{"id":669,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=669"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:35","slug":"08-the-triple-brahman-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/12-the-upanishad-volume-12\/08-the-triple-brahman-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","title":{"rendered":"-08_The Triple Brahman.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nSIX<\/span> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nThe Triple
\nBrahman<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n    P<\/span>ARABRAHMAN
\n<\/span><\/b>is now on the way to phenomenal manifestation; the
\nAbsolute Shakespeare of Existence, the infinite Kavi, Thinker and Poet, is, by
\nthe mere existence of the eternal creative force Maya, about to shadow forth a
\nworld of living realities out of Himself which have yet no independent
\nexistence. He becomes phenomenally a Creator, and Container of the Universe,
\nthough really He is what He ever was, absolute and unchanged. To understand why
\nand how the Universe appears what it is, we have deliberately to abandon our
\nscientific standpoint of transcendental knowledge and speaking the language of
\nNescience, represent the Absolute as limiting Itself, the One becoming the Many,
\nthe pure ultra-Spiritual unrefining Itself into the mental and material. We are
\nlike the modern astrologer who, knowing perfectly well that the earth moves
\nround the sun, must yet persist in speaking of the Sun as moving and standing in
\nthis part of the heavens or that other, because he has to do with the relative
\npositions of the Sun and planets with regard to men living on the earth and not
\nwith the ultimate astronomical realities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFrom this point of view we have to begin with a dualism of
\nthe thing and its shadow, Purusha and Prakriti, commonly called spirit and
\nmatter. Properly speaking, the distinction is illusory, since there is nothing
\nwhich is exclusively spirit or exclusively matter, nor can the Universe be
\nstrictly parcelled out between these; from the point of view of Reality spirit
\nand matter are not different but the same. We may say, if we like, that the
\nentire Universe is matter and spirit does not exist; we may say, if we like that
\nthe entire Universe is spirit and matter does not exist. In either case we are
\nmerely multiplying words without counsel, ignoring the patent fact visible
\nthrough the Universe that both spirit and matter exist and are indissolubly
\nwelded,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 45<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
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\nprecisely because they are simply one thing viewed from two
\nsides. The distinction between them is one of the primary dualisms and a first
\nresult of the great Ignorance. Maya works out in name and form as material; Maya
\nworks out in the conceiver of name and form as spiritual. Purusha is the great
\nprinciple or force whose presence is necessary to awake creative energy and send
\nit out working into and on shapes of matter. For this reason Purusha is the name
\nusually applied to the conditioned Brahman in His manifestations; but it is
\nalways well to remember that the Primal Existence turned towards manifestation
\nhas a double aspect. Male and Female, positive and negative. He is the origin of
\nthe birth of things and He is the receptacle of the birth and it is to the Male
\naspect of Himself that the word Purusha predominatingly applies. The image often
\napplied to these relations is that of the man casting his seed into the woman;
\nhis duty is merely to originate the seed and deposit it, but it is the woman’s
\nduty to cherish the seed, develop it, bring it forth and start it on its career
\nof manifested life. The seed, says the Upanishad, is the self of the Male, it is
\nspirit, and being cast into the Female, Prakriti, it becomes one with her and
\ntherefore does her no hurt; spirit takes the shaping appearance of matter and
\ndoes not break up the appearances of matter, but develops under their law. The
\nMan and the Woman, universal Adam and Eve, are really one and each is incomplete
\nwithout the other, barren without the other, inactive without the other. Purusha
\nthe Male, God, is that side of the One which gives the impulse toward phenomenal
\nexistence; Prakriti the Female, Nature, is that side which is and evolves the
\nmaterial of phenomenal existence; both of them are therefore unborn and eternal.
\nThe Male is Purusha, he who lurks in the Wide; the Female is Prakriti, the
\nworking of the Male, and sometimes called Rayi, the universal movement emanating
\nfrom the quiescent Male. Purusha is therefore imaged as the Enjoyer, Prakriti as
\nthe enjoyed; Purusha as the Witness, Prakriti as the phenomena he witnesses;
\nPurusha as begetter<\/i> or father of things, Prakriti as their bearer or
\nmother. And there are many other images the Upanishad employs, Purusha, for
\ninstance, symbolising Himself in the Sun, the father of life, and Prakriti in
\nthe Earth, the bearer of life. It is necessary <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 46<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
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\nthus clearly to define Purusha from the first in order to
\navoid confusion in endeavouring to grasp the development of Maya as the
\nUpanishads describe it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nParabrahman in the course of evolving phenomena enters into
\nthree states or conditions which are called in one passage His three habitations
\nand, by a still more suggestive figure. His three states of dream. The first
\ncondition is called avyakta,<\/i> the state previous to manifestation, in
\nwhich all things are involved, but in which nothing is expressed or imaged, the
\nstate of ideality, undifferentiated but pregnant of differentiation, just as the
\nseed is pregnant of the bark, sap, pith, fibre, leaf, fruit and flower and all
\nelse that unites to make the conception of a tree; just as the protoplasm is
\npregnant of all the extraordinary variations of animal life. It is, in its
\nobjective aspect, the seed-state of things. The objective possibility, and
\nindeed necessity of such a condition of the whole Universe, cannot be denied;
\nfor this is the invariable method of development which the operations of Nature
\nshow to us. Evolution does not mean that out of protoplasm as a material so many
\norganisms have been created or added by an outside power, but that they have
\nbeen developed out of the protoplasm ; and if developed, they were already there
\nexistent and have been manifested by some power dwelling and working in the
\nprotoplasm itself. But open up the protoplasm, as you will, you will not find in
\nit the rudiments of the organs and organisms it will hereafter develop. So also
\nthough the protoplasm and everything else is evolved out of ether, yet no
\nsymptoms of them would yield themselves up to an analytical research into ether.
