VedaVyasa
Praneetha
The Mad Bhagavatam
Canto 11
Chapter 22
Prakriti and Purusha: Nature and the Enjoyer
This chapter enumerates and categorizes the natural elements, explains the difference between the male and female natures and describes birth and death.
There are many opinions concerning the number of material elements. But this difference of opinions, brought about by the influence of the illusory energy, is not illogical. All the elements of nature exist everywhere; so authorities who have accepted the illusory potency of the Supreme Personality may propose a variety of theories. The insurmountable illusory energy of God is the root cause of their mutually contradictory arguments.
There is no difference between the ultimate enjoyer and the supreme controller. To presuppose any distinction between them is senseless. Ordinary knowledge is simply a quality of material nature, not of the soul proper. The raw substance of material nature is designated according to its different phases. In the mode of goodness, it is known as knowledge, in the mode of passion as activity, and in the mode of darkness as ignorance. Time is another name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and another name for material propensity is sūtra or mahat-tattva. The twenty-five elements of nature are the Lord, nature, the mahat, false ego, ether, air, fire, water, earth, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the skin, speech, the hands, the feet, the genitals, the anus, the mind, sound, touch, form, taste and smell.
The unmanifest Supreme Personality merely glances at nature. Material nature, which is under the control of the Supreme Lord, then assumes the forms of causes and effects and carries out the creation, maintenance and destruction of the material world. Even though the puruṣa and prakṛti appear nondifferent to superficial vision, there is an ultimate difference between the two. Material creation is produced from the modes of prakṛti, and its quality is transformation. The living entities who are inimical to the Supreme Personality of Godhead take on and give up various kinds of material bodies through the agency of their own material work. But those who are ignorant of the self, because of being bewildered by illusion, do not understand this. The mind, which is filled with ideas of fruitive work, simply takes the senses with it from one body to another, while the soul follows along. Nevertheless, on account of being totally absorbed in sense gratification, one cannot remember his past existence.
The body undergoes nine stages of manifestation, which are brought about by association with the qualities of material nature. These are impregnation, gestation, birth, childhood, youth, maturity, middle age, old age and death. From the death of one's father and the birth of one's son, a person can easily comprehend the rise and fall of his own body. The soul, who is the perceiver, is different from this body. But when there is no knowledge of the true facts, the living entity, confused by the objects of sense gratification, achieves his destinations within the cycle of material existence. Thus the living entity continuously wanders under the spell of material work, taking birth as a sage or a demigod when he is predominated by the mode of goodness, among the demons or human beings when he is predominantly influenced by the mode of passion, and in the species of ghosts, spirits or animals when he is predominated by the mode of ignorance. The spirit soul does not engage in the enjoyment of sense objects; rather, it is the senses that perform this activity. Therefore the living being has no actual need for sense gratificatory pleasures. With the exception of those peaceful personalities who have taken shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and are dedicated to the divine duty of His service, everyone, including so-called learned scholars, is inevitably overcome by the all-powerful material nature.
11.22.1-3
sańkhyātāny ṛṣibhiḥ prabho
navaikādaśa pañca trīṇy
saptaike nava ṣaṭ kecic
catvāry ekādaśāpare
ṣoḍaśaike trayodaśa
ṛṣayo yad-vivakṣayā
gāyanti pṛthag āyuṣmann
(1-3) S'rî Uddhava said: 'O Lord of the Universe, how many basic elements of creation have been enumerated by the seers? O Master, I heard You speak about nine, eleven and five plus three basic elements [see also 11.19: 14]. Some say there are [not twenty-eight but] twenty-six, others speak of twenty-five or seven, some speak of nine, some of four and others of eleven, while some speak of sixteen, seventeen or thirteen. You should, o Eternal Supreme One, explain to us what the sages have in mind who so differently express themselves.'
the different analytic approaches mentioned by Śrī Uddhava are actually not contradictory, since they are different methods of categorizing the same reality. Atheistic speculation on reality does not recognize the existence of God; consequently it is a worthless attempt to explain the truth. The Lord Himself empowers different living entities to speculate and speak on reality in different ways. The actual reality, however, is the Lord Himself, who will now speak to Śrī Uddhava.
11.22.4
(4) The Supreme Lord said: 'With them [the elements] being everywhere speak the brahmins the way it suits them, after all, what would for those who concern themselves with [the mystical potency of] My mâyâ be the wrong thing to say?
