THE VEDIC VISION OF YOU AS A PERSON (PURUSHA)
(Compiled by NRS for a discourse at Sri Ganesha Temple, Nashville, USA)
The Vedic vision of the
essence of our Self, Inner Being, and nature as a Person (Purusha) is not merely as a physical being, social being, gender,
age, ethnicity, occupation, nationality, political or religious persuasion, or
even one species or another. Every face you see is ultimately your own. As
Upanishads state: "You are the woman and you are the man. You are the boy
and you are the girl. You are the elder who totters on a staff. You are born
with your face to every side (Viśvatomukha)." Shvetashvatara
Upanishad IV.3.
When Upanishads laud
the Purusha or Person, it is the Cosmic Being of Light. You are the Purusha, the Person in the Sun, the
Moon, the Fire, Lightning and the Waters. The entire universe is your body.
Your mind pervades all space.
Sri Veda Purushaya Namah!
Please
go through my discourse:
http://nrsrini.blogspot.com/2011/10/yajna-in-purusha-sookta.html
CREATION ACCORDING TO HINDUISM
The
creation as revealed in the Bible is one of the hotly debated topics in the US.
Some groups are in favor of including the Biblical Creation in the Science
curriculum. Occasionally, instructors have taken the risk of teaching the
Biblical Creation in their Science classes and have faced all sorts of
disciplinary action from the management. More recently, many are advocating
that “intelligent design” be taught in US schools, side by side with “Darwin’s
theory of evolution.” It is noteworthy that the Hindus, have never treated
'Creation' with the same fervor, although the topic does intrigue us at times,
especially when so much noise is made in the media about “Intelligent design
(read Biblical creation).” The Sanskrit word for creation is "sR~SHTi," which means,
"pouring forth."
The
Hindu scriptures contain many creation texts with "oneness" as the
common underlying theme. The variety of creation texts caters to human minds at
different stages of spiritual development. The multiplicity of creation texts
is also well in accordance with the plurality and plasticity of the Hinduism.
One
other very important function the multiple texts serve is that they are
informing us to pay attention to the underlying message. If we had just one
version, we tend to take it word for word, which would frustrate us and worse
yet we will miss the real message. Summary of select creation texts from the
foremost Hindu scriptures (vEdas) and the later (post-vEdic) scriptures:
nAsadeeya Hymn (R~g vEda, 10.129): This Hymn is conceptually extremely
provocative and is popular among scientists and thinkers such as Carl Sagan.
“There was darkness everywhere. There was neither existence nor non-existence.
There was neither death nor immortality. All this was water. There was That One
that breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Desire came upon That one. That
was the first seed of the mind. There was bond between existence and
non-existence. That bond extended across. There were seed placers. There were
powers. There was impulse beneath. There was giving-forth above.
When
and how this creation has arisen? Perhaps it formed itself or perhaps it did
not. The gods came afterwards. Who really knows? The One who looks down on it
from the highest heaven knows or perhaps He does not know.” 4 hiraNyagarbha
(the Golden Embryo) Hymn (R~g vEda 10.121) This Hymn is semi-speculative and
introduces two terms for the creator, hiraNyagarbha and praJApati (the
progenitor). In the beginning the Golden Embryo arose. When the high waters
came pregnant with the embryo that is everything, bringing forth fire. He arose
from that as the one life's breath of the gods. Once He was born, He was the
lord of creation. Who is the God to whom we should pay oblations to? This hymn
also describes some of the attributes of God as follows: He who gives life and
strength, His command all gods obey, He is lord of both immortality, and death,
He is one king of the world by His greatness and power, the quarters of the sky
are His two arms, He made this awesome sky and earth firm, He propped up the
dome of the sky, He created the water and Sun, His laws are true, and He
fathered the earth and the sky.
PuruSHa sUktam or The Hymn of Cosmic Man (R~g
vEda 10.90): In this Hymn, the world arises from dismembering the Purusha, the
primeval person through a vEdic yagn^ya (a sacred fire ceremony). The creation
process here uses the yagn^ya metaphor.
This is one of the magnificent and famous of the vEdic Hymns. It is recited
partly or wholly during worship as well as in various rites from cradle to
grave and beyond. This hymn appears in all the four vEdas. A detailed study of
this hymn as found in kR~SHNa yaJurvEda is the subject matter of this book.
Creation in the Upanishads (concluding part of the vEdas): The puruSHa becomes
the Self in a creation text that appears in the bR~hadAraNyaka Upanishad. In
the beginning, this universe was nothing but the Self in the form of a man. It
looked around and saw that there was nothing but itself, and it said
"I." Then he was afraid, but he considered "since there is no
one here but myself, what is there to fear?" Then the fear departed.
