Hi Hari!
I have a few questions concern Prakriti.
1. Is Prakriti a manifestation of Radha?
2. What are the functions of Prakriti in spiritual and material worlds?
3. Is this Prakriti a kind of energy that forms words and facilitate relationships between persons there, starts from spiritual worlds down to grossest material worlds by accepting more and more dense forms in accordance with desires of the selves to get experience of different type?
4. Is Prakriti an energy, by virtue of whom differentiated entities assumed forms and names, including ‘bodies’ of the God in which He/She becomes perceptible for other beings?
5. Is Maya one of Prakriti’s sub-energy? And what are Maya’s functions?
Prakriti
Re: Prakriti
These are philosophical questions relating to concepts you have read about. I have requested in the past that such questions be posed to people who enjoy answering them. I do not feel that answering these questions would assist you in a way that is compatible with the theme of what I have presented since 1999. There are other audiences and forums relating to the vedic tradtion where many experts are eager to reply.
Because you are not asking me something that lends itself to personal experience and realization, I am not inclined to reply.
Because you are not asking me something that lends itself to personal experience and realization, I am not inclined to reply.
Re: Prakriti
Sure, these are mainly philosophical questions, but I do not agree they do not lend itself to personal experience and realization. These questions expand our awareness of how this world is functioning. You know, someone may be just a consumer, and it is normal, but other want to know how does it works and become able to use all options and facilities of obtained device and repair it easily if it breaks down. Since I live in this world, in this existence, I ought to know how it really works for to be more aware and determined in every particular situation.
Sure, I am reading philosophical books, but what I have read I try to apply in practice. You know, when I read about Prakriti in Ramanuja’s commentaries I found many unexpected views that have to be confirmed somehow. And therefore questions appear on which there are no answers in book. For example, when I have bodily contact with other embodied entities around me I have contact with a kind of energy (Prakriti?) which carries conscious spiritual energy of personality. This energy (Prakriti) has some qualities. For example it provides feeling of contact--verbal and not verbal (as I think, I do not read about this). What kinds of interesting and useful qualities it may have else?
You know, in holography, by using different wavelengths you may manifest different objects saved on the same plate, or using few different wavelengths you may reveal one object with new details, hidden before. This holography quality is manifestation of some bit of Prakriti’s qualities. We may expand it to deal with other realities. What is the nature of our vibrations we use to tune ourselves to contact with divine? Who emanate them – I as the self or something else that is somehow under my control? Is it an agent that as a laser, reveal holography of world around me?
They say that God is transcendental (I agree) and when He/She manifests, His body is also transcendental and not different from Him, as they say. But if His body forms by the same energy as ours, then He becomes closer to us. To establish contact with Him/Her becomes much easier now. It changes many.
You sand me to vedic philosophers forum. Do they able answer these questions correctly? I am not sure. They are the same book readers, not the mystics.
Of course I cannot push you, but it will be very interesting and useful to know your opinion related to this.
Sure, I am reading philosophical books, but what I have read I try to apply in practice. You know, when I read about Prakriti in Ramanuja’s commentaries I found many unexpected views that have to be confirmed somehow. And therefore questions appear on which there are no answers in book. For example, when I have bodily contact with other embodied entities around me I have contact with a kind of energy (Prakriti?) which carries conscious spiritual energy of personality. This energy (Prakriti) has some qualities. For example it provides feeling of contact--verbal and not verbal (as I think, I do not read about this). What kinds of interesting and useful qualities it may have else?
You know, in holography, by using different wavelengths you may manifest different objects saved on the same plate, or using few different wavelengths you may reveal one object with new details, hidden before. This holography quality is manifestation of some bit of Prakriti’s qualities. We may expand it to deal with other realities. What is the nature of our vibrations we use to tune ourselves to contact with divine? Who emanate them – I as the self or something else that is somehow under my control? Is it an agent that as a laser, reveal holography of world around me?
They say that God is transcendental (I agree) and when He/She manifests, His body is also transcendental and not different from Him, as they say. But if His body forms by the same energy as ours, then He becomes closer to us. To establish contact with Him/Her becomes much easier now. It changes many.
You sand me to vedic philosophers forum. Do they able answer these questions correctly? I am not sure. They are the same book readers, not the mystics.
Of course I cannot push you, but it will be very interesting and useful to know your opinion related to this.