11.22.5
śaktayo me duratyayāḥ
(5) 'It is not the way you say it, it is the way I state it': this is what my unfathomable energies do to those who argue logically [see darshanas and 6.4: 31].
Because of the material potencies of the Supreme Lord, mundane philosophers are perpetually arguing about which came first, the chicken or the egg. By the influence of the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance, different philosophers are attracted to different views; and by the influence of the material atmosphere created by the Lord, these philosophers perpetually disagree with one another. The Supreme Lord Himself, however, has given the clear explanation. As stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.4.31),
"Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the all-pervading Supreme Personality of Godhead, who possesses unlimited transcendental qualities. Acting from within the cores of the hearts of all philosophers, who propagate various views, He caused them to forget their own souls while sometimes agreeing and sometimes disagreeing among themselves. Thus He creates within this material world a situation in which they are unable to come to a conclusion. I offer my respectful obeisances unto Him."
11.22.6
yāsāḿ vyatikarād āsīd
(6) Because My energies interact rise differences of opinion among the ones who talk about this subject, but when one finds peace in the control over one's senses subsides the controversy and stops the arguing [one reaches the true nature of the supreme spirit, âtmatattva].
11.22.7
parasparānupraveśāt
tattvānāḿ puruṣarṣabha
paurvāparya-prasańkhyānaḿ
yathā vaktur vivakṣitam
(7) Because the various elements [subtle and gross] mutually pervade one another, o best among men, a speaker wants to provide a division of causes and consequences.
11.22.8
praviṣṭānītarāṇi ca
(8) With those divisions refers one element to the other elements: whether it is there as a cause or a consequence, in one element [viz. the ether] one finds all the other elements and vice versa [*].
Since material elements are present within each other, there are innumerable ways to construe and categorize the material creation of God. Ultimately, however, the significant element is God Himself, who is the basis of all the transformations and permutations of the material cosmos. The creation of the material world takes place by a progression from subtle to gross elements, as explained in the sāńkhya-yoga system of Lord Kapila. The example may be given that we find the dormant existence of an earthen pot within mud and also the existence of mud within the earthen pot. Similarly, one element is present within another, and ultimately all elements rest within the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is simultaneously within everything. By such explanations, Kṛṣṇa consciousness constitutes the ultimate scientific methodology for factually understanding this universe.
11.22.9
paurvāparyam ato 'mīṣāḿ
(9) When people departing from a certain division for that reason express themselves in terms of cause and effect, I accept that which is voiced with such a point of view on the condition that it is guided by reason [by scientific proof, by specificity about time and place].
11.22.10
puruṣasyātma-vedanam
svato na sambhavād anyas
(10) A person who inevitably is born in ignorance cannot all by himself figure out what the process of selfrealization all means, that knowledge is derived from someone else who is known with the principle of reality [compare 11.21: 10].
11.22.11
puruṣeśvarayor atra
(11) There is according to this knowledge in the material mode of goodness not the slightest difference between the purusha, the original person, and îs'vara, the controller. To suppose that there would be such a difference is a useless endeavor [see B.G. 18: 20 and 9: 15 and **].
11.22.12
prakṛter nātmano guṇāḥ
(12) Material nature [prakriti] is what binds the modes. These modes as the causes of keeping, producing and ending that accordingly are said to be of goodness, passion and ignorance, belong to the material world and not to the spirit soul [see also B.G. 3: 27].
11.22.13
tamo 'jñānam ihocyate
(13) In this world is the mode of goodness of knowledge, the mode of passion of fruitive labor [karma] and the mode of darkness of ignorance; the interaction of the modes is called Time and that what's there by nature constitutes the thread [the mahat-tattva is the sûtra, see also 11.12: 19-21].
11.22.14
ahańkāro nabho 'nilaḥ
(14) The soul enjoying [purusha], material nature [prakriti], the intelligible [mahat-tattva], the identification with the form [ahankâra], ether, air, fire, water and earth are thus My nine elements of creation referred to [in verse 1].
Prakṛti, or nature, is originally unmanifest and later becomes manifest as the mahat-tattva. Although the living entity is puruṣa, an enjoyer, the real process by which he can enjoy is by satisfying the transcendental senses of the Lord, just as the hand eats by supplying food to the stomach. Within material nature the living entity becomes a false enjoyer, forgetting his subservience to the Lord. The material elements as well as the living entity and the Supersoul are thus systematically analyzed to demonstrate to the conditioned soul his actual constitutional position beyond material nature.
