Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

II OF CREATION

We have said, and the truth cannot be too often repeated or too much stressed, that the Original Substance, the source and support of all the worlds with all their beings, is the one Existence Consciousness, the Infinite Self whose gaze iksa, or creative fervour tapas, or force of consciousness involves an eternal movement of activity forming this world, and that this in its turn, by an ordered difference in development, brings into existence all these beings, or rather becomings, in a variety of species, with striking differences in the nature of their embodiments such as physical, vital and mental and with remarkable variations in their capacity to develop the organs of vital, mental and spiritual or divine functions.

Really, Brahman is equal in all these beings. Still there is a vast difference in their capacities for vital activity, sense perception and general experience. They do not come into being simultaneously and at the same place. Differences among the created are the result of the functioning of the creative power in terms of space and time. Conditioned in space, which is full, intense and immobile, in the Self as Extension, there arise and endure the endless distinctions among perceptible objects. The endless distinctions among internal processes, ceaselessly arising in the one continuous flow of activity, the phenomena of remembrance and expectation, and all the differences in condition everywhere, even outside, these exist conditioned in Time, which like an intangible void is only the Self as eternal change and ceaseless movement.

Thus there is no creation without the all powerful Consciousness of the Self assuming spatial and temporal terms of existence. In the absence of created existence, the question of my existence and of other existences does not arise. It is in creation, whose reality is established to our experience, that our own individual existence is founded. It is to be noted then that all these objects, sentient or otherwise, are subject to space and time which are the terms of Existence-Consciousness assumed by the eternal force-movement inherent in it for the sustenance of creation. Therefore in the all-pervading Existence-Consciousness thus formulated into spatial and temporal existence making countless distinctions possible, there manifest various species, and in each, innumerable forms. And in each of the numberless kinds thus manifest in this physical world of ours, there are countless individual objects. Among rocks and rivers, among trees and plants, among birds, beasts and other creatures, while there are common features binding each to its kind, there are endless differences characterising the particular appearances in each kind or species. Thus in the human kind also numberless are the individual forms, each distinct from every other.

Therefore X is different from Y in form or character. Individual variations in mankind can be seen in general capacity and experience, in assimilation, action and the instruments of these, in receptivity and application. This indeed is the wonder of creation that countless divisions and finites are formed from and in the one Indivisible Infinite. In this unending differentiation into numberless finites and divisions of the undifferentiated Infinite Self, the abode and support of all, the question occurs to man, ’What is the character of the world in which this body lives? Whence are these creatures whose appearance and disappearance are common phenomena? Who again am I, to whom occurs this enquiry?’ The man with the spirit of enquiry awakened becomes gradually possessed of a sense of bondage and a keen sense of bondage develops a desire for liberation. Therefore it is they say that whoever has a straightforward desire for freedom is an advanced being. Such a development is sufficient qualification for the knowledge of the Self, adhyatma vidya.

Here the intelligent critic is struck with a doubt. "If it is established that the Infinite Self, eternally free and conscious, is also the Self of all that it has become, who is it that is in bondage from which release is desired? What is the true character of this bondage? What again is the nature of the development by which one becomes competent for freedom?"

Let us pause for a moment and consider. The birth of the worlds from the all-powerful Supreme Brahman reveals a principle of bifurcation in the Infinite Consciousness itself. The created world called the inconscient jada and the creating consciousness isvara are the two bifurcated parts of the really indivisible. The One Infinite Self is absolute, absolved of all the finites or relatives that are derived from it. Hence while remaining free and absolute the Infinite Consciousness assumes in relation to the creative movement the double form or aspect of the knower and the known, the conscient and the inconscient, cetana and jada. It must be borne in mind that it is the limitless Indivisible itself that is thus limited in the form of Subject and Object.

Though it is the One Existence-Consciousness which is the substantial truth in both the created world and the Creator-Lord, in both the Object and the Subject, yet the Creator-Lord being the illuminator is termed the Self, the knower and the created world being the illuminated is termed the not-self, the known, as distinguished from the knower. Through a subtle activity or movement of its own light, this illuminating consciousness with its unlimited capacity for infinite divisibility throws out particular forms of itself, which in the subtler states are of the character of knowledge and activity and are termed mind-stuff and life-force citta and prana, and which in the grosser state become modified into what is called the inconscient world, jada.

Therefore the wise state that in ultimate truth there is no real difference between the Subject and the Object, between the Lord and His creation, as both are of the same substance and endure in a relation of identity tadatmya⁹²

दृश्यते विषयाकारा ग्रहणे स्मरणे च धीः । प्रज्ञाविषयतादात्म्यमेवं साक्षात् प्रदृश्यते ।। > न चेत्समष्टिविज्ञानविभूतिरखिलं जगत् । विषयव्यष्टिविज्ञानतादात्म्यं नोपपद्यते ।। > (उमासहस्रम्)
. And for this reason, the text is acceptable to reason, that refers to the all-becoming of the Brahman, "All this is Brahman."

Therefore, consciousness in the subjective being is the illuminating cause karana and the gross world which forms the objective existence is the illumination effect. Between these two, between the world, characterised as objective existence, gross (sthula) and inconscient (jada) on one side and the conscient subjective being, the causal (karana), the Supreme self on the other, there is ever active a play of the conscious force, manifested as a movement of knowledge and activity and called mind and life-force, citta and prana and this is termed the subtle, suksma.

This subtle movement of knowledge and activity, of mind and life force, at once divides and links the world and its Lord, the inconscient and the conscient. In the macrocosm it is called the world of life-force pranc-loka and other worlds still subtler. In the microcosm, the same is termed the subtle body, the suksma-deha including the sheaths of life-force and mind, pranamaya-manomaya-kosas.

The relation of the inconscient and the conscient is that of the illuminator and the illuminated, and the same in terms of action becomes that of the developer and the developed, the force that works up and the thing that is worked up. When the created world is illuminated by the Conscient, the inconscient is stirred to change and development; and in the course of its development it manifests an individuation of life and mind’ resulting in the appearance of human beings. What are called ’life and mind’, though differing functionings, are really a twofold branch from the same root, viz., the conscious force which forms into a dual movement of knowledge and action, represented by mind and life. In the words of Upadesha Sara "The mind-stuff and life-force functioning as knowledge and action are twin branches from one root-source, sakti.