However, he lacked delight and desired a second. He was exactly as large as a
man and woman embracing.
This
Self then divided itself in two parts and with that, there was a man and a
woman. Thus, the sage yagn^yavalkya declares, this body is like half of a split
pea. And that is why, indeed, a woman fills this place. The male embraced the
female, and from that the human race arose. She, however reflected: "How
can he unite with me, I was produced from himself? Well then, let me
hide!" She became a cow, he a bull and united with her; and from that
cattle arose. She became a mare, he a stallion 5 from that horse arose; she
became a goat, he a buck; she a sheep, he a ram and united with her and from
that goat and sheep arose. Thus he poured forth all pairing things, down to the
ants.
Then
he realized, "I, actually, am creator; for I have poured forth all
this." Anyone understanding this becomes, truly, himself a creator in this
creation. Elsewhere in the Upanishads and other contemporary philosophical
texts, the vEdic puruSHa is construed as brahman, nArayaNa, supreme Self,
primeval sound Om, That, It, One, and so on. We see here the mantrAs like
"everything is brahman," "In the beginning it was all Om,"
"I am brahma," “One nArayaNa, with none like Him,” “you are That and
so on.
The
inner meanings of creation, evolution, and dissolution also appear. One of the
profound statements in the KEna Upanishad is foretelling our “limitation” in
understanding the “limitless,” thus often we are satisfied with imitation!
vign^yAtam aviJAnatAm | “He who thinks he knows does not know avign^yAtam viJAnatAm | “He who thinks
he does not know, knows!” This is something we should keep in our mind,
especially in debating issues like which came first, seed or the tree? Creation
in the purANas, Epics and other texts: Here we see an extension of the one
became everything theme of the vEdas and the Upanishads.
The
terms hiraNyagarbha, puruSHa, praJApati,
vishvakarma to represent the Supreme are retained as well as replaced by
"brahma” (distinct from the Upanishadic brahman) of the Upanishads),"
"vishNu," "shiva," "dEvi" or “shakti.” The
purANas discuss creation, evolution and dissolution as a cyclic process in
great details. They also introduce the terms "brahmANDa" (brahma's
egg) for the universe and "yuga" to describe the time scale of the
events. The beginning is set at trillions of years in the great past, eventually
concluding that it is “without beginning (actually expansion, evolution and
transformation).”
At
places the Puranic creation reads like the scientific theory of evolution of
life forms. Summary of these creation
texts here is an oversimplification and perhaps we should study them in their
own right. So what does this mean to us? How does the Hindu view of creation
differ from the Biblical creation? Why should we bother? The common theme of
the Hindu view of creation is "one became everything." It is not so
much that God created everything, but it is more as God is everything. This
universe is a part of the Divine. There is no clear separation between the
Creator and the Creations.
We
do entertain "dualism" (separation- the Creator and creations are
separate) and everything in-between dualism and non-dualism, but that is not
the distinguishing feature of Hinduism. Even the strongest of dualists consider
it more as a "transient dualism." Likewise, the avid proponents of
"advaita" or "non-dualism" (oneness- no separation between
the Creator and the Creations) 6 behave like dualists, perhaps more as a means
to end in “It Self”. Hinduism also clearly states that this universe has been
around for trillions of years and will go on for many more. In the Biblical
creation, there is a clear separation between the Creator and man and man and
nature. The Bible does not specify when exactly the creation happened. The five
thousand and odd years that some Christians assign for the age of our earth is
a calculated figure from the Biblical genealogy up to the point of Jesus Christ
[interestingly, this figure is close to the age of the present “Kaliyuga” which
is believed to have started in 3102 BCE (5108 years ago) as per the Hindu
tradition]. I think the way in which a religion deals with the subject of
creation greatly affects the psyche (principle of life) of the followers of
that faith. Respect for life forms, nature worship, blending with nature,
respect and tolerance for views and faith of others, a gentle and universal out
look of the world, a sense of the vastness of time and the universe,
spiritualism, systematic indifference (reasoned disregard) towards transient
things, inner strength, peaceful retreat from restlessness, a great vocabulary
on the inner life - all these come naturally to any true Hindu.
Perhaps
the following narration sums it up better: Stanley Jones, an American Christian
missionary who spent decades in the early part of this century in India
comments thus: It is easy to talk with a Hindu about spiritual things. It
makes you feel that he is a spiritualized being. He is. Spiritual ideas are on
tap at once, and he talks about them fluently, easily, naturally. They are the
breath of his life. And not only the breath of his life, but also the strength
of his life.
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