Re: Prakriti
I get this, but the problem is that you phrased the question within the context of Ramanuja. You could have said: "When I have bodily contact with other embodied entities around me I feel a conscious spiritual energy of personality. This energy has some qualities. For example it provides feeling of contact--verbal and not verbal (as I think, I do not read about this). What kinds of interesting and useful qualities it may have else?" It is easy for me to answer a question like this. Using the word "prakrti" can cloud this discussion. I do not agree that there is a universally accepted definition of the term that completely describes the concept you wish to discuss. Your question is fine without it. By leaning on a sampradaya acarya, you place me into a box I do not wish to be in and therefore I will choose to not answer. But your real question is universal and understandable by all people since it is something that we all share because it relates to who we are and how we perceive.Sure, I am reading philosophical books, but what I have read I try to apply in practice. You know, when I read about Prakriti in Ramanuja’s commentaries I found many unexpected views that have to be confirmed somehow. And therefore questions appear on which there are no answers in book. For example, when I have bodily contact with other embodied entities around me I have contact with a kind of energy (Prakriti?) which carries conscious spiritual energy of personality. This energy (Prakriti) has some qualities. For example it provides feeling of contact--verbal and not verbal (as I think, I do not read about this). What kinds of interesting and useful qualities it may have else?
So considering my comment above, can you use my rewording of one of your questions as a basis to rephrase your inquiry into a format that is universal and transcends culture and history?
Re: Prakriti
Ok, rephrased my questions I can ask:
1. What is that energy which facilitates us to perceive objects around us?
2. What is the substance or energy that making God to be perceptible by other entities?
3. What is the energy that creates outward forms or perceptible bodies of beings in ‘gross’ and in ‘spiritual‘ worlds?
4. What is the nature of this energy? How this energy works and how can I control it and use it for my personal development and evolution?
1. What is that energy which facilitates us to perceive objects around us?
2. What is the substance or energy that making God to be perceptible by other entities?
3. What is the energy that creates outward forms or perceptible bodies of beings in ‘gross’ and in ‘spiritual‘ worlds?
4. What is the nature of this energy? How this energy works and how can I control it and use it for my personal development and evolution?
Re: Prakriti
Can we say that this energy is originating from a primordial polarity, when the pieces of the polarity, being forcibly separated One, are gravitating to each other by desire to become One again? Is this energy a principle of this separation? The separating energy. This energy designates entities by giving to them forms and names. The nature of this energy is desire. The primary desire of One to become various initiate process of separation known also as creation which characterized by increasing of desires of separative types. Separation means creation since we make many from one. But the tendency of beings to interrelate with each other is manifestation of secondary latent desire to become One again. Therefore this energy, being initially divine, is integral principle of entire existence and relationships among beings of all types. How do we call it changes nothing.
It is interesting, what happens when latent desire to become One grows up to patent desire? Is it individual process of reunion or process of global collapse?
It is interesting, what happens when latent desire to become One grows up to patent desire? Is it individual process of reunion or process of global collapse?
Re: Prakriti
You list four fairly similar questions, and when you add in your next text, you are requesting me to write a book! But I already wrote the book and it is available to purchase via Amazon, and your niece just translated it with Mahashaya! You read it! You might think that I did not discuss these topics, but I did, just not in the most obvious manner.
The energy is living energy -- conscious, spiritual energy. God's energy, the divine energy within the cosmos, and our energy, are all this energy. Perception is conscious awareness. Energy emanates from living beings and thus other living beings who are consciously aware can perceive it. God is a living being, so are we. God's energy supports the creation by supplying the ingredients we need to get bodies, forms and facilities required to fulfill our desires or to act in a way that allows us to evolve to where we ultimately should be.
Question 4 can be answered by any and every one of my lectures and meditations. Truly.
Your next text requires me to be philosophical again. This means me answering according to something I might have thought or heard or considered to be true. Probably somewhere I have experienced the singularity of all things separating into little pieces, but I certainly do not remember this now and it would be pompous and absurd of me to answer this from my personal realization or experience. You are talking about the origin of existence in this universe or within the realm of physical existence, and further, you wonder about the motivations behind it. These metaphysical topics are answered best by philosophers, religionists, and spiritual traditions. They each have their own particular way of resolving these issues.
Why does the One become Many? This is the primordial question. From my experience and realization, I have seen that stasis sooner or later becomes boring or makes me dull. Boredom is far more than an idle inactivity. I need action. Even if that action is not a positive one, something has to break the bondage of immobility. That "One becomes Many" is compatible only if we consider one and many as concepts, not as individuals. But is the One ever an individual? I do not think so. The "Many" are individuals and since we are all always individuals, were we to be within the one, we would want to be individuals again, and thus the motive to separate arises. As I express my individuality, I define myself sometimes as one with others and at other times as separate and distinct from others. My momentary desire within a situational environment motivates me to act.
