48. Prior to creation, Thou alone did exist, with Maya, Thy creative power, abiding in Thee latent. Then Maya manifested itself as Prakrti, with its constituents of sattva, rajas and tamas, and out of these have come all the categories, and the worlds formed out of them and all beings such as the celestials, rishis and men inhabiting them.
The Supreme Being (Purusa) carries in IT all of Prakrti, sometimes keeping its forces latent and other times patent, and identifying IT with its manifestations.
For the Supreme Being to throw reflection into Prakrti, Its consciousness must have a direction towards Prakrti into which Its reflection is to be thrown. The Supreme Being is, therefore, to hold Prakrti as Its innate part. This is best explained in the Svetasvatara Upanisad that Prakrti is an ingredient of the Supreme I-am. This directionality or intentionality has its orientations within Existence itself, in which a split is introduced. We may not know why it has been introduced, but it is a matter of experience of its being. This experience cannot be explained without assuming transcendental implications pointing to the ultimate unity of Existence or Being.
From the point of view of ontology, Prakrti may be the process of the energy emanating from the Being, forming into objects all around. The split in the Being may be due to Becoming issuing out of Being, which the transcendental I-AM is. There is no Becoming without Being. The activity of Becoming has to occur in a field, sub-consciously stable in order to be recognized as the activity of Becoming. There can be no Becoming without a force behind. This force is to be operative in the Being Itself. There can be no other source for it.
Prakrti (Unmanifest) is the world of change in its unmanifest state. For this reason it is called the Unmanifest (Avyakta). It is also called the Primary (Pradhana) as it is the source, the origin of everything therein.
Prakrti has three attributes – Sattva (serenity, tendency to manifestation), Rajas (activity) and Tamas (inertia, obstruction to manifestation). Everything in the world is the product of these three attributes.
49. Into the four kinds of bodies created by Thy sakti, Thou do enter with an aspect of Thine. A reflection of Thyself in the body is the Jiva, who enjoys the world of objects with the senses as the bee does the nectar in flowers.
The Upanisads proclaim that the living beings on earth are born in four ways – born from the womb (garbhaja), born from an egg (andaja), generated from sweat or warm vapour (svedaja) and sprouted out of seeds (udbhijja). These four ways of creation cover all living beings on earth from the Creator to a blade of grass.
The Infinite Consciousness abandons, as it were, its supreme state, to limit itself as the Jiva. This happens merely by the creative thought inherent in the Cosmic Being, not as real transformation of the Infinite Brahman.
From the vibration in the Infinite Consciousness, the Jiva becomes manifest. The mind becomes manifest from the Jiva as the Jiva thinks. The mind itself entertains the notions of the five elements and it transforms itself into those elements. Whatever the mind thinks of, it sees. Thereafter, the Jiva acquires the sense organs one after the other. In this there is no causal connection between the mind and the senses, but there is the coincidence of the thought and of the manifestation of the sense organs. This is how the cosmic Jiva comes into being. The intelligence that identifies itself with certain movements of life force in the Self is known as the Jiva or the living soul.
50. Thy presence behind Nature cannot be seen but can be inferred. It is Thou as Time, imperceptible but irresistibly fast in movement that drives, with terrific speed, all manifested beings along their course like a terrific wind blowing away the massed clouds, and ultimately brings them to their destruction by the interaction of elements.
The true ontological Being – the Supreme I-AM is the God (aham asmi) of the Upanisads. It is also called the Brahman. The word Brahman is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root brh, meaning to grow, to expand. The Brahman is the ever growing, the ever expanding and the infinite dynamic being without limits or bounds. This dynamism involves infinite energy, force or power. The Brahman is thus not understood as mere abstract being, but as the root of the cosmos itself.
Time wears everything out in the cosmos. There is nothing in creation, which is beyond its reach. Time alone creates innumerable universes and destroys everything, too.
Time allows a glimpse of itself through its partial manifestation as the moment, the year, the age, the epoch, etc. There is essentially no difference between a moment and an epoch, both being measures of time. But its essential nature is inexorable. It overpowers everything. It cannot be analyzed. However much it is divided, it still survives, indestructible. It has an insatiable appetite for everything. It is indeed this Time that successively creates and dissolves the universe (s) again and again. As a mighty mountain is rooted in earth, the Time is established only in the Brahman – the Absolute Being may be identical with it. No one really knows what this Time is as no one really knows what the Brahman is.
There are two more aspects of Time. One relates to the phenomenon of birth and death. In this aspect we refer to it as the deity presiding over death. The second aspect of Time is Krtanta – the end of action, its inevitable result or fruition. Every action in Time has its own inevitable result. On account of this Krtanta, everything in this world is ever in change. There is no permanency in the world. For this reason, this world is considered unreal, not non-existent. This is the mysterious power that governs the creation and is innate in all. Its individualized aspect is regarded as egotism. Egotism is what destroys creation. The entire universe is under its control; its will alone prevails.
