Aum Prakrityai Namaha!

1

Prakriti

Sarvamangala maangalye

Shive sarvartha sadhike,

Sharanye tryambake Gauri,

Narayani namosthuthe!

Salutations to Devi Narayani, who is blessed with every felicity,

Filled with auspiciousness, able to accomplish everything,

Who is the protectress, the three-eyed Gauri.

The Sanskrit word pra means “exalted,” “superior,” or “excellent,” and the word kriti means “creation.” So the Divine Mother is known as Mula Prakriti, since she is the supreme creator of the world. Prakriti is the eternal matrix from which all the components of reality have sprung. She is the point in the center of the ocean of energy that is the ultimate source of all the energetic fields that Western science knows, like gravity, the electromagnetic field, and so on. Tantric philosophy calls this point the Divine Mother, Devi Prakriti, or Parashakti. She is the very source of the subtle dimensions of reality that our physical senses can never perceive.

All creation is made up of combinations and permutations of the three gunas, or essential qualities of Prakriti: sattva, rajas, and tamas. Her name correlates directly to these qualities, with pra denoting sattva, kri denoting rajas, and ti denoting tamas. These gunas are found in all aspects of creation; they are the qualitative building blocks of creation. Without them the universe and its inhabitants would have no qualities. Tamas has the ability to distort reality, rajas to veil reality, and sattva to allow it to be seen, though dimly. If we employ the terms used in physics, we can say that tamas is the quality of inertia, rajas of kinesis, and sattva of equilibrium. Tamas, rajas, and sattva correspond to different colors, according to Indian thought. Tamas is black, rajas red, and sattva white. These are the colors of the Divine Mother herself: Kaali is black, Lakshmi red, and Saraswati white.

Prakriti is known as Maha Maya or the great deluder. But her maya, or power of illusion, has two aspects: vidya maya and avidya maya. Vidya maya is the power of the goddess to dispel illusion by illumining our intellect through knowledge of reality; it is omnipotent and omniscient and is capable of revealing the Brahman, which is Prakriti’s receptacle. (Remember she is known as Para Brahma Swarupini, or the very form of the Brahman.) Avidya maya is the goddess’s power to veil, by which she binds the immortal soul to the mortal frame of the body. The three gunas form the very essence of the Divine Mother’s avidya maya. Through avidya maya the supreme self is reflected in the individual as the jiva or jivatman—the embodied soul that has forgotten its original, pristine state. The jivatman is said to have three bodies: the gross body (or physical body), the subtle body (consisting of the mind, ego, and intellect), and the causal body (the astral body, which transmigrates to the spiritual plane). Prakriti resides in the subtle body in two different forms as vidya maya and avidya maya.

Avidya maya conceals the supreme, and thus the jivatman experiences all types of sorrows. In actuality the self or inner spirit, the atman, is self-luminous; it is the eternal and blissful fountain of love. Jnana or knowledge is the very nature of the atman. It is the basis of the knowledge of “I am” that every jiva possesses. It is also the source of all love. Though they are in essence nothing but the one supreme self, the jivas thus appear to be many, as each is contained in a mortal frame, and they appear to differ from each other due to the different composition of the three gunas in them.

When Himavan, king of the mountains, practiced tapas (meditation) to Maha Devi in order to procure her as his daughter, she appeared to him in her most spectacular form and promised to incarnate as his daughter. After this she proceeded to enlighten him as to her true nature, since he was eager to know her secret essence. This discourse by Devi to Himavan is known as the Devi Gita:

Hear this, O Himavan, by knowing which all jivas will become liberated. Before creation I alone exist—eternal, immutable. My real self is no different from the Para Brahman. In that state I am pure sat (existence), chid (consciousness), samvit (intelligence), and ananda (bliss). At that time I am beyond all attributes or transformations. Maya is my power of illusion, and it is inherent in me. It is co-eternal with me. It arises out of me like heat from fire and rays from the sun. Though it has no beginning, it is possible to end it with the attainment of supreme knowledge. Maya can be called neither existent nor nonexistent. If it existed eternally, there would be no liberation for the jiva. But if it were not present at all, the practical world would not exist, so it cannot be nonexistent. It can be destroyed with the knowledge of Brahman, so it cannot be called existent either. It is thus my mysterious power of delusion, and it can be overcome only through my grace.

In essence I am nirguna (without qualities), but when I relate myself to avidya maya, I become saguna (endowed with qualities). Then do I become the cause of the universe of names and forms. Thus avidya maya is the cause of this whole creation. From the point of view of the Brahman, there is no maya and no creation. Therefore I am ever pure even though involved in creation, just as the sun’s rays are not defiled by illumining dirty objects.