\nThe organs and organisms are in the protoplasm, the leaf, flower, fruit in the
\nseed and all forms in the ether from which they evolve, in an undifferentiated
\ncondition and therefore defy the method of analysis which is confined to the
\ndiscovery of differences. This is the state called involution. So also ether
\nitself, gross or subtle, and all that evolves from ether is involved in Avyakta;
\nthey are present but they can never be discovered there because there they are
\nundifferentiated. Plato’s world of ideas is a confused attempt to arrive at this
\ncondition of things, confused because it unites two incompatible things, the
\nconditions of Avyakta and those of the next state presided over by
\nHiranyagarbha.<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 47<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
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\nThe question then arises, what is the subjective aspect of
\nParabrahman in the state of Avyakta? The organs and organisms are evolved out of
\nprotoplasm and forms out of ether by a power which resides and works in them,
\nand that power must be intelligent consciousness unmanifested; must,<\/i>
\nbecause it is obviously a power that can plan, arrange and suit means to ends;
\nmust <\/i>because otherwise the law of subtler involving grosser cannot
\nobtain. If matter is all, then from the point of view of matter, the gross is
\nmore real because more palpable than the subtle and unreality cannot develop
\nreality; it is intelligent consciousness and nothing else we know of that not
\nonly has the power of containing at one and the same time the gross and the
\nsubtle, but does consistently proceed in its method of creation or evolution
\nfrom vagueness to precision, from no form to form and from simple form to
\ncomplex form. If the discoveries of Science mean anything and are not a chaos,
\nan illusion or a chimera, they can only mean the existence of an intelligent
\nconsciousness present and working in all things. Parabrahman therefore is
\npresent subjectively even in the condition of Avyakta no less than in the other
\nconditions as intelligent consciousness and therefore as bliss.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor the rest, we are driven to the use of metaphors, and
\nsince metaphors must be used, one will do as well as another, for none can be
\nentirely applicable. Let us then image Avyakta as an egg, the golden egg of the
\nPuranas full of the waters of undifferentiated existence and divided into two
\nhalves, the upper or luminous half filled with the upper waters of subjective
\nideation, the lower or tenebrous half with the lower waters of objective
\nideation. In the upper half Purusha is concealed as the final cause of things;
\nit is there that is formed the idea of undifferentiated, eternal, infinite,
\nuniversal Spirit. In the lower half he is concealed as Prakriti, the material
\ncause of things; it is there that is formed the idea of undifferentiated,
\neternal, infinite, universal matter, with the implications Time, Space and
\nCausality involved in its infinity. It is represented mythologically by Vishnu
\non the causal Ocean sitting on the hood of Ananta, the infinite snake whose
\nendless folds are Time, and are also Space and are also Causality, these three
\nbeing fundamentally one, \u2014 a Trinity. In the upper <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 48<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
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\nhalf Parabrahman is still utterly Himself, but with a Janus
\nface, one side contemplating the Absolute Reality which He is,<\/i> the other
\nenvisaging Maya, looking on the endless procession of her works not yet as a
\nreality, but as a phantasmagoria. In the lower half if we may use a daring
\nmetaphor, Parabrahman forgets Himself. He is subjectively in the state
\ncorresponding to utter sleep or trance from which when a man awakes he can only
\nrealise that he was and that he was in a state of bliss resulting from the
\ncomplete absence of limitation; that he was conscious in that state, follows
\nfrom his realisation of blissful existence, but the consciousness is not a part
\nof his realisation. This concealment of Consciousness is a characteristic of the
\nseed-state of things and it is what is meant by saying that when Parabrahman
\nenters into matter as Prakriti, He forgets Himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf such a condition, the realisations of consciousness do not
\nreturn to us, we can have no particular information. The Yogin passes through it
\non his way to the Eternal, but he hastens to this goal and does not linger in
\nit; not only so, but absorption in this stage is greatly dreaded except as a
\ntemporary necessity; for if the soul finally leaves the body in that condition,
\nit must recommence the cycle of evolution all over again; for it has identified
\nitself with the seed-state of things and must follow the nature of Avyakta which
\nis to start on the motions of Evolution by the regular order of universal
\nmanifestation. This absorption is called the prakṛti laya<\/i> or absorption
\nin Prakriti. The Yogin can enter into this state of complete Nescience or Avidya
\nand remain there for centuries, but if by any chance his body is preserved and
\nhe returns to it, he brings nothing back to the store of our knowledge on this
\nside of Avyakta.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nParabrahman in the state of Avyakta Purusha is known as
\nprajna,<\/i> the Master of prajna.<\/i> Eternal Wisdom or Providence, for it is
\n<\/b>He that orders and marshals before Himself, like a great poet planning a
\nwonderful masterpiece in his mind, the eternal laws of existence and the
\nunending procession of the worlds. Vidya and Avidya are here perfectly balanced,
\nthe former still and quiescent though comprehensive, the latter not yet at
\nactive work, waiting for the command, "Let there be darkness." And then the veil
\nof darkness, Vidya seems to be in<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 49<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
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\nabeyance, and from the disturbance of the balance results
\ninequality; then out of the darkness Eternal Wisdom streams forth to its task of
\ncreation and Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Child, is born…. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 50<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SIX  The Triple Brahman       PARABRAHMAN is now on the way to phenomenal manifestation; the Absolute Shakespeare of Existence, the infinite Kavi, Thinker and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","wpcat-14-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}