What if God does the same kind of thing, but on a massive extra universal scale and simultaneously on the smallest of all scales? And what if within this entirety of existence there is a principle which eventually collapses the entire thing into a black hole where all is consumed, digested, and regurgitated out into another creation when boredom strikes? What if the collapse of all things and the creation of all things is the axiomatic principle for living beings who reside within this realm? If this is the fundamental principle regulating all existence, then all we need examine is why. I think the principle of eventually attaining the statis of boredom is far more powerful than we might imagine. We usually consider boredom to be a trivial human thing arising from not having a proper engagement. But what if you have already done it all and have nothing left to achieve, yet you are still within this realm? Would you not be bored? Would you break apart the physical realm to attain a life not bound by it?
If you want to be true to your nature as a seeker of the truth, then find out why you are the way you are. You will uncover why existence is the way it is along the way. Even if you do not accomplish this now, you will in some non-specific future and you will emerge from where you are to where you should have been all along until you decided you did not want to be there anymore.
The energy is living energy -- conscious, spiritual energy. God's energy, the divine energy within the cosmos, and our energy, are all this energy. Perception is conscious awareness. Energy emanates from living beings and thus other living beings who are consciously aware can perceive it. God is a living being, so are we. God's energy supports the creation by supplying the ingredients we need to get bodies, forms and facilities required to fulfill our desires or to act in a way that allows us to evolve to where we ultimately should be.
Question 4 can be answered by any and every one of my lectures and meditations. Truly.
Your next text requires me to be philosophical again. This means me answering according to something I might have thought or heard or considered to be true. Probably somewhere I have experienced the singularity of all things separating into little pieces, but I certainly do not remember this now and it would be pompous and absurd of me to answer this from my personal realization or experience. You are talking about the origin of existence in this universe or within the realm of physical existence, and further, you wonder about the motivations behind it. These metaphysical topics are answered best by philosophers, religionists, and spiritual traditions. They each have their own particular way of resolving these issues.
Why does the One become Many? This is the primordial question. From my experience and realization, I have seen that stasis sooner or later becomes boring or makes me dull. Boredom is far more than an idle inactivity. I need action. Even if that action is not a positive one, something has to break the bondage of immobility. That "One becomes Many" is compatible only if we consider one and many as concepts, not as individuals. But is the One ever an individual? I do not think so. The "Many" are individuals and since we are all always individuals, were we to be within the one, we would want to be individuals again, and thus the motive to separate arises. As I express my individuality, I define myself sometimes as one with others and at other times as separate and distinct from others. My momentary desire within a situational environment motivates me to act.
What if God does the same kind of thing, but on a massive extra universal scale and simultaneously on the smallest of all scales? And what if within this entirety of existence there is a principle which eventually collapses the entire thing into a black hole where all is consumed, digested, and regurgitated out into another creation when boredom strikes? What if the collapse of all things and the creation of all things is the axiomatic principle for living beings who reside within this realm? If this is the fundamental principle regulating all existence, then all we need examine is why. I think the principle of eventually attaining the statis of boredom is far more powerful than we might imagine. We usually consider boredom to be a trivial human thing arising from not having a proper engagement. But what if you have already done it all and have nothing left to achieve, yet you are still within this realm? Would you not be bored? Would you break apart the physical realm to attain a life not bound by it?
If you want to be true to your nature as a seeker of the truth, then find out why you are the way you are. You will uncover why existence is the way it is along the way. Even if you do not accomplish this now, you will in some non-specific future and you will emerge from where you are to where you should have been all along until you decided you did not want to be there anymore.
Re: Prakriti
All these sounds good and very attractive, but what to do with fear and lack of confidence if after some evolution I, without my own desire (thru my bad karma for example), find myself again in terrible conditions? Where this fear comes from? Is it from my previous not-successive attempts or from my desire do not repeat difficulties of this life again?
Re: Prakriti
You ask me why I am the way I am? It touched me and I contemplate it for a while. I can compare myself with the sprout breaking thru the asphalt now. This sprout is my awareness what is evolving and developing, discover new and new horizons on its way. It is like a ray of light—wide or narrow. The area illuminated with this ray becomes the realm I find myself in. When I concentrate the ray of my consciousness on something, then my awareness of the object increases.