11.22.15
karmāṇy ańgobhayaḿ manaḥ
(15) Hearing, touching, seeing, smelling and tasting are the five [senses] by which one acquires knowledge; the speech organ, the hands, the genitals, the anus and the legs constitute their operation, o dear one, and the mind is there for both.
11.22.16
śabdaḥ sparśo raso gandho
karmāyatana-siddhayaḥ
(16) Sounds, tactile qualities, tastes, fragrances, and forms [or colors] are the categories of the sense objects [see vishaya] and speech, manufacturing, excretion [by anus and genitals] and locomotion are the functions covered by them.
Here the word utsarga refers to evacuation by the genitals and anus, and thus constitutes two elements. In this way ten elements are listed here in two sets of five.
11.22.17
sargādau prakṛtir hy asya
sattvādibhir guṇair dhatte
(17) In the beginning of creation is the person of the enjoyer uninvolved given to witnessing the material nature of this universe, the universe that by the operation of sattva and the other modes assumes the forms of the gross manifestations and subtler causes [see also 2.10: 10].
11.22.18
vyaktādāyo vikurvāṇā
dhātavaḥ puruṣekṣayā
saḿhatāḥ prakṛter balāt
(18) All the elements that received their potencies from the glance of the Lord, in the manifest reality undergo transformation and form, amalgamated by the power of nature, the egg of the universe [see also 2.5: 35, 3.20: 14-15, 3.26: 51-53, 3.32: 29, 5.26: 38, 11.6: 16].
As the material elements, headed by the mahat-tattva, are transformed, they receive their specific potencies from the glance of the Supreme Lord, and being amalgamated by the power of nature, they create the universal egg.
11.22.19
saptaiva dhātava iti
tatrārthāḥ pañca khādayaḥ
jñānam ātmobhayādhāras
tato dehendriyāsavaḥ
(19) When one speaks about the creation as having only seven elements: the five of the physical elements beginning with the ether on the one hand and the individual knower with the Supreme Soul on the other hand, there are as a consequence of this fundamental, dual basis the body, the senses and the life air.
11.22.20
tair yuita ātma-sambhūtaiḥ
sṛṣṭvedaḿ samapāviśat
(20) And when one departs from six elements: the five elements with the Transcendental Person as the sixth element that is conjoined with them, He has first projected this creation and next entered it.
according to this philosophy, the ordinary living entity is included within the category of the Supersoul. This theory thus accepts only the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the five physical elements.
11.22.21
catvāry eveti tatrāpi
janmāvayavinaḥ khalu
(21) When one speaks of four elements fire, water and earth arise from the Original Self; from these elements there is then the manifest product of this cosmos.
ome philosophers propose the existence of four basic elements, of which three — fire, water and earth — emanate from the fourth, the Self. Once existing, these elements produce the cosmic manifestation, in which all material creation takes place.
11.22.22
(22) Counting seventeen there is the consideration of the five gross elements, the five objects and the five senses along with the one mind and the soul as the seventeenth.
11.22.23
bhūtendriyāṇi pañcaiva
(23) So too one is counting with sixteen elements when one identifies the soul with the mind. With thirteen elements one has the five gross elements, the five senses, the mind and the [individual and supreme of the] soul.
According to the theory of thirteen elements, the sense objects — aroma, taste, form, touch and sound — are considered by-products of the interaction of the senses and physical matter.
11.22.24
ekādaśatva ātmāsau
aṣṭau prakṛtayaś caiva
(24) Counting eleven elements in this one has the soul, the gross elements and the senses. One also knows nine of them with the eight natural elements [the five gross ones, mind, intelligence and false ego] and the Enjoyer in the beyond.
Counting eleven, there are the soul, the gross elements and the senses. Eight gross and subtle elements plus the Supreme Lord would make nine.
11.22.25
(25) Thus have various enumerations of the elements been contrived by the sages. They are all logically supported by rational arguments, that is the brilliance one finds with the learned.'
The material world has been analyzed in innumerable ways by innumerable brilliant philosophers, but the conclusion is always one — the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva. Aspiring philosophers need not waste their precious time showing off their intellectual brilliance, because there is little left to analyze on the material platform. One should simply surrender to the Absolute Truth, the supreme element, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and uncover one's eternal consciousness of God.
