Omm Namo Bhagavate

Prakriti is said to be responsible for cause and effect and the sense of doership, while purusha is said to be the cause of the experience of pain and pleasure.

Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Verse 509

Prakriti is the source of all action drive. She creates the process for action and arranges all the factors for the completion of the action.  Purusha does nothing.  When someone says, “I feel to do this,” that “I” is actually prakriti.  Likewise, when we say, “He is not doing this,” the “he” is also prakriti.  There is no agency other than prakriti.

Verse 542 says, “When one is able to see that there is no other agent than the three gunas and knows that which is higher than these gunas, he attains My nature.”  Between these three factors—seer, sight and the process of seeing—the seer is purusha, and prakriti is the sight.  The seer is seeing.  Purusha always sees prakriti.  The process through which the seer sees the sight is called action.  If the purusha, the seer, slightly deviates from this, then the purusha falls from his state of seeing.

Where is the purusha?  In the seventh chapter of Gita, Krishna says, “O Mighty-armed, the above eight-fold division is My lower nature. Apart from this there is My higher nature, the universal soul, which is immanent in the embodied being and supports the whole world.”  The lower prakriti is the five elements, then mind, intellect, and ego.  Among the elements, the first layer is earth, and the attribute of earth is smell: all the sweet fragrances, bad odors, and everything perceived by the nose, which is the organ of smell.

Next is water.  The attribute of water is taste—“I am the taste in water”—and tongue is the organ of taste.  Fire is sight; its organ is the eye.  This is how it goes, layer after layer.

Here is an example.  Devashish-the-scientist is the manifestation of the seventh layer of lower prakriti, the intellect.  Devashish-the-yogi is which layer—prakriti or purusha?  The yogi is the higher aspirational part of prakriti, and it is the higher prakriti—Mahamaya, rather than Yogamaya.  Yogamaya is that prakriti that always keeps the purusha in a state of being veiled.  It is that aspect of the Mother that always ensures that the purusha is in this eight-fold maya described in Verse 284.

All these eight layers comprise one aspect of maya.  Yogamaya is also the mother, and mother grants every wish of the child.  If the child is in the level of maya, mother will grant the wish of the purusha who is in the plane of maya.  Through her gifts and her charity, Yogamaya ensures that the jiva is in the maya plane.

Anything that is coming from prakriti is targeted to the purusha, whether it is the bonded purusha, the liberated purusha or the supreme purusha.  Which prakriti, which mother, will be involved depends on the state of the purusha.  If the purusha is focusing on Mahamaya, then it will come from Mahamaya.  If the seer is linked with Yogamaya it will come from Yogamaya, and Yogamaya means expanding the maya.  The desire for gaining more fame, power and wealth—that is Yogamaya.

If X receives a million-dollar gift, and that purusha then feels that he will purchase a new house or do something for his wife or for his parents, that means it has come from Yogamaya.  He has been targeted by Yogamaya.  But if the feeling is, “Maybe this money has come for a purpose, and there is a reason for mankind,” then it is from Mahamaya.  If the seer is in a state of perfect neutrality, Yogamaya cannot give anything because the seer has transcended the zone of Yogamaya.  You can be neutral to maya only when you have transcended maya.  Desire, feeling, ambition, aspiration, these are all prakriti, and unless prakriti enters to purusha, purusha is not able to know.  Purusha is pure awareness only.

Prakriti has to ascend to enter purusha or purusha has to descend to prakriti for this feeling, desire, ambition or thought to come.  Gita says they are the two aspects of the Supreme.  One is the manifest; the other is the unmanifest.  Their position is parallel.  Both are Supreme.  When either one goes up or comes down, the state of parallel is disturbed and maya begins; creation starts.

In the beginning these two forces are all-pervading, and it is not possible for either prakriti or purusha to go up, because there is no up and down at that stage.  When there is some movement, either in prakriti or in purusha, then two dimensions will come.  Until then, it is uni-dimensional.

Who will first make that movement for the unity to become duality, prakriti or purusha?  Both are beginningless, but purusha is free from all attributes and prakriti is full of all attributes. Purusha will make the first move because prakriti will send a signal and the purusha will respond to that.  Sending the signal is the dharma of prakriti, so we cannot consider that as prakriti’s initiative.  If the oil lamp is burning and I put my finger in it, will it spare me because I am the master here?  That’s the dharma of fire—to burn.  So if I am giving you jnana I am doing nothing great; I am just performing my dharma.  If I don’t then I am not a master.  If I am clouding you, trapping you, or doing romance or business with you, it means I am not doing my dharma.  If I do my work, it is not a karma for me.  I am eternally in the state of no karma.  Sun giving light, wind blowing—it is their dharma.   That’s the highest dharma.  That is why Gita says, better to perish while performing your own dharma, but don’t accept others’ dharma.

