THE SPIRITUAL REALITY - Part 2

Rupa or form, Rasa or taste and Gandha or smell. These powers are subtle energies immanent in the elements constituting the physical universe. Modern science seems to corroborate the presence of these, essences behind bodies. The world was once said to be made up of molecules or chemical substances.

Further investigation revealed that molecules are not the last word and that they are made up of atoms. Research, again, proved that even the atoms are formed of certain substances, which have the character of both waves of energy and particles of force. They flow like waves and sometimes jump like particles. A great physicist has therefore preferred to designate them as ‘wavicles’. These have been named electrons, protons, neutrons, etc., according to their structure and function.

Their essence is force. There is nothing but force in the universe. There is only a continuum of energy everywhere. The Tanmatras of the Yoga system, however, are subtler than the energy of the scientist, even as the Prana is subtler than electricity. Just as behind the Prana there is the mind, behind the Tanmatras there is the Cosmic Mind. Beyond the Cosmic Mind are the Cosmic Ego and the Cosmic Intellect, the last mentioned having a special name, Mahat. Beyond the Mahat is what is called Prakriti, in which the whole universe exists as a tree in a seed, or as effect in its cause.

Transcending Prakriti is the Absolute-Consciousness, called Brahman, Paramatman and the like. So, whether we dive deep here or there, within ourselves or within the cosmos, we find the same thing-Consciousness. And the stages of manifestation in the individual correspond to those in the universe. The purpose of Yoga is to effect a communion between the individual and cosmic structures and to realize the ultimate Reality. The Yoga places before us the goal of a union wherein infinity and eternity seem to come together.

The aim of Yoga is to raise the status of the individual to the cosmic level and to abolish the false difference between the individual and the cosmic. The cosmos includes ourselves and things. The individual is a part of the cosmos. Then, why do we make a separate reference to the individual? This is a mistake, which Yoga effectively corrects. To regard the cosmos as an outer object would be to defy the very meaning of the cosmos. To imagine ourselves to be subjects counterposed before an object called the cosmos would be to stultify the comprehensiveness of the cosmos and to interfere with its harmony and working.

The Yoga rectifies this mistake and hereby the mortal becomes the Immortal. As the individual is a part of the cosmos, this achievement should not be difficult. The individual is not separate from the cosmic, but there


The Divine Life Society, Sivananda Ashram, Indiaseems to be some confusion in the mind of the individual which has caused an artificial isolation of itself from the rest of the universe. This confusion is called Ajnana or Avidya, which really means an absence or negation of true knowledge. Here we enter the realms of depth psychology.

From - The Yoga System