Consciusness: A Hindu Perspective: Brahman, Purusha, and Prakriti

The capacity for awareness and experience, for logical analysis and joyful interaction constitutes the intangible component in the fleeting persistence of Homo sapience. This is the essence of what we call the human spirit. Just as there is more to a flower than soil and tree-branch, the spirit is more than neural network, heartbeat and vital breath, though these are what create and sustain it here below.
How are we to explain these extraordinary features of human consciousness in relation to its temporal and spatial insignificance? How can we comprehend the fact that to none but the human brain the universe is comprehensible? Science’s suggestion that evolution led to this extraordinarily powerful complexity is one persuasive hypothesis, and it has found ample observational support.
The sage-poets of Hinduism who probed into the ultimate nature and roots of consciousness, arrived at a startlingly different conclusion. If the splendor of the perceived world and the pattern in its functioning can result in the grand experiences of life and thought, then even prior to the advent of humans, there must have been a consciousness of a vastly superior order, an Experiencer Who spanned the range in space and time. This undergirding cosmic principle is the Brahman in Hindu vision. Moreover, our consciousness is but an echo of something of far grander dimensions. Expressed through the pithy Upanishadic aphorism, tat tvam asi: Thou art That, the Hindu vision is that every conscious entity is a spark from an underlying effulgence, and flashes its radiance as its source alone can.
Just as the expanse of water in the seas is scattered all over land in ponds, lakes and rivers, all-embracing Brahman finds expression in countless life forms. We are miniature lights, one and all. We have emanated from that primordial effulgence, like photons from a glorious galactic core, destined for the terrestrial experience for a brief span on the eternal time line, only to re-merge with that from which we sprang.
Brahman, the Ground-stuff, subdivides itself into purusha, the cosmic consciousness, and prakriti or Nature. These are the experiencer and the experienced, not unlike the res cogens and the res extensa of Descartes. Prakriti is now bifurcated into animate and the inanimate realms with only a fuzzy dividing line separating them. On the other hand, purusha separates out into countless jîvâtmans or individual units of consciousness which fuse into the mind and body of the animate branch of prakriti. The conscious jîvatman endeavors to recognize its source, namely purusha, through religion and spirituality, and tries to understand prakriti through science.
Is this poetic imagery, scientific hypothesis, or perhaps the ultimate Truth? If it be poetry, we recall that poetry and prayer are for the human spirit what the telescope and the microscope are for human eyes. Lenses enable us to discern entities beyond our normal recognition, and profound poetry is a response of the spirit to that which is not fathomed through logic and reason. Poetry brings home to us, indeed it forces us to reckon, the world of experience, not in terms of sense data and charts and proofs, but in subtle and holistic ways. It reveals meaning and majesty in the universe, which lie in a realm beyond the plane of rigid rationality. Poetry is mystic insight verbalized.
The Hindu spiritual vision paints individual consciousness on a cosmic canvas. It recognizes the transience of us all as separate entities, yet incorporates us into the infinity that encompasses us. It does not rule out the possibility of other manifestations of Brahman, sublime and subtle, carbon or silicon-based, elsewhere amidst the stellar billions. It recognizes the role of matter, and the limits of the mind, but sees subtle spirit at the core of everything. It does not speak of rewards and punishments in anthropocentric terms, or of a He-God communicating in local languages. Yet, it regards the religious expressions of humanity as echoes of the Universal Spirit, even as volcanic outbursts reveal submerged forces of far greater magnitude.

On Religious Tolerance: A Hindu’s Perspective

In chronological terms we live in the twenty-first century. But in some contexts many people are still functioning in a bygone era which was characterized by interfaith hurt and anger
In chronological terms we live in the twenty-first century. But in some contexts many people are still functioning in a bygone era which was characterized by interfaith hurt and anger, passions and persecutions motivated by religious fervor, convictions of free-rides to Heaven after martyrdom, and invocation of God and Satan prior to the perpetration of heinous deeds.

