Purush and Prakriti: Masculine and Feminine, god and goddess.

नारायणं नमस्कृत्य नरं चैव नरोत्तमम्

 देवीं सरस्वतीं चैव ततो जयम् उदीरयेत्

महाभारत

Mahābhārata

As retold by

Michael Dolan, B.V. Mahāyog

Bhagavad-Gītā Chapter 13 continued

When Arjuna asks Kṛṣṇa about prakṛti  and puruṣa  he is asking profound philosophical questions that get at the heart of reality.

Puruṣa and Prakṛti:

Subject and Object

We looked at the word Puruṣa  in Sanskrit from the point of view of  “subject,” where Puruṣa   means “subject” and prakṛti   means “object,”  and concluded with Śrīdhara Mahārāja’s argument that subject determines object, that is that the subjective world, or “consciousness” is responsible for the existence of the objective or perceived world. Without perception by the subject the so-called “objective” world has no real existence.

This is the basic concept of idealism. But Śrīdhara Mahārāja, and indeed Kṛṣṇa Himself takes the argument a step further. Without perception on the part of the Supersubject, the so-called “objective” world has no reality. The world is real then, but it is real because it is perceived as such by God Himself in the form of the Super Subject, or Paramātmā. Śrīdhara Mahārāja refers to this as Ideal Realism. He finds some common ground between the views of Vedāntic philosophy and the reasoning of Berkeley and Hegel.

Is the world in the mind or is the mind in the world?

The idea that the world is unreal is seen in opposing Vedantic commentators. The followers of Śankarācārya are known as “Mayāvādīs” because they support the view that while Brahman or spirit is real, the world is unreal, being only an illusion. (brahma satyam, jagan mithya).

Is perception reality?

Since they argue for oneness, the evident duality of existence is hard to explain.  If all is one, how is it possible that matter exists alongside spirit? Their theory of “illusion” is supposed to reconcile this. But it’s hard to explain how the reality of the spiritual absolute becomes perverted into the unreality of the “illusory” material world.

Is the material world "maya," or unreal? Or temporary but real as a part of a higher reality? 

 The followers of Śrī Caitanya consider this analysis inexact.  The world is real.  Its reality is temporal. Duality exists. We are not “one” with the absolute. We share certain qualities: just as a sun-ray shares the ultraviolet qualities of the radiant sun, so the individual soul or jiva  shares the qualities of sat cit  and ananda  with the Supreme Consciousness.  But there is a great difference in degree: Katha Upanishad says, nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman: “Among eternal conscious beings, there is a a prime eternal among all eternals. He is the supreme living entity of all living entities, and He alone is maintaining all life.” The distinction between the physical and metaphysical worlds is real but inconceivable. (acintya-bheda-abheda tattva) It is beyond our cognitive capacity. 

This is to say that both duality and nonduality are real and coexist, but beyond the capacity of reason. The German philosopher Kant established the limits of reason, and yet he believed that there is transcendental experience beyond reason. 

If you stare at the below optical illusion you will see movement where there is no movement. Cognitively you know that there is no movement, but your eyes tell you the circles move. 

So the nature of  puruṣa and prakṛtī  as well as the distinction between the two is real but inconceivable. Divine Reality is approachable only by faith. Faith, as an instrument beyond cognition, can guide us in realizing the true nature of consciousness and our relationship with the absolute.

Faith can guide us...

Words like “subject” and “object” have a dry philosophical tone. The conception of  puruṣa and prakṛtī  may be more readily understood if we consider of  puruṣa to mean “predominator” and prakṛtī  to mean “predominated.” 

The "Goddess Principle"

In fact, Śrīdhara Maharāja’s translator has titled the 13^th Chapter  “The Predominated and the Predominator, ” the Sanskrit, prakṛti-puruṣa-viveka-yoga प्रकृति-पुरुष-बिबेक य़ोग The title of this chapter means that the real point under discussion is the nature of puruṣa and prakṛtī.  Leaving aside “Subject” and “Object,” or “Spirit and “Matter” as possibly vague, the words puruṣa and prakṛtī  can also be defined as “Enjoyer and Enjoyed,” “Predominator and Predominated.”

In the higher scheme of reality, God Himself is Puruṣa, the Supreme Person, the Enjoyer. Reality is By Himself and For Himself and exists only for His pleasure. Prakṛti then is what is “enjoyed” by Him. Sexually speaking Prakṛtī is feminine, where Puruṣa is masculine.  The positive and negative aspects of divinity imply both god and godesss.As such, Lakshmi may be considered as the Prakriti of Vishnu, for example.

