The primal matter is called the
Prakriti or nature. The prakriti is composed of three innate qualities (called
Gunas or elements in Hinduism) Rajas (the creative force), Sattva (the preservative
force) and Tamas (the destructive force). These three Gunas are constantly at
work and give movement to the natural force. These Gunas allows modifications
and changes to the primal and original force in nature and whose equilibrium is
the basis of all observed empirical universal reality. The prakriti is perceivable;
we can see it, feel it and is changeable.
Prakriti is considered as a
feminine creative energy and its counterpart, the masculine energy is called
Purusha. Purusha is the soul or the true self, pure consciousness. The Purusha
is considered as non-perceivable, changeless and un-caused universal principle.
The prakriti or the world is in a
state of constant flux through the three qualities or the three Gunas. Every second, the entire objects in the universe
are changing and establishing a new equilibrium. Our bodies are changing. Our
body is not the same as it was yesterday. We are conceived in our mother’s womb
and grew to a full human body as a result of conjoined microscopic sperm-ovum
cell. We pass through the body of the baby in our mothers’ womb and at the end
of the gestation period, take births. Right from the conception, our bodies are
changing. From a body of small baby after birth, we grow to a child’s body and to
a body of an adult and from there to a body of an old person. At the completion
of our life span, our bodies perish and are cremated. At the childhood, we know
our bodies are growing. We also know our bodies are aging and are becoming weak
day by day. We are able to perceive these constant changes taking place in our
bodies. If we see our own old photographs, we can feel that our bodies were different
in the past. What is not changing in this whole process is the one observer,
the one who is residing inside the bodies. The observer knows that his/her body
is changing. He knows that the body where he/she is residing is a man’s body or
a women’s body. We live in this world with our bodies. Here we perform all sorts
of actions through our bodies. We build our houses, we possess objects, we
claim our rights, and we fight for our rights and so on.
We know that the bricks cannot
arrange themselves with cement and concrete into a house without the aid of an
intelligent builder. Similarly, like a house, how our bodies can be built brick
by brick from the sperm-ovum united cell
into a full grown body with all internal wiring and plumbing, and intelligent bodily
systems to breathe, taste, eat, digest, convert food into energy, see, feel,
and work independently as an intelligent conscious entity without the aid of an
intelligent builder? Like building a house, a plan of the building is
necessary, the necessary material is required and above all a super intelligent
supervisor is required to implement the whole plan of body building
construction and to ensure its functioning as per the design plan.
The supervisor to build our
bodies and the nature, the prakriti is the Supreme Spirit or the God or whatever
the name we assign to the supreme supervisor.
We have seen above that though we
are residing in our bodies but we are different from the bodies. The observer
residing inside the body is different from the body. Body changes constantly but
the observer doesn’t change. The body is called the Kshetra (the field) and the
observer is called the Kshetrajna (the one who resides in the body or the knower
of the body) or the Soul (Atma in Hindi). We, in real sense are the knower as
we can perceive our bodies; we can see that we are in a male body or a female
body. We can perceive the heat and cold, we can see the nature, we can see the
light, and we can see and feel everything. The real perceiver is the Kshetrajna,
the soul and not the Kshetra, the body.
The builder of us, our bodies and
the creator of the entire universe is the Supreme Spirit. The Supreme Spirit is
another Super Kshetrajna overseeing the Kshetra and the soul-Kshetrajna,
ourselves and our bodies and the entire universe. He is the Supreme Master and creator
of the universe and each one of us. Though, he is always there inside us though
we may not feel His presence. He has given full freedom to us to use our
intelligence and perform all actions as per our choices. He does not interfere in
our decisions and actions though observing us constantly and remaining detached.
If we take an individual person as a small circle, he/she is independent and
free within the periphery of his/her own small circle to act. Similarly, each
one of us has our own small circles to operate within the periphery of our own circles.
The prakriti or the nature is beyond our circles and it encompasses everything
in the universe including us. There is another bigger circle which encompasses
all our individual circles (the souls) and the other concentric circle of the prakriti.
This bigger circle is the Supreme Spirit or Super Consciousness or Super Soul (called
Parmatma in Hindi).
We have seen our bodies are changing.
We have also seen that the prakriti, the nature is also constantly changing.
What is not changing and is changeless, is the Kshetrajna, the soul and the
Super Soul or the Atma and Parmatma.
Through the ages, the saints and
yogis have dedicated their entire lives to know the reality of the Prakriti,
Purusha, Kshetra and Kshetrajna. Their ultimate aim was to know the Super Soul
or the Parmatma. Paramhansa Ramakrishna once narrated a beautiful story about
knowing the Supreme Spirit or the Parmatma. He compared the Supreme Spirit to a
gigantic sea. One sack filled with salt (allegorically here the sack is the human
body and the salt inside is the individual soul desirous to know the Supreme
Soul) decides to know the depth of the sea. The salt sack throws itself into
the sea and as it goes down and down, the salt starts dissolving into the sea
water. By the time, it reaches the bed of the sea; the salt is completely dissolved
into the sea. Though the salt could go to the bottom of the sea but it got
dissolved and became part of the sea. Now the question is; where is the knower
(the soul) who wanted to know the depth of the sea and where is the known, the depth
of the sea itself? In fact the salt (the soul) and the sea (the Supreme Soul,
Parmatma) have become one. The Knower and the Known have become one. In
Hinduism this state is called the liberation (Purna Samadhi, complete
emancipation) where the soul becomes part of the Super Soul. The soul is no
more required to return further to the body again.
This is the essence of Indian
spirituality and it should find commonality in all world religions.
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