11.22.26
prakṛtiḥ puruṣaś cobhau
yady apy ātma-vilakṣaṇau
anyonyāpāśrayāt kṛṣṇa
prakṛtiś ca tathātmani
(26) S'rî Uddhava said: 'Because both nature and the enjoyer, even though they are constitutionally different, cover one another o Krishna, there seems to be no difference between them: one sees the soul within nature and nature within the soul [see also B.G. 18: 16].
Śrī Uddhava here expresses the doubt that arises in the heart of an ordinary conditioned soul. Although the Vedic scriptures declare that the material body is a temporary fabrication of the material modes of nature, the conscious living entity within the body is actually an eternal spirit soul. In Bhagavad-gītā Lord Kṛṣṇa has declared the material elements constituting the body to be His separated, inferior energy, whereas the living entity is the superior, conscious energy of the Lord. Still, in conditioned life the material body and conditioned soul appear inseparable and thus nondifferent. Because the living entity enters the womb of a mother and gradually comes out in a developed body, the soul appears to have entered deeply within material nature. Similarly, by the soul's identification with the material body, the body appears to enter deeply within the consciousness of the soul. What is more, the body cannot exist without the presence of the soul. By this apparent mutual dependence, the difference between the body and soul is obscured. Śrī Uddhava therefore questions the Lord in order to clarify this issue.
11.22.27
vacobhir naya-naipuṇaiḥ
(27) Please, o Lotus eyed One, as the Omniscient, Very Expert in Reasoning, cut with Your words down the great doubt in my heart.
Śrī Uddhava requests Lord Kṛṣṇa to clearly demonstrate the difference between the material body and the spirit soul.
11.22.28
(28) The living beings have from You indeed the knowledge and by the potency of Your outer illusion it is stolen away. Only You understand the ins and outs of Your illusory power and no one else [see also B.G. 15: 15].'
As stated in Bhagavad-gītā, mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaḿ ca: [Bg. 15.15] "From Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness." By the Lord's causeless mercy one is enlightened with knowledge, and by the Lord's illusory potency that knowledge vanishes and one is merged into ignorance. Those bewildered by māyā cannot understand the difference between the material body and the spirit soul and thus should hear from the Lord Himself to remove this illusory covering.
11.22.29
prakṛtiḥ puruṣaś ceti
vikalpaḥ puruṣarṣabha
eṣa vaikārikaḥ sargo
guṇa-vyatikarātmakaḥ
(29) The Supreme Lord said: 'Prakriti and purusha [nature and the enjoyer] are two distinct matters, o best of all persons, and both are subjected to the transformation that is based upon the mixing of the gunas of creation.
The word puruṣa indicates the living entity and also the Supreme Lord, who is the supreme living entity. Material nature, subject to transformation, is full of duality, whereas the Lord is one and absolute. Material nature is dependent on its creator, maintainer and annihilator; the Lord, however, is completely self-reliant and independent. In the same way, material nature is unconscious and dull, lacking self-awareness, whereas the Supreme Lord is self-sufficient omniscience. The individual living entity shares the eternality, bliss and knowledge of the Personality of Godhead and is also completely distinct from material nature.
The word sarga here refers to the material amalgamation of the body, which covers the living entity. The material body undergoes constant transformation and is thus clearly different from the living entity, who is eternally the same. In the transcendental kingdom of God there is no conflict or agitation caused by creation, maintenance and destruction as exhibited in the material world.
11.22.30
athādhidaivam adhibhūtam anyat
(30) Dear Uddhava, My deluding energy consisting of the three modes is responsible for the diversity of manifestations as well as for the variety of different forms of perception. This changeable nature based upon the gunas knows three aspects: one is called adhyâtma, then there is adhidaiva and the other is called adhibhûta [see also kles'as and 1.17: 19].
The word vikalpa-buddhīḥ indicates that consciousness within various material bodies reveals different aspects of the Lord's creation. Birds such as seagulls glide on the ocean breezes, experiencing the Lord's creation of wind and altitude. The fish experience life within the water, and other creatures intimately experience life within trees or within the earth. Human society affords its own varieties of awareness, and similarly in heaven and hell different experiences are available. All types of material consciousness are transformations of the three modes of material nature, the expansions of the Lord's illusory energy.
(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Swamyjis, Philosophers, Scholars and Knowledge Seekers for the collection)
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