The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Ch-1. Second Brahmana, The Creation of the Universe. : 2. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Wednesday, May 12, 2021. 06:07. PM.
Chapter - I :
SECOND BRAHMANA: 
THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE- 2.
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The devouring death principle is the element of hunger which grasps objects. Here, hunger does not mean merely the appetite for edible dishes like rice, barley, etc. Here is a metaphysical principle. Here, the hunger is a cosmic element. It is not an operation of the biological spleen or the liver or the stomach of the individual. What is here intended is the principle of grasping. The object can be regarded as the hunger of the soul of the individual. There was nothing except the desire to grasp the object, if at all one could say that anything was there. A?an?yay? is the hunger of the individual to grasp, absorb, contact, abolish and devour the object.

Now, this is a condition which cannot be easily analysed, unless we pause for a while on this subject, and visualise what actually is here the author's intention. 

How did diversity arise? How could here be a development of the distinction between the seer and the seen from that theoretic nebular condition of universal darkness and cosmic waters? 

That condition is not of the Absolute, but what sometimes is described in the Pur?nas, and in the Epics, as the precondition of the manifestation of the external universe. It is difficult to imagine this condition, because we cannot understand what could be the precondition of the manifestation of externality, which is what we call creation. Creation is nothing but the projection of externality in Indivisible Being. The creation of the universe, therefore, is not actually the manufacture of a new substance. This is the great point which will be explained in greater detail, further, as we proceed.

In creation, a new thing is not created, because nothing can come from nothing. If a new thing is to be created, it must have been produced out of nothing. 

How can 'nothing' produce 'something'? 

This is illogical. The effect must have existed in some causal state. This causal state is the substance of the universe. 

Now, what is actually the distinctive mark of the universe that is created, as different from the original causal condition? 

In what way does the effect get differentiated from the cause? 

If everything that is in the effect is in the cause, what is the distinctive feature, what is the distinguishing mark, which separates the effect from the cause? 

If the effect is entirely different from the cause, we cannot posit a cause at all, because the cause is non-existent. If the cause is non-existent, the effect also would be non-existent. So, the cause must have contained the effect in a primordial state; and, therefore, nothing can be visualised in the effect which could not have been in the cause. In a sense, therefore, what is in the effect is what is in the cause. The effect is the cause. There is no final non-distinction between the effect and the cause, inasmuch as in substance they are the same. But yet, we make a distinction between the two.

This peculiarity, Viseshata, which characterises the distinction between the cause and the effect, is the principle of what we call space-time in modern philosophical language. But, otherwise, it is the principle of externality. The principle of externality is not a substance. It is a peculiar state of consciousness. That is the distinguishing principle. The effect gets isolated from the cause by a peculiar adjustment of consciousness within the cause, not necessarily involved in change or modification of the cause, but only a state of mind or consciousness. 

Now, when the effect gets psychologically isolated from the cause, there is the seed sown for the further diversity of creation. The two become four, four become eight, eight become sixteen, and multiplicity, thus, proceeds from the original Single Atom of the cosmos. And, when this diversity, which is creation, is conceived as possible and capable of being hiddenly present in the cause, we have to assume, also, a peculiar potency in the cause, which becomes the reason behind the manifestation of diversity. 

This is called the ?akti in certain philosophies, the force, energy, that is present in consciousness, a peculiar indistinguishable, indescribable, eluding something, without the assumption of which creation cannot be assumed. And, sometimes, people call it M?ya, merely because they cannot understand what it is. It is not a substance that exists. It is rather an inability to grasp the meaning of it; that is all.

To be continued ...

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