When maya unites with chid or consciousness, it becomes the instigating cause of the universe, and when it unites with the five original elements, it becomes the material cause. Avidya maya is what creates the delusion of time, space, and causality, and its characteristic is to hide my true nature, but vidya maya has the ability to liberate the jiva from this illusion.

Infinite and endless creations are threaded on me as pearls on a string. I myself am the lord that resides in the causal and subtle bodies of the jivas. I am Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. I am the sun, moon, and stars. I am the beasts and the birds, the Brahmin and the untouchable. I am the noble soul as well as the hunter and the thief. I am male, female, and hermaphrodite. Wherever there is anything to be seen or heard, I am to be found there, within and without. There is nothing moving or unmoving that can exist without me. This world cannot appear without a substratum, and I am that substratum.

The world is composed of twenty-five tattvas or elements. The first five—akasa (ether), vayu (air), agni (fire), apas (water), and prithvi (earth)—are known as the maha tattvas. When the Para Brahman relates to my avidya maya, the sound hreem, which is my seed sound, is produced. Within this sound are contained my three shaktis (powers), known as iccha shakti (the tamasic power of will), jnana shakti (the sattvic power of intelligence), and kriya shakti (the rajasic power of action). These three are absolutely essential for creation. The sound hreem, which denotes me—the Adi Shakti or the first force, who is of the nature of the Brahman and is known as Para Brahma Swarupini—is the twenty-fifth tattva. The rest of the twenty-four tattvas come out of it.

The five qualities of sound, touch, form, taste, and odor are known as tanmatras or subtle elements. The subtle quality of sound is the first tanmatra to manifest from hreem. Then come the subtle elements of touch, form, taste, and odor. Out of the subtle tanmatra of sound is manifested the gross element (tattva) of akasa or ether, the vast field of energy that comprises the universe. Vibrations in the ether cause the movement of air. Thus from akasa appears vayu or air, which has its own subtle feature of touch plus the added quality of sound, which it incorporates from the previous tattva of akasa. Friction caused by the continuous movement of the air principle creates heat, which we call fire. Thus from vayu comes agni or fire, which has its own subtle feature of form plus touch and sound. Condensation of the density of these forces results in the formation of liquid or water. So the next to manifest is apas or water, which has its own subtle quality of taste plus those of form, touch, and sound. The solidified form of all this is earth, so the last to appear is prithvi or earth, which has its basic subtle feature of odor plus the qualities of the other four elements of taste, form, touch, and sound.

What we come to understand from this teaching is that creation proceeds from the subtle to the gross and not the other way around, as we might suppose. The subtle elements (tanmatras) are sound, touch, form, taste, and odor. The gross elements (tattvas) are ether, air, fire, water, and earth, which are all derivatives of the subtle elements. These five gross elements represent the entire gamut of our advanced modern physics. But from the Shakta point of view, physical matter and its fields represent only a tiny fraction of reality.

The five subtle elements all have sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic qualities. The five jnanendriyas or sense organs of knowledge are created out of the sattvic portion of the first five subtle elements. These are the ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose, and they are the instruments through which the mind can interact with these elements in the material world.

The karmendriyas or organs of action come from the rajasic portion of the tanmatras. These are the organs of speech, the hands, the feet, the organs of procreation, and the anus or organ of excretion. The subtle element of sound gives rise to space and ends in speech. The subtle element of touch projects as air, which is felt by the skin, especially the skin of the hands. The subtle element of form gives rise to fire, which eventually takes the form of the feet. The subtle element of taste gives rise to water, which in turn produces the organ of procreation. The subtle element of odor produces the earth, which results in the production of the anus.

The five pranas or subtle breaths, which control the involuntary functions of the body, arise from the tamasic portion of the tanmatras. They are the prana vayu, which resides in the heart and controls blood circulation; the apana vayu, which resides in the lower portion of the body and controls the expulsion of waste matter; the samana vayu, which resides in the navel and controls digestion; the udana vayu, which resides in the throat and controls speech; and the vyana vayu, which pervades the whole body.

The sensations of sound, touch, form, taste, and odor are important components of our experience of life. Indian philosophy claims that these elements exist in intangible and subtle forms. They are visible to our inner eye and are the very stuff of our dreams. However, the gross body is not able to experience them.