Vishnu and Lakshmi: Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine

 Another example of the god-goddess principle is Shiva-Parvati, where Shiva represents the collective spiritual energetic and Parvati the material receptive energy whose combination gives rise to the evolution of materialistic existence.

Shiva and Parvati

The Shiva-Lingam is the representation of their combined progenerative aspects: where male productive spiritual power meets female receptive material energy.

Shiva Lingam, Angkor Wat.

The Divine Feminine Energy complements the Divine Masculine Energetic as Predominating and Predominated Moieties of the Same Absolute Truth, according the the Chaitanya Saraswata school of Vaishnavism, as seen in the Deity of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.

Kṛṣṇa, left with Rādhā, right.

When the living entity misidentifies himself as the “Enjoyer” material nature acts as “Enjoyed.”  All living entities are really the “objects” or prakṛti of the original Supreme Person (Puruṣa), the Super Subject. When an individual soul misappropriates the role of puruṣa,  through false ego, she tries to enjoy the misconceived material nature called prakṛti.  

When this situation is corrected through self-realization, the individual soul called jiva  returns to her constitutional position of prakṛti. In a strict philosophical sense, the jīva souls are considered as feminine, predominated in nature, as counterposed to the masculine predominating nature of the Supreme Absolute. 

As a way of getting around the sexual aspects of positive and negative conception with the use of the words puruṣa and prakṛtī m where masculine is positive and feminine is negative, another terminology is used here, that of kṣetra  and kṣetrajna. 

Field Theory

Kṣetra  means “field.”  Here Bhagavad-Gītā takes up the question of “field theory.” The macro-cosmic “field” is the space-time continuum, of vast but finite dimensions, universe whose elliptical orbit describes an egg or  aṇḍa.

The knower of the field is called kṣetrajña.  This term refers to both the subjective knower, the infinitesimal quantum of consciousness known as jiva,  as well as the supersubjective knower, the infinite Paramātmā.

In his explanation of the "field theory" of consciousness established in the 13th Chapter of Bhagavad-Gītā, Bhaktivedānta Swāmī comments, 

"Arjuna was inquisitive about prakrti, or nature, puruṣa, the enjoyer, kṣetra, the field, kṣetrajña, its knower, and of knowledge and the object of knowledge. When he inquired about all these, Kṛṣṇa said that this body is called the field and that one who knows this body is called the knower of the field. This body is the field of activity for the conditioned soul. The conditioned soul is entrapped in material existence, and he attempts to lord over material nature. 

And so, according to his capacity to dominate material nature, he gets a field of activity. That field of activity is the body. 

And what is the body? The body is made of senses. The conditioned soul wants to enjoy sense gratification, and, according to his capacity to enjoy sense gratification, he is offered a body, or field of activity. Therefore the body is called kṣetra, or the field of activity for the conditioned soul. Now, the person who identifies himself with the body is called kṣetrajña, the knower of the field. It is not very difficult to understand the difference between the field and its knower, the body and the knower of the body. 

Any person can consider that from childhood to old age he undergoes so many changes of body and yet is still one person, remaining. Thus there is a difference between the knower of the field of activities and the actual field of activities. A living conditioned soul can thus understand that he is different from the body. It is described in the beginning--that the living entity is within the body and that the body is changing from childhood to boyhood and from boyhood to youth and from youth to old age, and the person who owns the body knows that the body is changing. 

The owner is distinctly kṣetrajna. Sometimes we understand that I am happy, I am mad, I am a woman, I am a dog, I am a cat: these are the knowers. The knower is different from the field. Although we use many articles-our clothes, etc.-we know that we are different from the things used. Similarly, we also understand by a little contemplation that we are different from the body."

In the first six chapters of Bhagavad-Gītā, the knower of the body, the living entity, and the position by which he can understand the Supreme Lord are described. In the middle six chapters of the Gītā, the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the relationship between the individual soul and the Supersoul in regard to devotional service are described.

 The superior position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the subordinate position of the individual soul are definitely defined in these chapters. The living entities are subordinate under all circumstances, but in their forgetfulness they are suffering. When enlightened by pious activities, they approach the Supreme Lord in different capacities-as the distressed, those in want of money, the inquisitive, and those in search of knowledge. That is also described. 

Now, starting with the Thirteenth Chapter, how the living entity comes into contact with material nature, how he is delivered by the Supreme Lord through the different methods of fruitive activities, cultivation of knowledge, and the discharge of devotional service are explained. Although the living entity is completely different from the material body, he somehow becomes related."