Many Vedic hymns describe the various salient features of Prakrti and its manifestation as gross cosmos, ever-expanding universe and the world.

Salient Features of Vedic Prakrti

Many Vedic hymns describe the various salient features of Prakrti and its manifestation as gross cosmos, ever-expanding universe and the world. These include primordial matter gunas, maha bhuta, bhuta, tanmatras, anu, kanu, creation and withdraw­al, rebirth of human life again and again, global trade, Prakrti 33 devas who are formless beings of light, mahat, mahatatva, female or woman aspect of Prakrti, ego, karma bhoomi, cosmic illusion Maya and many others. A few of these concepts/attributes have been explained briefly in the context of "what is Prakrti?” Some other features can be explained here af­ter.

      

If bhuta is gross element, tatva is subtle element and mahatatva is the main subtle element i.e. Prakrti herself. Mahatava with the help of God's spirit create will, ego, activity and other sense perception instruments. Ego (ahamkar) is the moving force of human beings. When ego is guided by soul based on a-priori principles, it helps in creating harmony, virtue, co-operation and love in families, society and all areas of human dealings. Those human beings when their ego is guided by a-priori principles do not resort to any activity for the satisfaction of their personal ego. Thus, Ego provided by Prakrti and personal ego is not the same. Prakrti ego of the individual makes a person move on the path of virtue and good­ness. Otherwise, to satisfy one's ego, might of the individuals run after power in all fields whether these are economic, social, political, religious and even artististic but bereft of their spiritual and divine aspects. They are outrageous example of strange triangulation of gorging, giving and greed. Human personal ego creates deliriously strange feeling of greatness without having any real attributes of greatness. It is more like three gunas, which are cause of different kind of activity. But when these gunas are bereft of the guidance of soul and spirit, being them selves non intel­ligent, make gurus, god men, tantirks, priests and even some scien­tists, politicians and industrialists want to share the omnipo­tence of God through ritualistic prayers, hypocritical meditation, ostentatious and proxy worship. It is again the effect of gunas that some of the active fol­lowers and organisers of such cults and gurudom have created fairy tales and strange mythologies by churning their mental thought process and given so many attributes to these gurus and founders that many ignorant followers have accepted them as incarnation of God/gods on this earth. Their targets are not really the poor masses but ultra rich and fabulously wealth persons. It is be­cause of this personal ego against divine Ego provided by Prakrti that they have also wonderfully succeeded in amassing money, power, influence and immovable property through out the world. Thus, the Prakrti ego of the human beings if bereft of Vedic metaphysics and knowledge contained in other scriptures of major religions of the world can become the cause of many social evils. The same Ego when regulated and channeled with the knowl­edge contained in the Vedas and other scriptures or in their absence with the a-priori principles known to the soul becomes extremely useful for the society.

According to Br. Upanishad 1-6, Brahamand or the universe is “trinity” of OM, Naam and Rupa, which in metaphysics would mean spirit, name and form. The source of all names is shabad Brahma OM and the supreme Spirit is behind this cosmic word. " OM khamm Brahma". OM thy name is Brahma, who is the source of all names. Without giving some name, no one can describe any form. The source of all forms is the sense of sight, which is available through our eyes and Brahma is behind the Eye. Source of all actions is the gross body; Brahma through His spirit is behind the gross body. This Upanishad thus concludes that in this universe all forms of spirit, name, shapes, appearances, eye, action, gross and subtle bodies are but One. Maya is one of the most important and vital salient features of Prakrti. It is due to the effect of Maya- the Vedic phantasmagoria that we see ONE as many and mil­lions of names and forms. Prakrti Maya makes us weave web of our own destiny from which we cannot free ourselves with the help of material and intellectual knowledge bereft of spiritual and divine knowledge - Vijnan and Jnan, contained in the Vedic metaphysics. In Ramayana, lord Rama tells his gallant and loving brothers Laksha­man and Bharta that owing to the effect of Maya made more vehe­ment with ajnan or only material knowledge, one becomes playful thing of fate and destiny, which are one’s own creation owing to our past and present karma of good or bad actions of this and earli­er births. So no one can avoid destiny. More important thing is how one faces the effect of destiny in this phenomenal world. However, through complete and perfect knowledge of Brahma and Prakrti, one can largely free himself from the web of destiny.

     

If one goes by the definition and description of Maya by advait vedantists who are either pure or objective idealists and also either monists or mono theists or both, Maya is only a phe­nomenal world of senses and not so real. Even the pure monist as Sankracharya did not say Maya creates an unreal world. It is not the magician who makes you feel many unreal things as real and finally makes the unreal things to disappear. Nevertheless, the world is not so real as it is created and withdrawn by the Su­preme Reality. It is at best transitory but not unreal. There is no magic involved in its creation as God is not a magician but perfect truth, reality and unmoved mover. Even Albert Einstein during his scientific research came to the conclusion that God does not play dice. However, whatever He creates changeth, faces flux and is perishable. So the phenomenal world is not unreal, it is only the phantasmagoria that creates change, flux and final disappearance. It is because of this cosmic illusion the world has many names and forms, which leads to so many theories, interpretations, descriptions and even contradictions of certain hypothesis. This world is therefore, nama rupa with multiplicity of names and forms of gods, deities, reli­gions, sects, modes of worship etc. All these names and forms disappear when effect of Maya starts diminishing with the move­ment from tamasic to sattvic gunas and thereafter towards shuniya sattva-beyond gunas. In this path only One Reality starts emerging and one finds that only Brahma or holy Koran's Allah, Bible's Father in heaven is the only Reality and Prakrti, Brahmand, Sansara are only His manifestations.