The seventeen tattvas that make up the jivatman are the five gross elements, the five sense organs that correspond to these, the five pranas (or vital breaths), and the mind and the ego. The linga sarira or subtle body of the jiva is made up of these seventeen tattvas in their subtle forms. Yogis who perfected the ability to leave their physical bodies at will realized that their subtle or astral bodies were able to travel unhampered through space and gross matter. However, they could still hear, touch, smell, and feel in this state, so they concluded that the actual experience of these five sensations lies in the subtle body and not in its physical counterpart.

The mind is a psychic organ that operates through a physical nervous system in this life, allowing it to interact easily with physical matter. While in the physical body it has three functions with separate names. The part that receives information through the jnanendriyas (sense organs) and then processes and stores that information is called manas or mind. The part that relates to a particular individual, giving him a strong sense of individuality, the feeling of “my” and “mine,” is called ahamkara or ego. The part that weighs alternatives and makes decisions is called buddhi or intellect.

However, the mind has another aspect that is most subtle, called chitta. It has no equivalent English name, though it is sometimes called the superconscious, which is not quite an accurate translation. It is capable of obtaining data from our inner dimensions of reality and is a storehouse of information. It is in direct contact with akasa, or the energy field or ether of the universe. After death—or, for yogis, during astral travels—the mind separates from the physical organism and operates in the realm of the tanmatras or subtle elements. Then it is pure chitta alone. The chitta is very close to pure spirit (or atman). The difference is that the chitta is still individualized. It carries all the information of the individual and is carried to another body. The atman on the other hand is ever pure. It carries nothing and goes nowhere since it is ever full. It is not born and thus never dies. It is not affected by the changes of the mind—ego, intellect, and chitta.

This brings us to another important point of Indian philosophy. The first three aspects of the mind (manas, buddhi, and ahamkara), which are the basis of our personality, are all material constituents and not spiritual entities. They have their roots in Prakriti or primordial matter and not in the spirit or atman. The mind changes every moment and eventually perishes with the body, but the atman or spirit remains. This is the eternal self that never perishes, that is the undying witness and never the doer.

Indian philosophy is slowly coming to find an ally in evolving Western science. The Newtonian world was a law-abiding but desolate place from which we were totally unconnected. Next came Darwin, who stripped life of all its spiritual potential and left us bereft. Our only purpose was survival. The pinnacle of humanity appeared to be the terrorist who could efficiently dispose of all weak links. Life was not about sharing and interdependence but about winning and, if need be, warring. These theories produced the modern psyche and have led to some of the world’s greatest technological advancement. Unfortunately, such advancement has been at the cost of our humanity and of our divinity. No wonder suicides claim as many lives as homicides and wars.¹ Science tore the human being from his roots and left him with a sense of brutal isolation.

With the advent of quantum physics in the early part of the twentieth century, many scientists underwent a dramatic reversal in their views of man and the universe. Modern science is slowly coming to understand that underlying every aspect of the universe is a field of energy that connects every thing to every other thing. Scientists call this the zero-point field. They have found that the tiniest bit of matter isn’t matter at all but energy in motion. As Lynne McTaggart has said in her book The Field, “Living beings are a coalescence of energy.” Even more interestingly, scientists have discovered that subatomic particles have no meaning by themselves but function only in relation to everything else! This astonishing finding is slowly replacing the old Newtonian physics wherein everything had a set pattern and was totally predictable by the human mind.

Lynne McTaggart goes on to say that the pulsating energy field that underlies existence is the central engine of our being and our consciousness—our alpha and omega. There is no duality between the universe and us. We are connected to every single thing in the cosmos by this one underlying energy field. In The Field she says, “This field [of energy] is responsible for our mind’s highest functions, the information source guiding the growth of our bodies. It is our brain, our heart, our memory—indeed a blueprint of the world for all time. The field is the force, rather than germs or genes, that finally determines whether we are healthy or ill, the force which must be tapped in order to heal. . . . ‘The field,’ as Einstein once succinctly put it, ‘is the only reality.’”

The Puranas depict this energy field of Prakriti as the ocean of primeval waters on which Vishnu lies, in which the Island of Jewels or the Mani Dwipa floats. Maha Devi’s throne on the Island of Jewels (see chapter 4) is the bindu or point from which all energy eddies in circles to create the expanding universe. Maha Devi or Para Prakriti or Para Shakti is actually nothing but the Brahman. They are a two-in-one reality. In the unmanifest state there is no difference between them. However, when the urge to create occurs, this Para Prakriti pierces through the bindu in the form of the sound hreem, from which the entire world of manifestation arises. Prakriti is the energy of the Brahman. This energy remains latent during the period of dissolution when the cosmos is in a latent state within her. But during the time of evolution and creation she comes to the forefront and carries out the work of manifesting creation.