Prakriti’s dharma is to send signals to purusha.  Purusha has no dharma.  Purusha is attributeless.  All attributes come from prakriti.  As many attributes as purusha accepts from prakriti, to that extent purusha becomes prakriti.

In the beginning stage purusha is responding because purusha is the higher Self.  Both prakriti and purusha were unmoving in the beginningless beginning.  Remaining in that all-pervading stage, prakriti starts movement.  Purusha’s response is first to witness, remaining very close, watching what prakriti is doing.  Then to consent: knowing fully well that this signal is a call, purusha allows prakriti to give the signal.  Then purusha makes the move, coming a little closer to prakriti.  They are still in a parallel position.  Purusha is moving, not prakriti.  Purusha is attracted to prakriti; prakriti is attached to purusha.  Anything in us that is attracted is purusha; anything in us that attracts is prakriti.

You all are attracted to Swamiji so you all are purusha and Swamiji is prakriti.  At first, you could not know why you were attracted.  When the seerhood, comes, you will be able to know why you are getting attracted.  Now you are not able to know why because all answers come from the mental plane, but you are attracted by something in me that mind cannot hold nor intellect can measure.  That which is beyond mind and beyond intellect is the soul, the awareness.  The awareness in me is attracting the awareness in you.  If I am not a bigger awareness, how can you be pulled towards me?  Like gets attracted to like; the self gets attracted to the supreme Self.  That is why, when the merger comes, he who was being attracted withers away in whom he got attracted to, and the duality is gone.

In the beginning, purusha, the attributeless, is getting attracted to prakriti.  Prakriti sends the signal.  Purusha is first a witness, then consenter, then supporter.  Purusha is changing his position, coming very near, until purusha becomes the experiencer or enjoyer.  If the purusha becomes the experiencer, then the purusha does not lose its awareness, but if the purusha becomes the enjoyer, it loses awareness.  Then a portion of prakriti enters into purusha.  This is how the first contamination begins.

You experience or you enjoy a portion of prakriti.  Only yogis can see the difference.  I can experience the water or I can enjoy the drink.   If the purusha becomes the experiencer the purusha will experience, but prakriti cannot enter. When the purusha becomes the enjoyer, it means the purusha forgot his dharma at that time so a portion of prakriti entered into purusha.  A hole was made; a little of prakriti entered.  Prakriti is attributes.  Into the attributeless, an attribute entered.  Since the attributeless is a vacuum, this attribute gets a fertile ground to multiply, like cells multiplying.  This is how life begins.

Think of how a child is born.  A man and woman meet together.  A drop of semen is released, and in that drop the sperm race towards the egg at lightning speed.  One is able to reach the egg, and fertilization takes place.  Similarly, this awareness is coming through millions of rays and entering the tranquil experiential ocean. The union takes place and prakriti gets ecstatic and swells to receive this.  A drop of pure awareness from me throws you into ecstasy when it enters you, and hours go by.  You are not aware.  That is a union.  A constant union is happening.   Purusha gets surrounded by the swelling prakriti and is overpowered.  A portion of prakriti enters into purusha.  In this attributeless vacuum a portion of attribute enters.  Since there can be no vacuum anywhere in the universe, that which has entered will want to fill the space.  Prakriti is now working.

What am I doing through yoga?  Like a bottle filled with water, your system is full of attributes: all your samskaras, with a little bit of empty space.  The advantage is that you came as a bottle without a lid.  An opening was there for me to enter.  The bottle is full of experience; only a little is vacuum.  That is allowing me to enter.  I am experience—not water, but nectar.  I, the nectar, will enter if there is a little opening for me.  That’s why god is called experience first—the highest experience.  That is love.  First God is love.

I am entering into you, so I-the-experience is of a different kind than you-the-experience.  Because there was an opening in you I am entering, and there is only one way I can enter: that is love.  Knowledge is awareness only, whereas the current experience needs to be replaced with new experience, or it needs to be transformed into new experience.  That new experience must be love and it must be different than what is already here.  Otherwise it can neither transform nor replace this current experience.

I will try my level best to make you me.  But you will try your level best to make me you.  This is how the play goes.  Prakriti will always wants purusha to enter into prakriti, so that it will be all prakriti only.  In the ultimate analysis, there is only one absolute.  Prakriti wants there to be no duality, so that there will not be something called awareness; it should all be experience.  Purusha wants that there should be only awareness.   So also, a guru always feels that every disciple must become a guru; every disciple should be a manifestation of the sadguru.   And the avatar wants every person to be an instrument.

