Consciousness and the Self X

Shadow Consciousness and Rahu

In discussing the passage of consciousness from the undifferentiated plane to the world of misconception to exploitation, Śrīdhara Mahārāja has revealed a deeper understanding of Vedic Cosmology in Subjective Evolution of Consciousness.”

While it may be entirely possible that the ancient seers of the Upanishads and the Vedas concentrated their vision on a Ptolemaic model of the known world, their point of view is generally more subtle. The Greeks and Egyptians employed the paradigm of a Geo-centric universe in their astronomy, as did the Europeans until the time of Copernicus. Galileo and his telescope refuted the idea that Earth was the Center of the universe, as did Columbus, by sailing around the world, as any schoolboy knows today.

Only a fool or an internet troll would defend the idea of a flat earth, or that the sun circles our planet. While some strange religious  fanatics hold that the guru of the Hare Krishna movement stated otherwise, Śrīla Prabhupāda himself sailed from Bombay to New York, proving that the earth was round.

Not only did he sail around the world, following in the footsteps of Columbus, Śrīla Prabhupāda also flew around the world several times, visiting all points of the globe. While defending the Vedic point of view and even the Vedic cosmology, he held that not only was the Earth round but the Universe was also round.

He asserts as much in his commentaries and lectures. For example, here’s a lecture divine in New York, in 1966.

Prabhupada says Planets are Round.

In a lecture on Caitanya Caritamṛta Caitanya Caritamrta Madhya 20.146-151
New York, December 3, 1966 commenting on the verse 

vaikuntha, brahmanda-gana-sakti-karya haya

svarupa-sakti sakti-karyera-krsna samasraya

Prabhupada says, “Lord Caitanya says, Vaikuntha. Just like this universe is a jagad-anda, is a big round ball, anda. Anda means egglike, just like egg is round. Therefore it is called brahmanda. It is a round ball. Every planet is round, and the universe is also round, and the Vaikunthas are also round, all round. Vaikuntha, brahmanda-gana-sakti-karya haya. So all these universes, the universe which we experience... There are innumerable universes that we cannot see. We can see only one universe, and in one universe there are innumerable planets. Similarly, there are innumerable universes, and in each universe there are innumerable planets...”

Notwithstanding the outlandish descriptions of geography found in certain places in the Puranas, Śrīla Prabhupāda clearly says here that Every planet is round, and the universe is also round. Anyone who says otherwise is contradicting not only the point of view of Śrīla Prabhupāda but his direct instructions.

The Ptolemaic universe has been clearly refuted since at least 500 years ago. In this age of GPS satellites and the Hubble Space Telescope, we need to take a more spiritual or psychological view of the Vedic cosmology.

It may be that “shadow planets” exist in the same way as “black holes” as some collection of undetectable “dark matter” with an indescribable influence over the space-time continuum.

And yet, it is far more satisfying to see the description of physical planets as a metaphor for the different planes of consciousness. Śrīdhara Mahārāja explains, that the ancients saw reality in a personal sense.

“Since everything is a unit of consciousness, everything has personal existence. Everything is a person. Before we go to the material conception, we must pass through the personal conception or aspect of that thing.”

He gives the example of the shadow planet, Rahu, and explains how the Vedic cosmology is to be seen in a modern context.

“We see that by the movement of the different planets, a solar eclipse is caused by the moon’s shadow falling upon the Earth. And yet in the scriptures it has been described that during an eclipse, the planet Rāhu is devouring the sun or the moon.”

How are we to understand this? The Aryans, the spiritually developed men of former times, used to see everything as consciousness. They saw that the shadow is also conscious. The shadow,or ābhāsa, is also considered to be a stage of consciousness. The description of Rāhu devouring the sun is a metaphor that explains how consciousness passes through a kind of hazy stage before congealing into matter.

Matter cannot be known. We believe that matter is something which exists in space and time and causes various sensations. And yet we cannot see or touch “matter” itself. Only through a shadowy stage of consciousness can we come to feel the material conception of a thing.

The ancient seers of truth are saying that before we reach the conception of a shadow, we must pass through some mental stage, and personification may be attached to that mental stage. The personification of the shadow may be referred to as “Rāhu,” the shadow planet.

Being able to detect the conscious characteristic in everything, the ancient philosophers of the Upanishads saw all of nature as conscious and personal, and addressed everything as conscious, and so this “shadow consciousness” was called “Rahu.”

