From Subhasita Samgraha
Subhasita Samgraha, IV
Matter and Spirit
on Asadhii Purnima, Muzaffarpur, 1956
How can we know this Brahma, the repository of endless happiness? Naciketa says, “Is this Brahma a Radiant Entity? Is He effulgent in every object? Does he express Himself in microcosm? He is very radiant. Do you know how radiant He is? His radiance is supersensual – beyond the power of your sensual comprehension. You cannot conceive of His radiance. A glow-worm is a bright object but you can hardly see it in a full-moon night, for the moon dims its brightness. The moon is very bright but during the day you cannot see her properly, for the sun pales her brightness. The sun is the brightest object in this Solar System, but His brightness outshines even the sun’s brightness. It gets lustreless before His. The moon and the stars lose their individual lustres in His. Even the dazzling brilliance of the ligning, not to speak of fire, is absolutely dull before His brilliance. It is not an easy task to apprehend His bright radiance.”
For this, Sadhana is indispensable – this is necessary for the inculcation of humanly excellence. Imagine how wonderfully bright He must be, before whom the moon, the stars, the lightning, the fire – all get pale. Even the sun you cannot see with your bare eyes. Imagine what a tremendous amount of Sadhana is necessary for seeing Him.
It is with His radiance that every object is radiant. None of the objects have any radiance of their own. The moon is bright with the sun’s brightness and the sun is bright with His. The sun is not Jyotisvarupa. It is He alone Who is Jyotisvarupa (characteristically Self-effulgent). In His radiance there is depth but no severity – there is sweetness but no harshness.
Observe His calm brilliance in the firmament of your heart. Shunning all inferiority complexes take to Sadhana. The only purpose of your being a human is to do Sadhana. The life of one who does not do it goes in vain, like the tree struck by lightning.
To worship Krsna to earth had I come.
Overcome by Maya, like tree I become.
That is why I say: Don’t waste your time. Make right use of your power, while there is yet time. Know, understand your characteristic Self, lest you bewail …
Fruitless, O Lord, hath been my life
That sang not, Oh, of glories Thine
Lost in the worldly rueful strife
Lost Thee, alas, ye Treasure-Mine.
Fate's long portentous hand
With compassion, cold and daft
Strayed me out of Thy Love's strand
Deprived, alas, of a single draught.
Let not your life go in vain. Make proper use of your intelligence and intellect. Earn godliness from manliness and offer that Sadhana-earned godliness as oblation to the eternal bearing of the Supreme Purusa.
From Subhasita Samgraha, Part IV
from Matter and Spirit
Actually speaking, this eternal game of interminably pervasive Consciousness and Energy (Shiva and Shakti) or Puruśa and Prakrti, wherein the Purusahood remains subjected to Prakrti, i.e., where Consciousness is unable to express Himself, shaking off the influence of Prakrti – such a state, we may call the Primary Atom of Energy (Práthamika Shaktikańá). This primary atom of energy and matter are absolutely identical. Let the Scientists of the different ages call this primary matter or primary atom of energy by any name they please – molecule, atom, electron, or etheron, the spiritual Sadhaka does not at all get affected thereby. With the awakening of Consciousness, consequent upon Sádhaná for the expression of Consciousness (that begins in the primary atom of energy with the help of the Brahmic inspiration and centripetal action), there wake up newer and newer trees, plants, organisms, human intellect and the ascetic’s austerity-attained realisation of Brahma.
There may exist some incongruity in respect of the word, “Shakti”. Actually, where the two words, Shiva and Shakti, are used, Shakti stands for the Binding Force or Prakrti. The atoms of energy or Shaktikańás that are generally regarded as the fundamental ingredients of the creation of the world are not really the Shakti in the above sense. These atoms of energy are the compound of Shiva (Consciousness) and Prakrti Shakti (the Binding Force). Because of the universe being fundamentally the co-operative creation of these atoms of energy, if anybody thinks Prakrti alone to be the only cause of the creation of the world, his conclusion will be illogical, for each of the limitless atoms of energy of this universe is begotten out of the binding influence of the Binding Force upon the Cosmic Consciousness. So to say that the universe is created out of the limitless atoms of energy is tantamount to saying that the universe is the compounded image of Maháshiva and Maháshakti, i.e., Cosmic Consciousness and Cosmic Energy. This Shiva-cum-Shakti creation is indeed the psychic manifestation of Brahma – His Liilárupa or inscrutable Form.
Siyá-Ráma-all the universe I see
– Tulsidása
With folded hands I bow to Thee