All through the ages the intertwining of politics and religion was more than a scheme by conquering marauders to manipulate and whip up mindless soldiers in the conquest of new lands. Rather, it was born of deep-felt belief, an inner certainty that one’s visions of God and the hereafter constitute the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth, and that all other systems of thought and belief were wrong, pernicious, and deserving of destruction.

There was a time when this mind-set did more havoc than arrows, gunpowder, and even cannons, for the power of religion-inspired hate can be more virulent and vicious than weapons of war. We are currently witnessing the unleashing of that power in some regions of world.

Granted, there are political problems to be resolved, economic injustices to be corrected, and moral wrongs to be righted, and lot more things to be done to make this a fairer community of nations. But even in a Utopian world where all may live in abundance, where the arts flourish as much as the sciences, there may not be happy harmony. Peace cannot reign where doctrinal intolerance persists.

Let me say this first: I have reverence for the symbols and sounds of every religion of the human family in so far as they don’t hurt anyone. Irrespective of how some of their practitioners behave, I respect Judaism as an inspiration from Covenant with a Higher Power, Buddhism as a call for compassion, Islam as a proclamation of Peace and surrender to God, Christianity as a pulpit for love and caring. I know that at the core every religion has something positive to say.

This, to me is religious pluralism: Not the abandonment of one’s own faith and the naïve embrace of all, nor the simplistic vew that all religions teach the same values or have the same visions, but the feeling and understanding that there is wisdom in every tradition, magnificence is every spiritual aspiration and a sublime core in every religion.

In the current context of religious confrontations, I would like to recall a vision of Hinduism in a pluralistic world. The challenge for the religiously inclined is not faith and loyalty to the religion of one’s affiliation, but tolerance of, and respect for other faiths and loyalties. Monotheism is a lofty vision, if the term only implied belief in a single God. Sadly, it often tends to include a condescending corollary: That One God is the God which I worship. It is an irony of religious history is that there have been more bloody confrontations among monotheistic religions than between any of them and a polytheistic one.

Theologicians and leaders of all religions would do well to consider Hinduism’s view on this matter. There is a precious aphorism in the Rig Veda which says it all:
ekam sat; vipraa bahudaa vadanti: Truth is one; the learned call it by different names.

In Sanskrit the word sat means truth, essence, and also God. God is no other than the ultimate truth, the quintessence of the Cosmic Whole. Quintessential Truth, however, is infinite, and it can be grasped by finite human minds only in parts. So every description of it, whether from revelation or through speculation, whether from reading or by reflection, can only be partial. So we all proclaim it in many different ways. One is not right and the other wrong in this matter, we all obtain a glimpse of the Ultimate. Truth about the Ultimate is like the glitter of a gem, it shines in different ways when viewed from different angles. For the enlightened heart and mind, God can be seen in the star of David as in the Cross, in the Crescent inspired by the Koran as in the abstract sound of the sacred Om.

At the most basic level, we pray for our own well being, for recovery from disease, for success in an enterprise or for experiencing spiritual delight. But at a more sophisticated level, we may seek guidance to go from asat or Untruth (the mono-vision of truth) to Truth (recognition of its multiple appearances).

As long as we are constrained in the conviction that our own parochial vision of Truth is all there is, we are groping in darkness. We must therefore seek guidance for being led to jyoti or Light which reveals the splendor of multiplicity from the tamas or darkness of ignorant narrowness.

As long as we linger in the dark dungeon of intolerance, we are mortals in spirit as in body. As long as we wallow in our own rigid modes, unable to get out of it to see and feel with others, we are as good as dead for we are without profound perceptions. Immortality is not living for ever, but getting a glimpse of the Infinite and the Eternal. We achieve this in the mortal frame when we emerge from narrowness, bigotry, intolerance, and the like. We therefore need to be guided from death to immortality.