       

Maya in Prakrti is thus a mystical power (Shakti) and under the influences of senses, etani- the outward looking mind and gunas forces us to do many divergent and even contradictory things. It makes you feel that all those who resort to bribery, smuggling, deception, cruelty, blind pursuit of money and matter are corrupt persons but when you do the same or some what similar activities, you do not consider yourself as evil minded and corrupt person. Many times you get so much attached to your children and friends that their evil and non-divine activities do not look as corrupt practices. This stage in Bhagavad Gita is described as moha- infatuation. So what you criticise in others, justify in the activities of your children, relations and friends. When you resort to such activities your self and do not find these as evil, it is the stage of attachment to matter and the phenomenal world. This is all the effect of cosmic illusion Maya. Many things which our senses and sense organs can not or do not see and only visualize or happen to see differently at different times and also different physical state of mind, you tend to interpret not on reality but based on your vested interests. Thus, Maya is the main cause of extremely divergent theories in economics, political science, ethics, philosophy and even metaphysics. Even eyes, ears, nose do not perceive Sun rise or Sun set, a particular pop or classical song or scent of flowers in the same manner all the time. Rope appearing as snake under dim light of dawn and dusk, illusory appearance of water in the desert as mirage under bright day light of the Sun and hundreds of such examples are the effect of Maya in Prakrti. Since God is beyond desire, ambi­tion, by creating cosmos, Prakrti, universe, He remains Whole and has no personal objective to gain from this subtle and gross creation. At best, it is His Lila (sportive manifestation).

       

Vedas describe Maya as Mayu and it is sattaviki or unpol­luted. It hides the real from the vision of mortals. In sattaviki Maya when you acquire Vedic knowledge, vision of the real supreme Divinity starts emerging. For those individual who gather a large proportion of tamasic gunas by resorting to non-divine profes­sions, thoughts and activities even Maya becomes polluted for them and it breeds further ignorance. Those who acquire any kind of di­vine, spiritual and material knowledge under polluted Maya; they still do not go beyond ajnan or ignorance. In holy Koran, there is a reference to Abu jahil- Abu the ignorant. He was a highly liter­ary person with all kind of knowledge, master of many subjects, still holy Koran referred to him as ignorant (jahil) since that knowledge was neither useful to him nor to the socie­ty. Amongst many Hindu fake prophets, false gurus this kind of ignorance is widely prevalent. The more they spread divine and spiritual knowledge, more evil and corruption get legitimised amongst their many followers owing to predominance of tamasic gunas and polluted Maya.

The word Prakrti is used in two different senses in Bhagavad Gita, (a) as primary and ultimate category (b) as nature of God's being. In the first sense, gunas are produced and in the second sense as Maya or hypnotisation of God's Lila. In this later sense Maya is reflection of God (B.G. VII-14, 15. VIII-18, 61). The concept of Maya as God's hypnotisation, cosmic illusion and re­flection is part of Bhagavad Gita's path of knowledge- described there in as Sankhya Yoga. The Indian school of philosophy Sankhya Darshana of Kapila Rsi and Sankhya Yoga of the celestial song Bhagavad Gita are vastly different. The concept of Maya in Kapila's metaphysics hardly exists, as both God and Parkrti are eternal and real. In fact, God's existence is nei­ther accepted nor rejected by Kapila rsi. In Bhagavad Gita Maya is sattaviki or unpolluted as "gun maye Maya" i.e. with a number of attributes and salient features. Taittriya and Chhandogya Upanishads find the divine essence as the soul of the universe, which is also present in the human beings to guide them how to come out of the effect of Maya and the waves of rough sea of matter by following Rta-cosmic laws of social and moral order. To a large extent a similar concept is found in holy Koran's "Ruhi pasti" as the Soul of the universe and present as "Ruha" in the human beings to guide them in this "illusion of comfort" created by vast turbulent sea of matter. Koran gives guidelines to the human beings for getting out of this illusion of comfort and become a noble human being. Upanishads thus con­clude that subtle Prakrti and its gross manifestation, as Universe is the Temple of God. Even if the entire world is a mere appear­ance (Prati-bhasa), a real world has to be assumed as prototype. In this prototype, Maya makes the world as "Karma Bhoomi" for perform­ing our good and bad deeds. Since no activity can be performed in an unreal bhoomi (earth, land, place, location), so human senses invariably consider this prototype as real and an abode of comfort. Very often, these senses make you forget even your transi­tory existence on this karma bhoomi.