Consciousness and personality are the universal basis of reality. Whatever we may experience is conscious. We have no experience of unconsciousness, since experience and phenomenon depend on awareness.

We cannot perceive matter directly. Our eyes percieve color, but color is dependant on the optic nerve, the brain, and the mind. What I perceive is only a dim reflection of matter. I know that the reflection of a material object is within me, I have a perception of that, and the plane within me is conscious.

The subject is consciousness, and whatever kind of thing the object may be, it casts its reflection into the plane of consciousness. This is all we may know about matter, since matter comes to us through a filter. That filter may be known as a kind of shadow consciousness or cidābhāsa. We may refer to the filter as Rāhu. As the sun passes through this shadow during an eclipse, our perception passes through a kind of filter before we can perceive material reality.

We can have no objective experience of what we call matter. Our perception of matter is entirely subjective, consciousness filtering through shadow consciousness in perception of māya.

Since the observer of any objective reality is involved only with consciousness from beginning to end, we can have no conception of matter apart from consciousness.

IN the words of the Upanishads and Vedas, the soul approaches matter, the material world, but before that, he must pass through a shadowy stage of consciousness called chidābhāsa. This is represented by the shadow-planet, Rāhu.

So, consciousness passes through the shadow level of consciousness into matter, non-consciousness.

And that shadow stage of consciousness has its personality as the shadow planet, Rāhu, in the terminology of the Pūranas. As everything material must have some conscious origin, or origin in personal consciousness, there must be a personal conception of the sun, the moon, the Earth, and all the planets. Rather than question the veracity of the Pūranic version, we may see this kind of personification as a deeper perception of reality.

The ancients believed that before reaching the perception of a shadow or any other object, the soul has to pass through a conscious stage, a kind of filter brought on by a subjective observation or perception. That stage has some spiritual existence as a person.

In quantum terminology, observation itself affects reality. Developments in quantum theory aiming at a unified field theory have opened the door to a profoundly new vision of the cosmos, where the conscious observer, or the subject, the observed or the object, and the act conscious observation are intertwined.

In the quantum view individual particles of matter cease to be measureable distinct entities, but participate in the dance of reality only as a result of having been observed.

The very existence of subatomic particles is dependent on their observation. Matter ceases to have an existence independent of consciousness, since without consciousness there is no observation, no observable phenomenon and matter ceases to exist. Consciousness is the very foundation of observable material phenomenon, and consciousness implies personality.

The Bhāgavatam underscores personality as an integral part of conscious existence. When the Bhāgavatam refers to the sun, the moon, or the planet Rāhu, there is a twofold meaning: not only is the Bhāgavatam discussing the apparent physical reality of heavenly objects as material things, but the Bhāgavatam is also seeing these as persons: Everything – the Earth, the moon, the stars, the planets – has a personal conception.

So that, in the background of what we can perceive with our dull senses, behind everything that is said to be matter, there must be a personal conception.

Without the influence of a personal conception,after all, consciousness cannot even reach the stage of gross matter.

Therefore, in the ancient scriptures we find that the great sages and ṛṣis are always addressing everything within this world as a person.

Although to us it is dead matter, the great seers of the Upanishads and Vedas have considered “matter” in a personal way, as persons. This is not merely some literary device. Matter itself is really a kind of “shadow” of the personal living entity. And since the personal, conscious entity is more real than the dead, impersonal material thing, everywhere in the Pūranas, personification is used.

And so, Vyāsa, writing the definitive treatise on the Supreme Personal Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, represents personality at the core of every verse of that great work. And so, when he considers the personal representation of shadowy consciousness it is called “Rāhu.” Rāhu, as a kind of demonic anti-god, is the hazy misconception through which consciousness must pass before perceiving matter. But matter itself is a kind of illusion; in the final analysis, everything is conscious: The shadow, its effect – all phenomenon, both subjective and objective.

In this way, when the Pūranas discuss the eclipses of the sun and moon, they tell us that the shadow itself is conscious and represents shadow consciousness. The important point here is that everything is conscious first, then there is matter. From the personal conception things evolve to gross consciousness. In the end, reality is all personal. So the ancient Vedic seers of the truth gave us a vision of reality used to address everything as personal, even trees, mountains, the sun, the moon, and the ocean.”