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The
worship of Mahadevi - Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati - which is prevalent
in this country, is a religious festival, an occasion for great enthusiasm
socially, and people revel in the freedom of the expression of their feelings
for the divine superintending power which is regarded as the source of this
universe.
Every
aspiration that originates from the mind of a human being has several facets
and interpretations. When something happens, does anyone pause to think why
anything happens at all? Why should anything occur? We generally attribute
events in the world to some cause that is visible to our eyes or is calculable
intellectually. To that extent we can find out why things happen at all,
in the way that they happen in the world.
We
have great scientists in this world who are proficient in finding out the
causes of things; and as science advances, the meaning of 'cause' receives
newer and newer interpretations. When rain started pouring, religious observers
thought that a divinity called Indra was lashing forth his weapon and the
force of his vajra (thunderbolt) which he wields in his hand whirls
the forces around, and there is the downpour of rain. The rainbow was considered
as Indra dhanush, a bow wielded by Indra himself after the rainfall.
We attributed divine causative factors behind visible phenomena - a
bow wielded by Indra himself after the rainfall. But science has nothing
to do with religion. It believes only what it sees. As we cannot see Indra
sitting in the skies, we cannot agree that he is the cause of rain.
What
do we see with our scientific eye? Here, also, observations started advancing
gradually from crude perceptions to finer and finer subtleties. Philosophers
there were, both in the West and the East, who thought that originally God
created cosmic waters, and He brooded on these waters at the beginning of
creation. A poem in Sanskrit says that God created waters, and everything
emanated from the waters.
There
are others who think that this earth itself is a chip, a block shot off from
the orb of the sun, and evolution took place gradually on this earth planet
during the course of endless periods. But why do all these things happen
was also a question of the scientific mind. It happens because there are
causes behind causes. There are minute molecules which are the causes of
solid objects like a rock, for instance. Everything that is solid in appearance
is molecular in its structure, and there the scientific observation in the
medieval period ceased. But then it advanced and discovered finer and finer
potentials behind the molecules. Forces seemed to be whirling like eddies
in a vast sea of energy everywhere, and it was thought and believed, by mathematical
calculation as well as observation and experiment, that the whole world of
solid matter is some sort of condensed energy. The energy, even in its gross
form like electricity, has such power that it can break to pieces solid objects.
If an adequately powerful voltage of electric current is passed through a
mountain, the big solid mountain will crumble to pieces and will be reduced
to smithereens. Such is the power of even electricity.
These
causative energies which are supposed to be at the back of all occurrences
have been further analysed by more and more concentrated observational processes,
and it was not easy to understand why such a variety should be there in this
creation, even taking for granted that the cosmic sea of force is manifesting
itself as material substances. The variety of individuality was inexplicable.
This was a further advance in modern techniques of scientific observation
whereby it was observed that I differ from you and you differ from me - everything
differs from everything else, nothing is equal to another - because
of a mysterious activity taking place in the various centres of this cosmic
sea of force, though we cannot imagine differentiations in a vast sea of
equilibrated energy.
For
instance, we do not see difference in the water of an ocean. However far
we may travel on the surface of this water, everywhere it is the same water.
We do not have one kind of water in one place and another kind of water in
another place in the ocean - somewhere it is sweet, somewhere it is
sour, somewhere it is salty. It is not like that. It is a variety of a uniformly
distributed nature. But the world is not made up of a sea of this kind, it
appears, because there is a dramatic differentiation of everything from everything
else. Why do you differ from me in every manner and in every way? Even the
RNA and DNA principles of medical science, which are supposed to be the determining
factors of the cells of the body of an individual, do not produce identical
perception of individuals.
Why
are we born in different states - conditions - psychophysically?
The modern scientific inward analysis is based on what is called the quantum
mechanics of observation, whereby it was seen that there is an action and
interaction taking place between centres of force in this vast energy ocean.
There is a central pressure exerted at one spot, and that pressure will be
of that character, that intensity, that specification, that form and significance
as is its relation with other such centres in this vast sea of energy. It
is very difficult to understand what all this means. A particular action
of a particularised centre of energy is not an offhand action of that location
independently by itself, but is universally determined by its connections
through tentacles that it manifests through millions and millions of centres
of that kind, so that the world of centres is more a bundle of relations
of one with another than a heap of individual solid centres of activity.
We
are reminded here of what ancient Buddha said in a similar strain. There
is movement only, relativity only, fluxation only, process only, and nothing
is stable and located in one place continuously. Even a burning flame in
a lamp is not a solid flame. It is an emanation which is jetting forth with
rapidity, forces impinging one on the other, so that it is like the flow
of the river which looks like a continuous mass of water. Such is a flame,
a burning fire. "The world is burning fire," said Buddha. From
this statement one can discover any meaning.
Why
does this happen? The scientist has his own answer. There was an original
action of the universe, and that original action is the motivation for every
other subsequent action. They call this original action by many types of
descriptive epithets. Some call it a big bang; a large sound was produced.
What would be that sound which broke the cosmos? We cannot imagine what it
is. Some such thing they posit as the original cause, which broke the universe
into two parts - half this way, half that way. This - fortunately
or unfortunately -
is corroborated by the Upanishads, the Manu Smriti and the Mahabharata. So
what they are saying is not a cock-and-bull story; it is not a fairytale. There
seems to be some truth behind it because we have it said even before the scientists
were born. The Manu Smriti says a big anda was there, a cosmic egg which
split, as it were, into two parts. We may call one gold and the other silver.
