In these two stanzas an explanation is given on how the Creator employs Himself, during his day, which is a thousand aeons long, and during his night, which also is an equally long interval. It is also added here, that the Creator creates during the day, and the entire created world, at the approach of His night, merges into ‘the unmanifest’ (Avyakta).
In the worldly sense of the term, ‘creation’is generally understood as the production of something new. Philosophically viewed, ‘creation’has a subtler significance and a more intimate meaning. A pot-maker can ‘create’ pots out of mud, but he cannot ‘create’ Laddus (a popular Indian sweetmeat) out of the same mud! The act of ‘creation’is only the production of a name and form, with some specific qualities, out of a raw-material in which the same name, form, and qualities are already existing in an unmanifest condition. The ‘POT-NESS’ was in the mud, while the ‘Laddu-ness’ is not therein, and therefore, a pot can be ‘created’ from a given sample of mud, not so even a tiny bit of Laddu. Hence, it is concluded by the thinkers of Vedanta that “CREATION IS BUT A CRYSTALLISATION OF THE UNMANIFEST DORMANT NAMES, FORMS, AND QUALITIES, INTO THEIR MANIFEST FORMS OF EXISTENCE.”
Anyone, living as he does on any given day, is but the product of the numerous yesterdays that he has lived in his intellectual thoughts, his emotional feelings and his physical actions. The actions of the past, supported by the thoughts entertained and the valuations accepted by him, leave a distinct flavour upon his mind and intellect, and the future thoughts and their flow are controlled and directed by the previously made thought-channels.
Just as there is consistency of species in procreation, so also, there is a consistency noticeable in the multiplication of thoughts. Just as frogs breed frogs, and men breed men, or mango seeds germinate and grow to put forth mangoes, so too, good thoughts creating good thought-currents can multiply only into a flood of good thoughts. These thought-impressions in the mind (vasanas), that lie unmanifest to our sense-organs and often to our own mental and intellectual perceptions, become manifested as gross actions, thoughts and words, making our path of life either smooth or rough, according to the texture and quality of the thoughts manifested.
Suppose a doctor, an advocate, a devotee and dacoit are all sleeping in a rest-house. While sleeping, all of them look the same — masses of flesh and bones, warm and breathing. The advocate is in no way different from the dacoit, nor is the doctor different from the devotee. The specific qualities in each bosom, at this moment, though totally absent from observation are not non-existent but they remain in a condition of dormancy.
These unmanifested temperaments, capacities, inclinations and tendencies come to project forth and manifest when they wake up, and once they leave the rest-house, each will be pursuing his own particular thought-tendencies. In the rest-house, the doctor, the advocate, the devotee and the dacoit, were all in their “unmanifest-state” (Pralaya) while they were asleep; but at dawn, when they wake up, these four different specimens are projected forth into manifestation. This, in the language of religion and philosophy, is called “creation.”With this correct understanding of the process of “creation,” it would be certainly easy for us to understand the cosmic processes of “creation and dissolution.” The Creator, or the Total-mind, during His waking hours of thousand aeons, projects out the already existing vasanas, and “AT THE APPROACH OF NIGHT, THEY MERGE VERILY INTO THAT ALONE, WHICH IS CALLED THE ‘UNMANIFEST’.”
It is insisted here by Lord Krishna, that “THE VERY SAME MULTITUDE OF BEINGS ARE BORN AGAIN AND AGAIN, AND MERGE IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES.” Subjectively, this declaration provides us with a clearer understanding of how man becomes enslaved by his own thoughts and emotions. It is never possible that an animal-man, pursuing consistently the life of sensuality, perpetrating unkind cruelties in order to satisfy his passions can wake up overnight, to be a gracious man of all perfections — however great his teacher, however divine the occasion, and whatever the sanctity of the place or the time may be.
No teacher can, or shall ever, teach his disciple and thereby transform him, instantaneously, into a divine person, unless, of course, the student has the divine tendencies lying dormant and ready for manifestation in him! The moment anybody argues that, as a rare instance, one great soul had been so transformed in the past, by one unique teacher, then there must have been some equally unique instance of some magician producing a Laddu out of mud! In the latter case, we know that it was only magic and that the Laddu was NOT produced from the mud. Similarly, intelligent people, with some understanding of the Science of Life, and with at least a little share of respect for and devotion to the Prophet of the Geeta, will hoot down such a fantastic story. Such a story can be accepted only in a mood of poetic exaggeration indulged in by the disciples, in praise of their teacher.
THE VERY SAME MULTITUDE OF BEINGS, meaning the very same bundles of thought-impressions — an individual being nothing other than the thoughts that he entertains — arrive at different fields of activity and states of Consciousness in order to exhaust themselves. “IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES” (Avassah), is a powerful expression indicating the incapacity of an individual to disinherit himself from his past. The past always faithfully follows us like our shadow — darkening our path when we turn our back to the Light of Knowledge, and accompanying us submissively at our heels like a guardian angel when we turn towards the effulgent Self and wend our way towards It.
On leaving a physical embodiment, a particular mind-intellect-equipment continues its existence in just the same way as an actor who drops down the apparel of the king at the close of the play and continues to exist in his individual capacity as the father of his children, the husband of his wife, etc. The taking up of a physical structure and singing the song of one’s mental vasanas, in the form of actions, is called ‘creation,’ and when that physical structure is given up, the thoughts and ideas, having no equipment to express themselves, become the unmanifest. A violinist playing on his violin makes the music in him manifest; and, when the violin is kept away in its box, the music in the individual becomes unmanifest.
This ‘realm of the unmanifest’ in each bosom undergoes constant change, whenever it comes in contact with the world of manifestation and reacts to it. We already know that change cannot take place unless it is upon a changeless substratum.
UPON WHAT PERMANENT PLATFORM DOES THE UNMANIFEST COME TO PLAY ITS DRAMA OF LIFE?
