Transcriptions
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
So, let’s begin. So, “In the beginning was the Word,” said the Bible.
Oh, really? Let’s analyze that. One of the best ways to analyze any theory, especially if it’s asserted as a fact or something that you should believe, is to analyze the assumptions behind it.
What does this theory assume? Well, it assumes the existence of a Word and a God to speak that word.
But wait a minute. To have a word, you have to have a language. To have language, you have to have all kinds of abstract concepts, an alphabet, a grammar, a syntax, an ontology.
So we can understand that the Bible is coming really late to the party. The existence of the Word is certainly a factor in the process of creation. That’s acknowledged in all schools. But it comes later.
It requires so many precursors, so many assumptions. For it to be true, there has to be a whole structure preexisting, the existence of the Word. So, okay, the Bible and all of the other Abrahamic religions; Abraham, whose sons quarreled with each other, and one branch established Judaism and Christianity, and the other branch established Islam. They’re still fighting today.
But the thing that the Abramic religions all have in common is that they’re A-brahamanic: they’re against the Brahminical tradition of the Vedas.
And so, anyway, we also see this same mentality in the Vaiṣṇava traditions. The Vaiṣṇavas say, “In the beginning was Viṣṇu, and then from Viṣṇu , Brahmā was born. And Brahma then went and created the universe.
Well, again, we run into this same problem of assumptions. For Brahmā to be born from Viṣṇu, Viṣṇu has to exist. And Viṣṇu is resting on the thousand-headed serpent Anantaśeṣa. So Viṣṇu is dependent on Anantaśeṣa.
And Anantaśeṣa is resting in the Causal Ocean, Kāraṇa-sāgara. So that means they are both dependent on the Causal Ocean.
And then, because it’s an ocean, there has to be some kind of a receptacle, some kind of a depression or something to hold that ocean, because it’s liquid. And what is that? So because of all these dependencies, we can’t accept that theory as original either.
Then we look into the Buddha’s teaching. In the beginning was the void, emptiness, śūnyatā. And then, by the process of paṭicca-samuppāda—which we’ve gone into very, very much detail on this channel—everything was created out of that.
Now, this is an interesting theory because it’s verifiable. It’s verifiable because every night when we go to sleep we enter into the void, suṣupti, deep sleep. And in the morning, we again, by the process of Dependent Origination, paṭicca-samuppāda, we create all this whole experience of the universe. So this can be observed if you get into lucid dreaming.
And even beyond that, into the state of turīya, you can observe yourself in all these different states of consciousness and how the whole world disappears when you go into sleep at night, and you find yourself in the dream world and then that world disappears and you go into the Void. Then in the coming out of the Void, the whole process comes in reverse—and this is creation, at least on the personal scale.
So we can observe this by proper training in meditation and so forth. But even then, where does this process of paṭicca-samuppāda come from? See, where is this Void and who is observing this Void? How is it being observed and so forth?
The existence of consciousness, the subject and the object, has to be there. So even Buddha’s teaching, although it comes closer to the actual beginning, doesn’t really quite arrive.
But then there’s the Śākta teaching, given in the Śrīmad Devī Bhāgavatam, that in the beginning was the Singularity.
What is a singularity? A singularity is a dimensionless point. That means it has no width, diameter, length, height, depth, or any other measurement.
It is zero, it’s a nothing, or more than a nothing—or I should say, less than a nothing. Because even to say that it’s a nothing would assume the existence of a something.
You see? You have to look into the assumptions. But a singularity doesn’t assume anything. It’s not dependent on anything. Brahman, the singularity at the beginning of everything, has no qualities, no dimensions, as I said, no measurements, no space, no time, no activities, no consciousness. There is only unconditioned, objectless, subjective awareness.
That’s all it is. It’s a black mirror. It’s a true nothing.
But then something happens. What happens is this singularity splits in two. Well, it appears to split in two. This is the tricky part. Something called māyā happens. Māyā literally means ‘that which is not’; mā-yā, not this.
So māyā is like a type of illusion or mirage, like seeing water in the desert or on a hot road in the summertime. Sometimes you’re driving on the road and you see what looks like a puddle in the distance, but you never arrive at the puddle. It always recedes farther and farther as you go down the road. That’s a mirage.
Same thing happens on the ocean. Sometimes you’ll see what looks like land. Maybe it’s an island or something, but as you get closer to it, it recedes farther away. It’s a mirage caused by refraction of the light in the boundary layer over the ocean or over the desert or the road or whatever.
Essentially, māyā, the appearance of difference, the appearance of duality in Brahman, is only a mirage. It’s not real; it’s māyā.