The universe’s underlying energy field is akasa, the ether that is the twenty-third tattva. It is a timeless, spaceless quantum that provides the ultimate blueprint of the world for all time—past, present, and future. Any person who desires or professes to see the past or future has to tap this source. Quantum physics has come to realize that pure energy as it exists on the quantum level is not bound by the ordinary laws of time and space. It exists in a vast continuum of fluctuating charge. When we bring this energy to our conscious awareness through the act of perception, we create the separate objects of our world that exist in time and space. In fact we create our own worlds in time and space and thereby create our separate individualities. This brain-boggling theory, which Western science has only recently become aware of and is still wary of accepting, is something that has been recognized by Indian philosophy from ancient times. In fact it is what the Devi told Himavan in the Devi Gita. Of course the words she used were different, but the meaning is the same.

All the Puranic stories point out this amazing truth. For instance, in the story of the churning of the milky ocean (see chapter 21), the devas (gods) and asuras (demons) represent the positive and negative sides of each person’s personality. This personality churns the ocean of all possibilities (the zero-point field), using the churn of space (Mandara) and the rope of time (Ananta), and thus draws out for himself many wondrous things, including the nectar of immortality if he so wishes it. Thus each creates his own separate world.

Time has generally been considered a primary, independent, and universally applicable order both in physics and in common experience. It is one of the fundamental orders known to us. Now modern scientific research is slowly coming to accept the fact that it is a secondary order that is, like space, derived from a higher dimensional ground. Both time and space depend on another multidimensional reality that cannot be comprehended fully through common experience; for human consciousness to operate on this quantum level, it must reside outside space and time. In theory such a state of consciousness would mean that we would be able to access information of both the past and the future, and that every moment of our lives could be made to influence every other moment, both forward and backward. These are breathtaking ideas that science is loath to accept. But Indian yogis have known them from time immemorial.

In every puja or ritual there is a particular step called sankalpa or intention in which the gods are invoked. This intention is the reason the priest undertakes the ritual. It may be for some physical purpose, like the curing of a disease or passing an exam, or anything else. The intention is said to be so important that it can actually change the chain of events and make manifest the desire of the one who performs the ritual. Such reasoning is now backed by modern science; the quantum age has shown that the intention of the experimenter has a lot to do with the final result to be achieved from the experiment. The human factor influences the end result of any experiment!

The individual is not an isolated phenomenon, a piece of flotsam floating aimlessly in the sea of the world, totally unconnected with everything else, with freedom to pursue his own selfish ends. He is part of an interconnected whole in which all of us are deeply involved. Human consciousness is absolutely essential to the making of some objective sense out of the constant flux of subatomic particles. This is the amazing discovery of quantum physics that many scientists are still unable to accept.

In the Devi Gita, Devi says,

I am the intelligence from which the universe emanates and in which it abides. The ignorant believe me to be nothing more than Nature or Prakriti, but the wise experience me as the true self within. They glimpse me in their own hearts when their minds become as still and clear as an ocean without waves. The supreme wisdom is that which ends the delusion that anything exists apart from me. The fruit of this realization is a total lack of fear and the end of sorrow. When one understands that all the limitless universes are but a fraction of an atom in the unity of my being, that all the numberless lives in the universes are the wisps of vapor in one of my breaths, that all triumphs and tragedies, the good and the evil in all the worlds, are merely games I play for my own amusement, then life and death stand still and the drama of individual life evaporates like a shallow pond on a warm day.

This world that you are experiencing now is nothing but my power. The only remedy for your ignorance is to worship me as your innermost self. Surrender yourself to me with one-pointed devotion and I will help you discover your true being. Abide in me as I abide in you. Know that even now at this very moment there is absolutely no difference between us. Realize and be fulfilled this instant.

Its mind of error was stripped off from things,

And the dull moods of its perverted will.

Illumined by Her all-seeing identity,

Knowledge and Ignorance could strive no more.

No longer could the titan opposites,

Antagonist poles of the world’s artifice,

Impose the illusion of their twofold screen,

Throwing their figures between us and Her!

—SAVITRI BY SRI AUROBINDO

Thus ends the first chapter of Shakti, known as “Prakriti,” describing the process and nature of creation and the relationship between Brahman and Prakriti.

Aum Aim Hreem Kleem