Spirituality: Īśvara’s creation is a projection
By Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati*
Na Me Bhaktaḥ Praṇaśyati – 19
Creation of something that is real is the kind of creation commonly seen in the world, such as a potter making a pot. In this case, the pot has the same degree of reality as the pot maker. If what is created is real, then the maker and the material will be different from each other. This model is adopted by most religious traditions, including many schools of thought in the Vedic tradition in India. In this model, īśvara is looked upon as the creator, who is separate from the created, located somewhere in heaven, transcending the world.
On the other hand, Vedanta teaches that the creation is not real. The creation does not enjoy the same degree of reality as the creator. Our model of creation is not of a pot maker and a pot. Our model of creation is of a rope that is mistaken for a snake. The snake is an appearance superimposed upon the rope due to ignorance of the truth that it is rope. Another example of this type of creation is the dream creation.
A dream is also created; I experience the dream and the dream world. Let’s say I dream about giving a talk to a large audience. I am alone when I go to sleep, then there is a dream experience of talking to a hall full of people, and when I wake up, again I am alone; the lecture hall and all the people in the dream world are gone. That hall and those people are not still waiting there for me to return and continue speaking. Therefore, it is very clear that the dream world emerged from me and merged back into me. I am the abiding entity that persists before, during, and after the dream, whereas the dream world did not exist when I went to sleep and disappears when I wake up. I am the creator, and what I created is a projection, which is not as real as I am.
The dreamer (as waker) is real, whereas the dream world is a projection; it is unreal, mithyā. That is our model of creation. In that model, the maker and material are one because we do not require any separate material to create dreams. My mind is the material for creating the dream because the dream is a projection. Therefore, you can say I am the material.
The universe is also a projection. Whose projection? The projection of the total mind. The total mind is called māyā, īśvara’s projecting power, his creating power. Just as this I, the individual self, projects my dream, so also the I that is the universal self projects this universe that we experience as the waking world or the objective reality.
Īśvara is consciousness manifest as the universe
Hearing this, the student might have another doubt and ask, “How can you call this universe a dream? It is a tangible creation.” When I knock on this table, I feel it, and we all hear the sound. The answer is that when we are experiencing a dream, objects like a table feel the same as they do in the waking state. If I am giving a talk in the dream, I will also knock on the dream table, and that also will be as tangible and real to the dreamer as this waking table is to the waker. Just because something appears tangible and just because it is useful does not mean it is real. Tangibility and usefulness are not the criteria to determine reality.
Scientists have now established that tangible matter is nothing but intangible energy. The scientists’ method is to keep splitting matter in search of the fundamental building block. Most recently, they discovered a Higgs boson particle, called the God particle, which is currently considered the fundamental building block from which the whole universe is made. Scientists keep on splitting and splitting until the form and tangibility of matter are no longer there, and what remains is only energy. Everyone knows this scientific fact that energy, which is intangible and formless, manifests as what we call tangible matter.
Therefore, the creation that scientists explain is what Vedanta has been teaching, except Vedanta goes a step further. Vedanta says that the so-called energy is also a projection, the manifestation of an even more fundamental principle, which we call consciousness. Consciousness manifests as energy, and energy manifests as this tangible world of matter. Consciousness is God, īśvara. What is energy? It is the prakṛti or māya that projects as this universe. A Vedāntin inquires into energy and discovers that it reduces to consciousness. Where is that consciousness? That consciousness is my own self.
Lord Krishna explains this model: dvāvimau puruṣau loke kṣaraścākṣara eva ca; kṣaraḥ sarvāṇi bhūtāni kūṭastho’kṣara ucyate. This puruṣa, who is paramātmā, brahman, the self, consciousness, manifests in two stages: akṣara-puruṣa, the imperishable self, and kṣara-puruṣa, the perishable self. The akṣara-puruṣa, imperishable manifestation of consciousness, is called kūṭastha, which is explained as māyā, the primordial energy, the cause. The kṣara-puruṣa, perishable manifestation of consciousness, is sarvāṇi bhūtāni, all the beings, the tangible names and forms, the effect. Then Lord Krishna says: “uttamaḥ puruṣastvanyaḥ paramātmetyudāhṛtaḥ, I am uttamaḥ puruṣaḥ, the ultimate puruṣa who is called paramātmā, the limitless self.” One limitless, complete self, consciousness, has these other two manifestations—akṣara, the imperishable and kṣara, the perishable. One consciousness alone manifests first as imperishable māyā, the primordial energy, the cause. That same consciousness manifests secondly as the effect of māyā, which is the perishable names and forms. Therefore, all there is, is one principle. That fundamental principle is uttama- puruṣa, paramātmā.
Consciousness alone manifests as the creative power called māyā and as the tangible world of names and forms. Therefore, if you inquire into the reality of any so-called tangible thing, it will reveal itself to be nothing but uttama-puruṣa, paramātmā, the self, consciousness, brahman.
Limitless brahman is existence, nondual, of the nature of knowledge, eternally pure and taintless, serene, free from beginning and end, actionless, and of the nature of joy. It is free from all the modifications and duality superimposed by māyā. It is eternal, partless, free of all attributes, and ever indestructible. It is self-effulgent, undifferentiated consciousness, free from the distinctions of knower, known, and knowledge. Humans can gain freedom from bondage and saṁsāra only by the knowledge of the identity of brahman and jīva.
…to continue
*Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati has been teaching Vedānta Prasthānatrayī and Prakaraṇagranthas for the last 40 years in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Throughout the year, he conducts daily Vedānta discourses, accompanied by retreats and Jñāna Yajñas on Vedānta in different cities in India and foreign countries.