So the first thing that exists then is Śiva and Śakti. The powerful, pure consciousness, one without a second, and the energy, the power, and then he, Śiva, confers on Śakti His powers, His power of creation, His power of consciousness, His power of executive administration of the cosmos, and so on.
All these are given to Śakti, and She can use them autonomously. He’s not telling Her what to do. And the reason for this is that really They aren’t two; They’re really one.
There’s a form called Ardhanārīśvara. Ardhanārīśvara means that Śiva is on the right side of the body, and Devī, Śakti, is on the left side. So the right side is the subjective creative part, and the left side is the objective active side. So Śiva just sits back and watches Śakti create the whole universe and all the beings, and enter into them, and play them like puppets on a string.
Now I mentioned, of course, that the Buddha’s teaching of creation is something that we can observe, which makes it infinitely superior to any of the objectivist religions’ story of creation.
And similarly, the story of Śiva and Śakti can be observed. How is that? Well, this is, of course, the whole yoga process.
When we find ourselves in the midst of this whole world, full of so many apparent existences and so many apparent dualities and so many phenomena and so on, then we have to understand, first of all, all this is simply the play of Śakti.
None of it is actually real. It’s all māyā, illusion. Just like a great magician can cause illusions by misdirecting your attention. “Now watch while I pick a rabbit out of a hat,” and actually he’s doing something over here with the other hand. He distracts your attention, and so you don’t see what’s really happening.
Similarly, māyā distracts our attention with the senses and the mind, that, “Oh, look, there’s something happening over here.” “Oh, look, that’s something going on over there,” or, “Oh, think of these interesting thoughts, wouldn’t that be great if you could do this or you could do that?” So many desires and so on.
But what’s really happening behind the scenes, in our inner life, is that the whole thing is māyā. How is that so? Well, first of all, she is the tanmātra. Tanmātra means the sum total of all the material elements; and she is the mahat-tattva, which means the—well, 24 or 28 or 32, according to different versions—different substances that go to make up the cosmic manifestation.
So then we find ourselves in this body, okay, and this body is the sum total of all these different tattvas. All the tattvas, all the different parts and the elements and the functions of the cosmos are within our body, and our body exists as part of the cosmos.
Without the whole cosmos, without the whole environment, this body could not exist. This self, this empirical self, what we call I, couldn’t exist without air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, places to go, people to see, and so on.
So this body, this self, this existence is a part of the whole. That means the whole is reflected in it. “As above, so below,” goes the Hermetic Axiom.
That means the whole universe is actually reflected in this human form; and to simplify it as much as possible, we have the Śakti residing at the base of the spine in the form of Kuṇḍalinī, and we have the Śiva residing in the crown, the sahasrāra, in the form of consciousness.So we have the life energy which produces the body.
After all, even when we’re asleep, the body still breathes, the heart still pumps, the digestion is working, so many things are going on, without our conscious awareness, on automatic pilot.
Who does all this? Śakti. So Śakti is there at the base of the spine, Śiva is there at the top, and the process of yoga, to simplify it as much as possible, is to bring the Kuṇḍalinī up through the different cakras to meet Śiva in the crown, and the union of Śiva and Śakti is samādhi, enlightenment, Self-realization. And this gives rise to liberation.
What is the liberation? So this world is Śakti, the universe is Śakti. This body, and all its different parts and functions, is also Śakti. See where this is going? This mind is also Śakti, it’s projecting all these images in our internal vision. So this idea of “i:, this self, this individual, separate existence is also māyā, is also Śakti.
And the more we analyze, the more we find there is really nothing there but Śakti. There is no “i”, no separate existence. And the more closer that we get to this realization, the more the cakras open up, and the Kuṇḍalinī will rise, and the better we feel, and the more ecstatic we get.
And finally, when Śakti and Śiva unite in the sahasrāra, then this is a total ecstatic existence. And this can be not only experienced, but it can be experienced all the time, see? And this means the end of suffering, because this individual existence, this ego, this “i”, this is nothing but suffering, it’s nothing but trouble. You look at the whole world, the whole world is nothing but suffering.
If you taste this yoga, if you taste this nectar—this bliss of Self-realization—even one time, that completely negates the idea of material pleasures, and power, and fame, and wealth, and all that stuff. It’s just useless compared to the real ecstasy in the here-and-now, which is experienced by the yogī when this duality of Śiva and Śakti resolves.
It’s like a tremendous tension, a tremendous lie, māyā, that which is not. And finally we come to that which is, and which has always been, and which was only covered by this māyā, and that is the union of Śiva and Śakti, and that is the perfection of life.
ĀŪṀ Tat Sat, ĀŪṀ Śakti ĀŪṀ.