Who broke it? The scientists cannot answer this question. Who split the universe
into two parts? "He became the All. He was the All, is the All and shall
be the All in the future. He, being All, created Himself through Himself," says
the Purusha Sukta. Thasmadh viradajayatha virajo adhipurushah; sajatho athyarikshatha pascadhbhumim-athopuraha:
From Him arise the cosmos; from that arose the presiding principle of the cosmos;
from that also arose that which decides what is to happen in this universe
after this split took place.
The
beginning of the concept of power, or shakti, seems to be hidden here
when we are told that one part was cut off from the other part. This is also
the concept of Ardha-Nari-Ishvara, in our religious parlance. Lord Shiva
is half man and half woman, but not half in the sense of two differentiated
irreconcilable parts. It is an androgynous totality. Lord Shiva is not a
half-man, and the other part is not segregated from him. It is his energy,
which cannot be dissociated from himself.
Some
descriptions are attempted in scriptures like the Yoga Vasishtha, the Vishnu
Purana, etc. where we are told that the relationship between one part and
the other part - Shiva and Shakti, and Ishvara and Nari in this Ardha-Nari-Ishvaraconcept - is
something like the relationship of sesame to the oil which is immanent in
it. Water which has liquidity imbedded in it, fire which has heat inseparable
from it, sugar which has sweetness which cannot be separated from it, and
so on, are examples before us in such scriptures as the Yoga Vasishtha. In
the Vishnu Purnana, Narayana and Lakshmi are described in this fashion of
relationship between themselves. Sesame is Narayana, oil is Lakshmi; water
is Narayana, liquidity is Lakshmi; fire is Narayana, heat is Lakshmi; and
so on, are the descriptions.
All
these are intriguing descriptions of certain mysteries which seem to be the
causes of everything, and causes of even our own selves. The person who speaks
and the people who are listening and this very building, this very earth - all
these are included in the activity of this comprehensive occurrence that
took place originally as, in the language of the Purusha Sukta, a yajna or
a sacrifice. God sacrificed Himself, as it were, in becoming the universe.
Why is it called a sacrifice? He became other than what He is. The alienation
of Himself in the form of another than what He Himself is, is the act of
His sacrifice. When I cease to be what I am and give away part of me to somebody
else - a share of me goes to another
- I am supposed to be doing a sacrifice. If nothing from me goes, it
is not a sacrifice. If you give charity but lose nothing by giving that charity,
it is not charity. You have not shared a joy of your personality. A millionaire's
donation of one dollar is not to be regarded as a great sacrifice on his part,
because he has not shared his joy. He has a joy in possessing the dollars,
but he has not lost that joy even in a modicum by parting with one dollar.
But if half of it has gone and he has given it voluntarily, he has shared a
large part of his joy also and he has done a sacrifice.
The
abundance of the joy of God's universal existence is supposed to be
overflowing in the form of this creation. This is how mystics sometimes exuberantly
describe the act of creation: He becomes His own power. "I am death
and immortality," says the Lord in the Bhagavadgita. The Nasadiya Sukta
says, "Death and immortality are shadows cast by this Absolute Being."
Immortality also is a shadow; so, what is the original of it? There cannot
be anything called immortal unless there is something called death. So they
are correlative factors, and there is no such thing as independent immortality
minus its relationship with the concept of dying. Hence even immortality is
considered as a secondary factor. God transcends death and immortality, life
and annihilation, because He Himself is this process.
"One
who contemplates this mystery, says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,
"he himself becomes death." So death cannot kill that person. Death
becomes his very existence. The death itself, which is so frightening, seeming
to be totally outside us, controlling us in every way, is the very self of
that very person who knows this truth. So if the self itself is death, and
death is your own self, who will kill it? That is not possible.
Thus,
in the act of sacrifice of the Almighty in the form of this creation, He
has become Himself, in another form, as it were. Shiva has become Shakti,
Narayana has become Lakshmi, or we may say Brahma-shakti has become Saraswati,
meaning thereby the power of transformation, the power of sustenance and
the power of illumination are three phases of one great activity interconnectedly
taking place in this sea of energy I mentioned
- which, according to the modern scientists, is the
beginning of all creation.
Namo
vishvas sujai purvum vishvam tadanu bibhrate, atha vishvasya samhartre
tubhyam tredhasthitatmane in Kalidas' Raghuvansha Kavya is thecommencement
of a prayer put into the mouth of the gods when they went to the abode
of Narayana and prayed to him for redress from the sorrows inflicted upon
them by Ravana. What is the beginning of this prayer? Namo vishvas sujai
purvum: Prostration to Thee who appearest as the Creator of all things. Vishvam
tadanu bibhrate:Prostration to Thee who appearest as the Sustainer
of all things. Atha vishvasya samhartre: Prostration of Thee who
appearest as the Transformer and Destroyer of all things. Tubhyam tredhasthitatmane:
To Thee who appearest as all these three things. He does not become these
three things; He Himself is the judge and the executive and the legislature,
if you can imagine such a thing. The legislature, the executive, the judiciary
are not identical things. They are three facets of the administrative principle.
But if one thing is all the three? Earlier, sometimes in kingdoms ruled
by Rajas, the king was all things. He was the judge, he was the executive,
and he was also the legislative authority. He could do anything. Such seems
to be the manner in which the origin of things operates in this world and
our religious interpretation of this cosmic activity in the form of worship
of Shiva or worship of Shakti. In whatever manner we may try to understand
this mystery, this mystery indeed is what lies at the back of our irresistible
urge every year to worship Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati, willy-nilly,
whether or not we understand what we are doing.
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