Through a fairly detailed analysis of the structure of the Universe and the Human Being, we have come to the conclusion that, if the Mandukya Upanishad and the Purusa Suktham are to be taken seriously, then there must be one more level, the core or fundamental level, behind the Soul/Jeevatma.
Brahman is the Cause and the Basis of all Manifestation. It is Brahman that manifests as the Universe and as the Individual Human Being and all the wide varieties of manifestation. Brahman is verily the Omkara sound that pervades and interpenetrates the entire Universe. Every part of manifestation is but a modification of Brahman.
The analogy that comes to mind to explain Brahman is a beautiful cotton cloth. The color of the cloth is attractive and beautiful. The texture is soft and there is a border around that is decorative and elegant. But that is only the outer or physical appearance. In reality the cloth comes is woven from a set of multi-colored threads. If you have ever visited a textile plant or a weaver’s place of work you will be amazed at the complex apparatus which blends the ‘warp and the woof’ as they call it and create the cloth. With skilful hands and tools the weaver creates the myriad patterns that adorn the cloth and make it beautiful to see and wear. Is that all? If you enquire further you will then discover that the thread itself has been formed by another piece of equipment called the loom. The thread has been created and then dyed in various colors. The thread has been created from a skein of cotton. The cotton comes from hand-picked lumps of cotton from the pods of a cotton plant.
The cotton is the ultimate cause and the basis for the cloth. Without cotton there can be no cloth. Similar is the nature of Brahman. Without Brahman there cannot be any manifestation. It is Brahman that manifests as the Universe and the Individual.
Another analogy is sugar. When sugar is blended with chocolate you get a chocolate sweet. When sugar is mixed with wheat flour and oil, you get a sponge cake. When sugar is mixed with tea or coffee you get a lovely cup of tea. The sugar is the same but mixed with various materials it seems to produce a variety of different things. The sugar is the same although the end product seems different.
A further analogy is electricity. The same electricity when applied to a lamp produces light. When applied to a fan, it produces a breeze. When it energizes a radio it produces music. When it is applied to a TV it produces images and sounds. The electricity is the same, but it seems to produce all sorts of different applications by association with different objects.
Similarly, Brahman produces a wide variety of manifestation when it associates with various parts of the Universe. The above analogies fail miserably when you realize that Brahman is the root cause of all manifestation. It itself causes the Five Tathwas ( Akasha, Vayu, Agni, Jala and Prithvi) and in association with them produces the three Lokas (Bhu, Bhuvar and Suvaha) and the three aspects of the Universe and the Individual. It is the cause of the Jeevatma as well as the Mind as well as the Body. Collectively, it is the cause of the Supersubtle or Causal Universe (Iswara), the Subtle or Mental Universe (Hiranyagarbha), and the Physical or Gross Universe (Jagat).
So it is called the Ultimate Cause or the Primordial Cause. It is the basis of manifestation and existence. If Brahman was not there, there would be no existence. It is not only the cause of everything that exists but also the very principle of existence.
So it is called ‘Existence’ or ‘Sath’. That is considered as the most important Truth of the Universe. So the sound ‘Sath’ is the basis of the concept ‘Sathyam’ or Truth. It is ever existent. It does not have a beginning not does it have an end. It is just there all the time. It is the basis for ‘Time’ itself. The concept of Time would not exist if Brahman had not manifested Itself as the Universe with the beautiful harmony of the spheres as they progress through space. So it is also called ‘Achala’ or ‘Immovable’. That is why in this very small part of the Universe, in this Solar System, we see the unchanging and immobile Sun, as an analogy or a symbol of Brahman.
The existence of Brahman is posited by the great Rishis of yore in the Vedas. The term ‘Rishi’ itself means ‘ the See-er’ or ‘He who has Seen’. The word ‘See’ is from a point of view of ‘Perception’ and not necessarily ‘Sight’ or ‘Vision’. Such Rishis who had this experience of deep perception and could then posit or state categorically that Brahman exists, are called ‘Realized Souls’. Their experience of Brahman is called ‘Atma Sakshatkara’ or ‘Self-Realization’. Thus the concept evolves that Brahman is the heart of the matter, the innermost core of everything, the Atma or Self.
So if a question were to be asked of you : ‘Who are you?’, your first answer would be to describe yourself as ‘So-and-so’ with a name, a gender, a set of parents, a family, a profession, a place from where you come, a country to which you belong and so on. But all these descriptions relate only to your Body and to the Physical Universe.
So you may be inclined to take this comment seriously and attempt to go a bit further and try to describe the sort of person you are. You may say you are a positive thinking individual or an ambitious person or a creative person or an adventurous person and so on . In fact, other people will delight in describing you and your ideas and your achievements. But all these descriptions relate only to your Mind and to the Subtle Universe.
So you may then smile and say,’ OK, I get what you are saying. I am the Atma !’. Well, you are very close. But you are only describing your Atma or Soul. A Rishi might describe you as a ‘Pure Soul’ or as an ‘Enlightened Soul’.
The point is that you and everything in the Universe is basically Brahman. Every other description is dependent on the level of manifestation you are talking about. ‘He is a tall man with close cropped hair and skilful fingers’ is a description of your Body. ‘She is a wonderfully creative person with so many ideas and a vision of the future !’ is a description of your Mind. ‘He is an enlightened soul !’ is a description of your Soul. But the real Truth of the matter is that you are Brahman.
