The Characteristics of the Universe

Is the universe real? Is it relatively unreal? This problem has been agitating man since ages in all lands. The realists and the idealists have argued on their explanations for centuries. The scientists or realists believe that the universe is a conglomeration of atoms in varying patterns which have assumed manifold forms and names. But this is only partially true. The Vijnana vadins (the spiritually oriented) point out to the Bhautika vadins (the materially oriented), that a firm base is essential for all these transformations to happen. The universe must have a basic force or energy or phenomenon; as basic as clay is to the pot. That fundamental principle is, according to them, the Atma (Divine spirit).

However, the attempt in which man is engaged today is to deny the clay and build faith in the pot! This process is doomed to fail. The cognisable universe which is dismissed as untrue, must have truth as its base, as the ‘rope’ on which the ‘snake’ is superimposed. That basic truth is the Atma (soul).

Of course, the universe in which we exist is cognised by our senses and we take it as true and real. But it cannot be accepted as truth, for anything that changes does not deserve to be so called. Also, it appears differently to different living beings at different levels of consciousness. Animals, birds and insects are aware of it in different ways and forms. It is shaped and moulded according to the desires and perceptions of each. How are these created?

The Atma Awakens Man’s Thoughts

The Atma enters the body as the inner motivator and awakens the thoughts and feelings. In the absence of the Atma, the body is inert; in the absence of the body, thoughts do not arise and in the absence of thought, the universe is not apparent; it is non-existent to the individual. The three are inextricably interdependent - the body (with all the powers of consciousness enclosed in it), the universe and the Atma, either individualised or universally immanent.

Both materialism and spiritualism seek the fundamental universal base; one discovers it in the matter, the other in the Atma. The Atma (Spirit) takes on a form and body to experience and cognise the jagat (Universe), just as cotton takes on the form of yarn to be cognised and experienced as cloth. The cloth is both, the yarn and the cotton. Cotton is the fundamental base, the Atma. It assumes name and form and becomes yarn (the body), and is finally known as cloth, (the jagat), the product of the thoughts emanating from the body.

Five Characteristics of the Universe

There is another way of understanding and interpreting this process. In the Upanishats and the Vedanta (Vedic philosophy), five characteristics of the universe are mentioned - Asti (Being), Bhati (awareness), Priyam (bliss), nama (name) and rupa (form). Of these, the last two are temporary, and therefore, trivial. The first three are the three facets of the everlasting truth, the Atma. The categories of Sat-Chit-Ananda are also co-related in Vedanta with bhutakasha, chittakasha and chidakasham respectively.

Akasha is the name for the sphere of consciousness. Bhutakasha is outer cosmic consciousness; chittakasha is the inner consciousness of the chitta (seat of intellect), the centre of discrimination in living beings, while chidakasham is the pure, unalloyed consciousness that flows from the Atma. The bhutakasha is the vast limitless space in which the Sun and planets are but tiny knots of energy. It is so extensive that the light from some of its stars, millions of light years away, has not yet reached the earth. Light travels, they say, at 1,86,000 miles per second (in fact the speed is 1,88,000 miles per second). So you can imagine the enormous size of the bhutakasha which includes all these stars and much more.

The chittakasha subsumes such an immeasurable bhutakasha, for the consciousness illumines and becomes aware of all that exists. The chittakasha is prompted into activity by the chidakasham, the Chit of Sat-Chit-Ananda (different from the inner instrument of discrimination named chitta). An infinitesimal fraction of the Atma is enough to activate the chitta so that it can draw into itself the cosmos, the entire objective universe.

Therefore, everyone must be firm in the belief that he is the Atma and not the body with its senses of perception and action, its inner equipment of mind, intellect, reasoning faculty and the ego. He must know that he undergoes no change, that he cannot die or be destroyed. Being immersed in bhutakasha, man feels it wrong to understand himself as the perishable body with its appurtenances. He often brings up to his memory this truth. That is to say, he is aware of the Sat, his existence that is Eternal.

Turn Your Vision Into The Atmic Splendour

While the chittakasha is contemplated, he is aware that he is the vehicle of consciousness, the Chit. While he is saturated with the awareness of the chidakasham - the effulgence of the Atma - he is the embodiment of ananda, the third facet of the Atma. When the consciousness is turned inwards, the ultimate state of Atmananda (Soulful bliss) is attained.

The human body is composed of cells which draw strength and life from food; food draws its value from the soil. Soil-food-man - when that cycle is completed, man returns to the soil. The soil is bhutakasha —the food grown out of the soil becomes consciousness, the chittakasha —and the chitta merges into the Atma consciousness or chidakasham. A seed germinates within the soil and rises above ground as a sapling. It then puts forth leaves and branches and blossoms. The flowers give place to fruits which ripen and contain seeds which can repeat the process of germination and growth.

The soil is the basis of all transformations and developments; if you keep the seeds on your palm and water them, they will not grow. Soil and seed bring about the third entity, the plant. The cells in both have an affinity that is strange. The cells in the soil are its Atma; the cells in the seeds are its Atma. Soil is the substance of the food out of which man is born, through which man is sustained and nourished. But the body is the temple of the Atma (divinity). Therefore one should not desecrate the body with any evil thought, word or deed.

The splendour of the Atma reveals all things, illumines all things. The Atma, however, is Self-revealing, Self-illumining. It shines everywhere, in all things. In spite of any number of changes, the individual persists. Within the child, which unfolds into the boy, the youth and the middle-aged man, old age is ever dormant. So, too, it is the chidakasham which unfolds into the chittakasha and finally into bhutakasha (the objective universe).

For example, when someone photographs Me, I appear as a very small Sai Baba in the negative. But we can enlarge it to the size we desire to have. The Sai Baba in the big photo and the Sai Baba in the small one are the same. Can you assert that this five-foot-three inches body, alone, is Sai Baba and that the figure in that tiny picture is not? The Anu (lightest) and ghana (heaviest) are both true. They are the same but looked at from different angles.

Therefore, O Embodiments of Prema, turn your vision from the outer universe into the inner glow, the Atmic splendour, which you really are.

Prasanthi Nilayam, 28-9-1979