The Philosophy of the Panchadasi: 3-4 & Chapter 4: Discrimination of Duality-2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday 12, Aug 2025, 05:30.
Books
Upanishads
The Philosophy of the Panchadasi: 3.4.
Chapter 4: Discrimination of Duality-1.
1.Creation by Isvara and Jiva:
Swami Krishnananda.

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Chapter 4: Discrimination of Duality-1.

1.Creation by Isvara and Jiva:1. 

Though truth is unitary and Brahman is absolute, the realisation of it is possible only by stages and by a gradual rise of consciousness from its Jivahood in various degrees of reality which it experiences in the different stages of its evolution. God, world and soul, in their distinctive features, appear to have a reality in the beginning, and this being the fundamental stage, the Sadhana of the Jiva should begin from this level. The creation of the world, which is being taken for granted by the Jiva, is to be first analysed. It is to be shown now that the creation of the world as it is, and as projected by the will of Isvara, is not the difficulty of the Jiva. Towards this end, the two types of creation are being studied here. The Upanishads speak of Isvara's creation in various ways. Prakriti which also goes, sometimes, by the name of Maya, is the material cause, and the Supreme Lord or the Mayin, the instrumental cause of creation: so says the Svetasvatara Upanishad.

The Atman alone was in the beginning, and it willed to create the many by a cosmic ideation; so says the Aitareya Upanishad.

Brahman was truth, knowledge and infinity, and from it arose ether, air, fire, water, earth, the different bodies, and so on, and the variety of creation was effected by the primeval contemplation of the Divine Being to appear as the many: so says the Taittiriya Upanishad.

In the beginning it was only pure Existence, and in it arose the idea to become manifold, and it created the luminous medium of fire, from which water and earth and other bodies came out as effects: so says the Chhandogya Upanishad.

As sparks emanate from fire, all the variety consisting of conscious and unconscious beings came out from the one Imperishable: so says the Mundaka Upanishad.

In the beginning it was all unmanifested, and by the will of the unmanifested Absolute the latent became patent, and the one became the many names and forms, down to the gross universe which is animated by the Virat. By subsidiary evolution, after the manifestation of Virat, the celestials, human beings, and animals, etc., even up to the ants, became the variegated expressions of the Universal Purusha: so says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Isvara entered in the form of the life-principle in all the apparently divided aspects of Himself, and made them appear as Jivas with their own subjective ideations.

The substratum of consciousness called the Kutastha, the subtle body called Linga-Sarira, and the reflection of this consciousness through the subtle body, together constitute the Jiva, one being impossible without the other. The Sakti of Isvara which is responsible for the creation of the universe, also acts as a deluding factor when it enters into the constitution of the Jiva as Avidya or ignorance. The Jiva and Isvara are compared to two birds perching on the tree of the body or the universe, of which Jiva, by eating the fruits of the tree, experiences sorrow, while Isvara remains an unattached spectator and enters into no relations whatsoever. The eating of the fruits of the tree is the establishing of relations with the manifested world, positively as likes and negatively as dislikes, due to the fact that the Jiva is incapable of having a totality of experience as Isvara has, and is limited to particularised experiences of separated objects with which it has varying relations in the different stages of its evolution. The objects, with which the Jiva thus maintains relations, are, in their own capacity, creations of Isvara, but to the observations of the Jiva they bear differing values at different times so that the Jiva has no permanent and definite information of anything in the world, since, as it evolves, its ideas of things also evolve.

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