It is in this respect that there is really no difference between you and anyone else. In fact, Brahman is the connecting link, the underlying interconnection between everything that is manifest.
The question then arises ‘ If that be so, then why the difference? Why should the different Bodies be so different? Not only between an elephant and me but also between other human beings and me? Why should there be so many different Minds? Why should there be so many viewpoints, so many different ways of thinking about the same thing? Why should everyone not think the same thing? Why should some be called enlightened and pure and some be called dull and ignorant? If the basis of the entire manifestation is only Brahman then why the differentiation?’
These are valid questions and we need to look into and understand the concept of ‘Conditioning’ to comprehend why Brahman becomes many.
The Vedas state:
‘Ekam Sath Vipraha Bahuda Vadhanti’
Truth is One; Enlightened people describe It in many ways.
Also the Vedas say:
‘Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma’
All (that is experienced) is verily Brahman(alone).
The Vedas further say:
‘Brahmaiva Sathyam’
Brahman alone is the Truth.
To understand the mechanism by which Brahman becomes the many in the Universe it becomes necessary for us to study the mysterious power of Brahman called ‘Maya’.
We will do so in the next blog. We hope you are feeling comfortable with this explanation of the underlying unity of the Universe . This unity pervades the whole of the Universe and me as well. If I can experience Brahman, then I will be able to experience the unity. That is the thesis. In these Blogs we will be exploring various methods by which we can experience this unity.
This month we want to remember Brahman Itself. Brahman is Unmanifest so how can we remember It? Our minds require some tangible form or pattern to be able to visualize and remember a concept. Modern psychologists have found that most of us think in patterns and symbolic figures. The Mind or the Subconscious thinks in pictures. It does not think in letters or pages or paragraphs although we read and write in this manner. The language of the Subconscious is Pictures and Symbols.
All the world civilizations abound in symbols. Indian culture is full of symbols. So how to symbolize the Unmanifest?
Someone sometime in the hoary past found a method. The method was so powerful that it has lasted for nearly a few million years in this Mahayuga and may be even a carry over from an earlier cycle of Yugas.
The Unmanifest is symbolized in as an ellipsoid, an egg. It seems to have a form and still does not have a form. The Sanskrit word for ‘symbol’ is ‘Linga’. The Unmanifest Brahman is thus symbolized as a Linga. We have reproduced a picture of the famous Shiva Linga at the Amarnath Cave which has formed from ice in the Kashmir Himalayas.
The name ‘Shiva’ means ‘Auspicious’. Auspiciousness is the nature of Brahman. And the entire beautiful Universe is a symbol of Brahman. So Brahman is often described as ‘Sathyam-Shivam-Sundaram’. The term ‘Sundaram’ means ‘Beautiful’.
The Vedic Rishis experienced Brahman and were convinced that Brahman alone was the basis of the Universe and sang of Brahman as ‘Satchithanandam-Sathyam Shivam Sundaram’.
A beautiful sloka comes to mind:
‘Sarva Roopa Dharam Shantham
Sarva Nama Dharam Shivam
Sat Chith Anandam Advaitam
Sathyam Shivam Sundaram’
All forms are His and bestow Peace
All names are His and bestow Auspiciousness
He is Existence Awareness Bliss and the only One
He is Truth Auspiciousness Beauty incarnate
Brahman has also been called in ages gone by as ‘Purusha’. That is why the ‘Purusha Suktham’ is held as so sacred. We will explore the various concepts relating to Brahman in future blogs.
As always we look forward to your active participation. We would be happy if this blog is just not read but commented on. We value your comments and we are sure that your posts help many readers to understand these concepts. Writing many times helps us to concretize our thoughts and clarify our understanding. So please participate.
This month we celebrate the festival of ‘Ganesha Chaturthi’ on Sept 11. Ganesha is also an ancient powerful symbol that inherently represents Buddhi, our intellectual aspect, which helps us to understand concepts and thus helps us to live a richer and more successful life. Every action in India is commenced with an invocation to Ganesha. He is said to be the elder son of Shiva. This symbolizes what we discussed above that the Mind derives from Brahman. Ganesha is a beautiful way of expressing the same truth. So we pray ‘ Oh Son of Shiva! Please help us to use our Intellect to overcome any problems that confront us ! As you are the favourite son of Shiva , you embody all His powers ! You are in fact the symbol of Manifestation ! You are our innermost core ! You are Me! So please manifest yourself in Me and help me to live life successfully !’
To much of the world Sept 11, in this century, has come to mean ‘challenge’. So on this 9/11, let us invoke Ganesha, the son of Brahman, and thus the entire Manifest Universe, to help us all, everywhere, to live lives full of harmony, peace and love!
In this prayer to the Manifest Brahman is enclosed a powerful message. Brahman is Absolute. Brahman interpenetrates and is the basis of everything that is Manifest. So whether we invoke the Unmanifest Principle or pray to the Manifest Principle we are praying to the Absolute alone. To us that is the Principle of Advaita. All is One. So for fulfilling the purpose of your life you can address either the One or the All.
Warm regards and God Bless
