Swami Prakashanand Saraswati delves into Hindu cosmology, elucidating the roles of God, souls, and maya in universal creation. His teachings that emphasize karma, time, and the intricate forces sustaining existence reflect deep insights from Hindu scriptures on the dynamics of cosmic evolution and spiritual interconnectedness. We chose the sections below, taken from his writings, to illuminate some of these concepts.
“The aim of creation is to give a chance to all the souls to become human beings and then to realize God Who is absolute Bliss. They can realize God by doing absolute good actions and surrendering to Him. Souls are unlimited in number and are in an infinitesimal ‘life’ form, having a subtle mind of their own. When they receive human body during the creation they do good or bad actions according to the discrimination of their own mind. The record of these actions, called the sanskars or the karmas, are stored in a section of the mind. The consequences of these karmas have to be fructified otherwise there would be no meaning of classifying them as good or bad – and they do fructify. Thus, these collective karmas are like a subtle semi-dormant ‘force’ which reside in the mind of every soul and become the cause of its next incarnation; and the force of the collective karmas of all the unlimited souls works as one of the causal forces to create and maintain the universe.
Other article you might like: The Eternal Cycle: Destiny, Devotion, and the Earth’s Fate by Swami Prakashanand
Power Involved in the creation
God inspires the power maya (the cosmic power in its absolute subtle form) which evolves itself into the form of the universe and the souls begin to reside in the universe in living form. Thus there are three entities involved in the creation of the universe. They are: God, all the souls, and the lifeless maya. God is almighty and absolute-life-knowledge-Bliss. He is omnipresent in His Divine personal form and has uncountable absolute virtues. Just like, He is all-Gracious, all-beautiful, all-loving, all-charming, all-knowing, all-kind and all-forgiving to whoever takes refuge in Him. Maya (the cosmic power) is a lifeless miraculous energy or power. It has three characteristics or qualities called sattvagun, tamogun and rajogun (pious, evil and selfish; pretty, ugly and normal; and positive, negative and neutral) that appear in every part of its creation. Souls, in the universe, are unlimited and are infinitesimal.
Focus that keep the universe running
There are two forces that keep the universe running continuously. They are ‘time’ (called the kal) and ‘karm’ (the accumulative force of the accumulated karmas of all the unlimited souls, as described above).
Time (kal) factor is not just the elapsed period that we count according to the calendar. Time (kal) is an eternal energy like maya which is a strong force that starts the manifestation of the mayic attributes (which gradually become the universe), and then it keeps the universe moving forward until maha pralaya. The time, that we calculate as the age of something or the passing period of an ongoing event, is the calculation of the aging process of something, or it is a point of determining the past, present or future. It is like a parameter that gives you an understanding of the period that elapsed or it helps you keep the record of an event of past, present or future. But the ‘force of time’ that pushes the universe to move forward is an ‘eternal energy’ – that exists side by side with maya.
Procedure of the creation of the universe
All the three: souls along with their karmas, maya, and kal (time), stay in God in an absolutely subtle form and in an absolutely dormant state during maha pralaya. They are activated by the will of God. After certain subtle phases of evolution, the first thing that comes into being is the endless empty space.
(1) तस्माद्वाएतस्मादात्मनआकाशःसम्भूतः।
(2) आकाशाद्वायुः।
(3) वायोरग्निः।
(4) अग्नेरापः।
(5) अद्भ्यःपृथिवी। (ते. 2/1).
There are seven phases of extremely subtle manifestations of maya that had already happened before the ‘space’ came into being.
(1) Space was the eighth subtle manifestation which was, in fact, the first gross manifestation of the energy of maya.
(2) In the endless space, unlimited number of pockets of various sizes were created. They became the base of uncountable sub-universes. Within that unimaginably enormous and endless-like looking space, the ninth phase of maya (called vayu) was evolved which created a circular movement in the space itself, as if the entire space was in a circular motion from its central point.
(3) Then, all over in that space, sub particles evenly emerged. This was the tenth phase of mayic manifestation (agni).
(4) Then the sub particles and the particles annihilated to form hydrogen atoms. This was the eleventh phase of mayic manifestation (apah).
(5) Then gravity began to predominate, and the basic structure of uncountable galaxies and their clusters (as scientists know) were gradually formed. This was the twelfth phase…”
To learn more about this and numerous other fascinating topics, check them out in the ‘Amazing Facts About Hindusim’.