Whether or not someone believes the universe was created by God or by forces of nature instead, without a doubt the universe is real. A real thing cannot come from nothing, so another thing must have caused the universe. What the other reality is is hard to say.
And who are we to talk about it? We ourselves are little sentient beings in a world that rotates around a sun moving about in a continuously transforming Milky Way galaxy.
We can say this with certainty: there must have been something before the physical universe began. A reality with the innate potential to create a universe. The innate power of that reality is called Shakti in the Sanskrit language.
Evolution of the Cosmos or Parinamavada is a fundamental doctrine taught by the Rishis who authored the Upanishads, as well the Srimad Bhagavat Purana and other Puranas. It is an essential part of the teachings of the Rishis. Pariṇāmavāda (Sanskrit: परिणामवाद), which is known in English as the Theory of Transformation, is a Hindu philosophical theory which pre-supposes that the cause of the Universe is continually transforming itself into its effects. God is both the cause and effect; God is the Origin and Substance of the Universe, as is stated in the Bhagavata Purana 11.28.19 where we read:
“Gold remains gold both before and after ornaments are made of it. It only gets different names like ring or necklace. Similarly, the Reality, the cause and substance of the whole of creation, is the same both before and after objects receive their names and shapes.”
Srimad Bhagavat Purana (7.9.48) says, furthermore:
“O God, You are the air, the earth, fire, sky and water. You are all the objects we perceive with our senses, the breath of life, the senses, mind, consciousness and ego. Indeed, You are everything. The material elements and whatever else may be expressed in words, or by the mind, are nothing but You.”
Likewise, in the Upanishad literature we find the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (2.3.1) saying:
“There are two forms of Param-Brahma, immanent (Saguna) and transcendental (Nirguna), mortal and immortal, finite and infinite, describable in language and indescribable.”
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.1.20 also states: “As a spider brings forth a web from within itself, so also this world is created by Brahman.”
Svetasvatara Upanishad 6.10: “The Supreme Being surrounds Himself with the products of nature, just as when a spider builds a web and walks on threads spun from its own body. May that Supreme Being grant us liberation!”
The Mundaka Upanishad (2.1.1) also says: “This is the truth, my friend. As from a huge fire sparks fly forth in thousands, many individual beings come forth from the One and return thither at the end. That Being has no body that time can change or destroy, for that Being is the origin and end of time itself. The Ultimate Reality is outside and inside of everything, and it was not produced by anything. That Being does not breathe air to live. Nor does it think with a material mind. That Self-aware Deity is pure awareness existing far beyond the intangible energy called Shakti that produces all tangible things.”
Param-Brahma and Nirguna Brahma are two names for the original being that exists beyond time and space. This being Nirguna Brahma occasionally uses its Shakti, its inherent power, to make a temporary manifestation of itself called Saguna Brahma. Saguna Brahma manifests as a physical universe, shaped like an egg, and within that egg Brahma the architect of creation is born.
Present day science keeps searching to understand precisely how the Cosmos was born. Scientists want to know how the Big Bang occurred at the dawn of creation but everyone finds that this knowledge they want is exceedingly hard to obtain.
In a far distant time in the past, long before the Big Bang, and before atoms of hydrogen and other elements first appeared, there was a particular substance possessing the power to initiate transformations (pariṇāma) and produce atoms. An entity with the power to transform itself and form bodies made of matter. What is that primal substance? Who can say?
In summary, we see that the Upanishads offer the view that the universe was made by a Being (Nirguna-Brahma) with the innate power and potential to create a universe. The Rishis or spiritual seers of the Upanishads declared that that entity that caused the Big Bang is a supernatural being.
The innate power or Shakti of the original, supernatural Being is commonly termed Maya in the Veda literature. What Maya really is has been the subject of fierce debate for millennia.
The Monist school of thought of Adi Shankaracharya asserts that the primal being Nirguna Brahma is real, whereas Maya or the material universe is not. According to Shankaracharya the entire universe is an illusion.
Shankaracharya taught that the universe or Saguna Brahma is like a mirage. Shankaracharya often gave the example of a rope that someone sees on the ground, a rope that appears to be a snake at first glance; when a person looks more closely they realise the snake they perceived is not real, not what it seemed to be.
In Shankaracharya’s vision of everything the material universe is a misconceived idea. Divine wisdom (jnana), however, is something real. The divine knowledge that understands all physical forms are mere mirages.
Shankaracharya replaced the idea that the universe is real with the idea that wisdom is real and eternal. According to this school of thought, when a yogi attains jnana (divine wisdom) they forget their individuality and their bodily awareness, merging their identity with Nirguna Brahma. The wisdom they merge with is no longer personal wisdom. Instead, they enter an impersonal state of knowledge devoid of ego-awareness.
Shankaracharya presented this philosophy because he recognised a problem previous philosophers also identified. That is, if every little thing in the universe is Saguna Brahma or “God” then material objects such as rubbish and dead fish bones must be forms of God.
But the Svetasvatara Upanishad presents an alternative understanding of Saguna Brahma. The Upanishad states that things such as dead fish, planets and stars are manifestations of the Shakti or power of God. They are not God directly.
The Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.3 says, “Sages engaged in meditation envisioned the Power of the Supreme Being. They saw how a Self-aware Deity possesses an infinitely powerful Shakti, a Power energising countless jiva souls controlled by the three gunas of Nature (ignorance-based intuition, passions, and good thinking). Sages saw how the Power of the ultimate Reality is ruling over every other cause of creation, including Time and the sentient beings, the jiva souls.”
Following this line of philosophical thought, the Vaishnava school of philosophy maintains that Nirguna Brahma is not an impersonal, indescribable entity but instead a Being with divine powers and qualities. Nirguna Brahma can be described as a powerful Being, as the original Being, as the origin of Light, and as the origin of Time and Space.
In a word, Nirguna Brahma can be described as Om.
Sri Adi Shankaracharya himself intuitively recognised that the Supreme Being is comprehensible. Shankaracharya could see Nirguna Brahma never transforms, or changes; rather, it is the power of Nirguna Brahma that transforms.
In a mood of submissive devotion to the Supreme Being, Sri Adi Shankaracharya wrote:
“My Lord, even when all difference is gone, I am Yours, though You are not mine. A wave belongs to the ocean, but surely the ocean does not belong to the wave.” (Prarthana-satpadi 3)
The doctrine of Shakti-Parinamavada says Nirguna Brahma or God always remains the same. Furthermore, that Saguna Brahma or the Cosmos is manifested by the power of God.
Putting things in another way, God is the soul of the universe.
Om shantih shantih shantih
Previous articles in this series of articles about Maya:
- Devi Maya the Goddess, Mother Nature Herself
- Goddess Yoganidra who is none other than Maa Durga
- The Atoms of Matter manifested by Mother Nature
- Evolution of the Material Universe