Since there is an opening, I-the-experience will enter into this experiential container.  Only so much room is there, so I have that much freedom, but you have much more freedom.  Your resistance will be more, because with that much strength you will resist me.  Me, the visible part will be only a little, but me the invisible part is infinite.  When a little of Swamiji enters into this bottle of you, the outer forces of maya and darkness and the inner forces of resistance will try to smash this little bit that is visible.  If I really am little, these forces can smash me, but if I am not little—if only the tip of the iceberg is visible—then these forces, as much as they want to smash, so much I will enter.  This is finite but I am infinite, so these forces will get annihilated, and a time will come when this whole bottle will be filled with I-the-nectar.

Those who have not become one with that infinite, when they enter into the bottle they get swallowed.  This is why we see many teachers and masters that have been swallowed by their own people.  Without attaining the state of infinity, they wanted to enter into the finite.  Purusha loses its awareness when purusha is delinked from the source of awareness, and that delinking happens if purusha will begin to enjoy the attributes of prakriti, rather than experience the attributes of prakriti.

Verse 214 in Gita says: As the lotus leaf does not get wet, although it floats on water, so also, one whose consciousness is linked with the Brahman, the absolute, and is performing all the action—experiencing everything in the plane of maya—cannot be contaminated.  If the purusha is experiencing the attributes of prakriti while keeping the consciousness focused on the absolute—that means retaining its state of absolute—the purusha will not be swallowed by prakriti.  When prakriti sees that purusha is not getting swallowed, then prakriti will salute purusha.  That is Verse 511.  Prakriti will acknowledge the purusha and say, “O Great Lord.”  Only the prakriti can say it, because beyond that there is no prakriti.  Beyond that both become one. After “O Great Lord,” she discards her role as maya, merges in the purusha, and both become paramatma, the highest Self.  Remaining in this body, the purusha becomes the highest Self when the supreme prakriti has joined with him.  That is why we say the guru is mother and father, but God is mother only.  That is why guru is greater than God.

This drama unfolds when Prakriti, who is all attributes, sends the signal and purusha responds.  Purusha’s first response is watching what she is doing, not why she is doing it.  The moment this “Why?” comes, a portion of prakriti has entered and you are now prakriti, not purusha.  Asking, “Why is Swamiji shouting at me,” is prakriti.  Whereas just witnessing means you are retaining your state of purusha.  As explained in Verse 511: witness, consenter, supporter, enjoyer.

The consenter feels, “Let Swamiji shout.”  That is second.  You still retain your purusha state.  Then the sustainer: “Swamiji, don’t feel tired.  Please keep shouting”; still retaining your purusha state.  Then experiencing and taking that force that is coming at you but not getting perturbed from the original state.  These are all stages in sadhana.

Prakriti is the source from where this action and this instrument of action come.  Purusha experiences happiness or sorrow.  Prakriti does not experience anything.  “I felt sad.”  Why?  You, the purusha, feel sad because you have violated any of these five principles.  You are not in your state of bliss.  A portion of prakriti entered into you and to that extent you are not able to experience your state of bliss.  No experience is constant.  Every experience is changing and recurring in nature.  It is prakriti that is recurring and ever changing.

Purusha is never changing.  There is neither sorrow nor happiness, failure nor success, fame nor defamation, gain nor loss, death nor birth, near nor far, dear nor enemy.  You are receiving blows from someone but you are simply responding with your original state of bliss.  You lose a million dollars when the stock market crashes and all your stocks are wiped out, but you are simply witnessing.  If a million has gone, it is because the door for a billion has opened, because prakriti will always be restless to use you, the purusha, for her purpose.  Purusha has no purpose; only prakriti has purpose.  If you are able to retain your state of purity, prakriti will use you and at that time prakriti is Mahamaya, not Yogamaya.

This same Mahamaya becomes Yogamaya when the purusha changes position, until it is now merged in the prakriti.  When purusha forgets its state, prakriti descends one foot and the mother throws the purusha from her cosmic womb. This happens again and again.

This is very clearly explained in the beginning of the eighth chapter: “At the beginning of the new cycle I will throw them.”  Then in the ninth chapter comes a verse that says,  “By using my material nature, repeatedly I send forth these helpless beings at the beginning of a new cycle, taking into consideration their innate nature.”  Innate nature means how much of prakriti they have swallowed.  Lord says, considering that, I send them where they deserve to be, and from there I give them the freedom either to ascend or descend.  Whatever they want, I will grant that.

In order for the cycle to be broken, so that the purusha can begin the journey of ascent, this purusha who is in a form must see another purusha who is also in a form but is actually the formless.  Through the mirror he will see the reflection of his own Self.  First you see the Self in you; that’s why you see a seer here.  If you stop seeing the Self in you, Swamiji is just an ordinary human being.  This is the reason masters don’t descend.  That’s the only hope you carry.  The mirror reflects the Self, so it is your duty to keep the mirror dust-free.  Prakriti will throw dust at the mirror, so even if it is inside your air-conditioned room, your duty is to wipe the mirror clean every day.

[From a 2011 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.]