Sometimes this sprout-ray has to go thru a kind of dense substance. If I have gone thru it then I have accepted it into my sphere of awareness. If do not, then it becomes buried in me and becomes a cause of “digestion problem” of my being until I digest it. It looks that now I am going thru the dense media named the gross matter. Is it wrapped me all around? If I aware the whole sphere around me I can answer it. Was I created in this dense environment or I came in it somehow—it does not matter. I am growing and grow thru this strip too. Do all beings have to go thru such a dense media? It is also does not matter. I have fond it on my way and have to accept it and go thru, like an airplane is going thru clouds. There is nothing special. It is even sometimes funny. But it does not mean that just I gone thru and forget it. I embraced it, it always remains in me, in my sphere of awareness.
I think this picture looks quite natural. If I want to meet the a form God I just have to point the ray of my consciousness on the current direction of divinity. If I have full-wide awareness I become able to perceive all existence.
What is about fear—I can consider it as a sign of warning—be careful, you are on the risky way, your awareness is weak in this territory. And it looks like we quite often lose our awareness, especially in the matter non-specific for our accustomed condition of being. And then we are starting become afraid—if it is something wrong?
But the question arises—where my capacity to aware gets its energy from? Why sometimes it is powerful enough, but sometimes weak? Where and how can I get the power for aware? And how can I keep it on?
Sometimes this sprout-ray has to go thru a kind of dense substance. If I have gone thru it then I have accepted it into my sphere of awareness. If do not, then it becomes buried in me and becomes a cause of “digestion problem” of my being until I digest it. It looks that now I am going thru the dense media named the gross matter. Is it wrapped me all around? If I aware the whole sphere around me I can answer it. Was I created in this dense environment or I came in it somehow—it does not matter. I am growing and grow thru this strip too. Do all beings have to go thru such a dense media? It is also does not matter. I have fond it on my way and have to accept it and go thru, like an airplane is going thru clouds. There is nothing special. It is even sometimes funny. But it does not mean that just I gone thru and forget it. I embraced it, it always remains in me, in my sphere of awareness.
I think this picture looks quite natural. If I want to meet the a form God I just have to point the ray of my consciousness on the current direction of divinity. If I have full-wide awareness I become able to perceive all existence.
What is about fear—I can consider it as a sign of warning—be careful, you are on the risky way, your awareness is weak in this territory. And it looks like we quite often lose our awareness, especially in the matter non-specific for our accustomed condition of being. And then we are starting become afraid—if it is something wrong?
But the question arises—where my capacity to aware gets its energy from? Why sometimes it is powerful enough, but sometimes weak? Where and how can I get the power for aware? And how can I keep it on?
Re: Prakriti
You have found the most important impediment to awareness: fear. Fear is a sign of intelligence when it protects us from danger or harm. Fear also manifests from ignorance when one does not know the source of a sound, or an event, for example. As important as these forms of fear are to our survival, I do not think these forms of fear affect evolution. I think the fear that blocks us is the inherent fear of not being good enough that characterizes our lives in this physical realm. This brick wall of self-condemnation prevents advancement more than anything other factor.
Think of it this way: What will you lose if you just accept your experiences, accept your perceptions, and flow with them? What could go wrong by allowing yourself to feel what you feel and see what you see. Try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt that if you are indeed a spiritual being that is divine in nature, you certainly, without a doubt, have the right and capacity to directly experience divinity. Ultimately, all that is stopping you is this persistent, primeval idea that you are not good enough.
If you allowed yourself to experience divinity, could you possibly make some horrible, evolutionary destroying mistake that cannot be rectified? I do not think so. I think you have far more to gain than you have to lose. And the quality of your gain is so far beyond whatever little you could lose that not attempting to go beyond your limits is foolish.
Think of it this way: What will you lose if you just accept your experiences, accept your perceptions, and flow with them? What could go wrong by allowing yourself to feel what you feel and see what you see. Try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt that if you are indeed a spiritual being that is divine in nature, you certainly, without a doubt, have the right and capacity to directly experience divinity. Ultimately, all that is stopping you is this persistent, primeval idea that you are not good enough.
If you allowed yourself to experience divinity, could you possibly make some horrible, evolutionary destroying mistake that cannot be rectified? I do not think so. I think you have far more to gain than you have to lose. And the quality of your gain is so far beyond whatever little you could lose that not attempting to go beyond your limits is foolish.