The Song of God Almighty

by Swami Krishnananda

4: Cosmology - The Creation of the Universe

XIV. 3, 4

The objective in creation
Is matrix of the world of things,
The Subject-All alienates
Itself as all this universe.

How does the One become the two,
The subjective and objective?
When All-in-All has no objects,
How come this 'other' than the All?

This itself is a proof that worlds
Which are created, as if were,
Are sheer 'externality',
With no substance in them at all.

This also shows that God is All
In spite of vast creation's sight;
Creation has no legs to stand
Except as God's Self-beholding.

What's 'external' to Consciousness
Is Prakriti, that's matter's core;
On this Consciousness broods and sees
Itself reflected mirror-wise.

In early dawn of creation
The One enjoys itself as all;
But later comes the division
Of One alone as threefold strand.

Thus come the seer of the seen
And in between their link unseen,
Adhyatma, Adhibhuta called
And Adhidaiva transcendent.

Hardly one knows this mystery,
How perception deceives us all
And forces all to see 'there out'
What is within the All-in-All.

The world persists as binding chain
When perceiver perceived becomes,
And charges on the perceiver
In vicious circle's grasping clutch.

The seed of every being here
Is sown by That immortal seed,
The seed that has no source beyond,
The causeless cause, Brahman supreme.

VII. 4-6

Earth, water, tire, air and ether,
Mind, intellect and ego-sense,
Are eightfold forces God creates
As lower realms His Majesty's.

Lower are these since lone they work
As strata of creation's depths;
But higher still are vital springs
Of God's existence in them all.

Heaven and earth and all beings
Are forms of these substantials;
Lo, God is all these, He appears
As all these quintessentials.

The coming, going of these realms
Is play of God's abundant joy,
Which spills itself on mortal tastes
As summons from their real source.

XIII. 5, 6

Elements, Ego, Intellect,
The Causal Sea and Senses Ten,
The Mind and fivefold objects sensed,
Desire, hatred, joy and pain.

The body-complex, matter's form,
The Will that binds the structure's shape,
Do all these in their compactness
Present the field of experience.

As dream-world's pageant real looks
By mind's revolt in fantasy,
So all this world and creation
Is held cohesive by the Will.

The Will of God ties fast in grips
The universe as one whole mass,
While will of individual
Does hold together body's frame.

VII. 27

When creation emerges forth
Beings get drowned in love and hate;
Deluded, thus, in world they live
From birth to death in all cycles.

By delusion engendered strong
Through longing, dislike and ego,
All beings sunk in dual's net
Get drowned in swoon when being born.

The blow of death and stroke of birth
Confuses mind-and-reason's role.
And thrown to region love-hate-filled.
Maddened then roam beings on earth.

Freedom from this predicament
Is solely in the way one lives;
In rapt attention bestowed well
On birthless, deathless, Being Whole.

VIII. 17-22

A thousand cycles rolling on
Of four ages in Time's regime
Do constitute one Brahma's day
And so long also is His night.

A hundred years of such long days
Do make the span of Brahma's life;
Such, again, is the cosmic night,
Of such a length, when worlds dissolve.

When Brahma wakes, beings are born,
And universes roll and act;
When night of Brahma supervenes,
Creation melts in darkness deep.

During His day creatures are born
In systematic stepping down
From highest integrated Self
To lowest forms in scattered fields.

On fall of night of Brahma's day
Beings return as cattle home
To ocean vast of causal deep,
Which's Brahma's sleep, the cosmic dark.

Helplessly beings come and leave
By force of finitude's clingings;
But above all creation's play
Is what passeth understanding.

Transcending wheel of creation,
Above all space and time and cause,
Majestic reigns God Almighty,
The Absolute, Eternal Light.

Reaching this glorious Transcendence
No one returns to sorrow's vale
Which all this world of struggle is,
Woven with dreams of dislike's love.

This Supreme Person, Power and Bliss,
Is reached with love that wants none else,
The ardour surging from the soul,
Tearing the veils of involvement.

Through whole-souled love and devotion
Can one attain this blessedness,
By utter sinking of the self
In All-Self, greatest Almighty.

X. 7

Whoever knows this mystery
Of creation and absorption
As God's transcendent sports revealed
Is established in God-union.

This glory God's and majesty
Who knows in deepest communion,
As God is Himself in Himself.
That blessed one is one with God.

Who creates when and how it is,
Whence is this wondrous creation,
Why is this play of mystery,
Who knows is indeed one with God;

For God alone can know Himself,
How He has wrought the source of Time,
Whether at all He brought forth things,
Or whether He is still alone.

XIII. 19-33

All things as known are matter's stuff,
Prakriti called, involved in which
Purusha dreams the varieties
Ingrained in it as solar hues.

Subject and Object, parallels,
Do exist as eternal friends;
When one is there the other is
As inseparate twain in one.

The changes in the world of forms
Are engendered by these in work
As balance tilts by weight it holds
On one side or the other side.

Prakriti is the object-world,
Purusha is the consciousness
Which clutches objects as delights,
When objects doubly grab its heart.

Graha and Atigraha called
Are subject's object's relations,
Catching and re-catching by force
The one for other's grief.

Space, Time and Cause are objective,
Their Consciousness is subjective;
Thus, experience is fabric, knit
With subject-object sharing's stuff.

The joys of life are illusions,
So also are the pains of life,
As both are just reactions caused
By changing phases things deport.

XIV. 5-8, 11-15

Sattva, Rajas and Tamas known
Are properties of Prakriti,
Which bind everyone diversely,
Making one pleased, displeased or dull.

Happy and joyful is the soul
That shines through Sattva brilliantly,
Is knowledge-filled with glowing eyes,
Resplendent is that blessed life.

Desire, passion rule Rajas,
Attachment, greed are forms it takes;
To work devoted, distracted,
Is such a soul, restless, busy.

Darkness and sloth and ignorance,
Delusion, infatuation,
Heedlessness, sleep and floundering
Are shapes assumed by deep Tamas.

Shining in limbs is Sattva-filled;
Endless engagement Rajas springs;
Knowing the wrong as righteous mode
Is rampant property-Tamas.

Leaving this world from Sattva's realm
One reaches light-filled heaven's bliss;
Dying in Rajas birth in works,
In Tamas birth of dull-wits, sure.

XV. 1-5

This creation and all its ways
Like Tree inverted range in Time;
Its Root above is Eternal,
The Branches spread below as deeds.

None knows its source, middle or end,
Ravaging work and tumult's roar
Are how it grows in Time and Space
As wild dances of properties.

This Tree of bondage, cosmic rout:
Should broken fall, felled and severed
Through detachment from mundane forms,
And ardent search of Great Beyond.

"I seek that Being, Source of all,
I need nothing but this One God,
In whom is all this universe,
Wherein I find whatever is."

Thus is the prayer of the self,
From self redeemed through Yoga's way,
Sunk in the want of All-in-All,
Beseeching All's revealing grace.

From self-respect and attachment,
Clinging to loves and delusions,
Free always, fixed in Divine Self,
Such souls awakened reach the Goal.

XV. 16-20

Mankind and God, seer and seen,
Mind and its objectivity,
Consciousness and its contents vast,
Are called Akshara and Kshara.

But beyond this duality,
Above the realms of perception,
Transcendent Truth indwelling all
Is Supreme Person, Purusha, Great.

Knowing this one knows everything,
Doing this one has done all things,
Attaining this one does attain
That undying felicity.