So we have this trans-denominational prayer in the Hindu world:

asatomaa sad gamaya: From Untruth to Truth lead us!
tamasomaa jyotir gamaya: From Darkness to Light lead us!
mrtyomaa amrtam gamaya: From Death to Deathlessness lead us!

As elsewhere, Hinduism has its local enrichments in music and mythology, in doctrines and dogmas, and it also betrays shocking divergences between theory and practice. But there is this nugget of insight in the Hindu world that is not only interesting, but indispensable if we ever hope to have religious harmony in the world: namely, that no matter how we picture the Unfathomable and what name or form we give It, all modes and forms of worship ultimately go one and the same Principle. As it says poetically in Sanskrit:

aakaasaat patitamtoyam
yadaa gachchadi saagaram
sarvadeva namasraarah
sri kesavam pradigachchadi

As waters falling from the skies
Return to the self-same sea,
Prostrations to all the gods
Reach the same Divinity.

A very simple idea this certainly is, yet so difficult to practice when the mind is clouded by self-righteous doctrine and dogma. Until and unless this idea is internalized by practitioners of all faiths, the ugliness of religious intolerance would be never be erased from the list of problems confronting our poor species.

Homage to Sarasvati

The Supreme Mystery that awakens the mind,

The root of ev’ry syllable and word,

The fount of joy in glorious music,

The rhythm in dance that’s full of life;

The magic in numbers, the wonder in symbols,

The spark of knowledge, the flash of insight;

The wisdom in books and the beauty in arts:

All this is Sarasvati in Indic vision.

Her I recall every morn,

Meditate upon ‘fore the day unfolds.

To her I offer my homage special

With a prayer of a distant age:

jñAnam dehi, smritam dehi,

vidhyAm vidhyAdhi devate

pratishtam kavitam dehi,

shaktim sishya prabodhikAm.

Give me wisdom, give me mem’ry,

Goddess, Source of Knowledge wide.

Make me steadfast, give me poetry,

Give me the power, students to guide!

Notes: We use words to talk. We enjoy music. We play with numbers. All these are nice, because they make us happy. How can we say Thanks for these enriching experiences? nIn the Hindu framework, there is a Goddess who gives us words and language and music and numbers. That Goddess is Sarasvati.

MEDITATION ON SHIVA

Shiva Oh Mystic Power, Auspicious is Your name.
The Vedas call you Rudra, Your wrath has gained much fame.
As third of the Triple MUrti, dissolution you do bring
Yet as Pashupati, You protect each living thing.
You are the source of conscious self, and this is a vision of You
In our sacred history: You have a neck all blue
With a coiled cobra all around, and body smeared in gray,
With a chain of skulls, clothed in deer skin, they say.
Your Third Eye turned KAma to dust in his day
And fills us with awe in a very intense way.
In the mystic vision, You are on KailAs Mount
And of the sacred Ganga , your matted hair is fount.
You are known as KAla – Time that has no end,
Also as SaMkara – Beneficent, to all a friend.
You are MahAdeva, in our humble view,
And by a Thousand Names we often worship you.
But Your spiritual secrets are very much more
Than all the names and forms, and all our tradition’s lore.
You are the abstract One that brings to complete naught
All that ever emerged as things and as thought.
Not just the bloom of flower and the beat of heart
But everything comes to end that ever had a start:
From whisper frail of the gentle breeze
To ancient rocks and sturdy trees,
From leptons, hadrons, and atoms so tiny
To the shining stars and galaxies many.
All that have had a birth and all that evolve
Sooner or later, they all must dissolve.
You are the grand mystery behind impermanence,
And the final dot that ends every sentence.
The breath that at last lulls the lungs for certain,
The rope that at last closes the cosmic curtain.
From here below to up on high
Of the grandest show You are the final sigh.
Whenever on You I meditate
I grasp much better my earthly state.
OM namaShivaya!