing; he has only put you under the pressure of an
influence. In the same way, God has created no world, but somehow or other some
illusion has caught hold of you – this consciousness. You do not know how you
are seeing what the juggler is doing, though he has done nothing. In the same
way, God has done something like the greatest juggler, and you are seeing a
world which is really not there. Finally you will see, if the curtain is
lifted, God alone is permeating the whole thing (world). That is what you will realize
afterwards.
So the objective universe,
which is adhibhuta, starts with space, time
and vibration. This vibration is fivefold in its nature. In Sanskrit, these
five aspects of vibration are called shabda, which
means the potential of sound, sparsha, the
potential of touch, rupa, the
potential of sight, rasa, the
potential of taste, and gandha, the
potential of smell. The whole universe of perception is constituted of these
fivefold forces. What do you see in this world? What do you mean by ‘the
world’? What is called ‘world’ is nothing but what you hear, touch, see, taste,
and smell. Suppose you do not see anything, and you cannot touch or smell or
taste; the world vanishes for you. So the world is nothing but a bundle of
sensations; it looks like that.
Afterwards, these forces
congeal into solidity in a particular permutation and combination process.
These congealed forms of the five forces shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa,
gandha become space – or sky, as it is called – and air, fire,
water, earth. In Sanskrit, sky or space is called akasha,
air is vayu, agni is fire, apas is water, pritvi is earth. So this world of
the physical elements of earth, water, fire, air, ether, space and sky – this
world which you value so much, on which you are seated, which is attracting you
and repelling you at the same time – is just the last concretization of these
forces shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, gandha
which are the vibrations of space and time, which is one aspect of this cosmic
omnipresence, Ahamkara. Thus, the objective side has been explained.
Excerpts from:
The Picture of Creation - Chapter 4 A Study of
the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
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