8/18/2017 Karma, Time and the Archetypal Life Discourses

DISCOURSES
MENU
On Truth and its Seeking

Karma, Time and the ArchetypalLife

Posted on August 17, 2017August 17, 2017 by silentalan
One of the most timeless portrayals of Lord Narayana is that of Him sleeping in an ocean with a stalk
growing out of his navel into a Lotus in which Lord Brahma sits and starts his work of Creation. This im-
age when deciphered according to the proper symbols reveals that the navel represents the solar plexus
chakra or the state of consciousness representing materiality which is the proper work of Lord Brahma
or the Logos of Creative Intelligence in esoteric wisdom. At the end of the Creative cycle or MahaMan-
vantara, Narayana withdraws the stalk back into his navel and Pralaya sets in. Brahma is thus embed-
ded in Time, being an agent of Form whereas Narayana is always sheltered by a snake called Ananta
representing the Eternal aspect of his existence. In Vishnu Sahasranama, one of the names he is ad-
dressed by is

Om Anantaya Namah.

The concept of Eternity is intellectually challenging since our minds itself is a product of Time and Space
and thus Eternity seems like a very very large UNIT of time. In Truth, however, Eternity is not a matter
of extending Temporality to innite units but about transcending Time altogether. In the Eternal Planes
of Reality where Lord Narayana abides, Time does not exist in the way Humans conceive of it. There
Past, Present and Future are all existing NOW. How this can be possible is a mystery which cannot be ex-
plained in langauge which itself is embedded in Finite Time. It can only be experienced in Liberated
states of Consciousness when one unites with the Consciousness of the Absolute. It is the singular testi-
mony of all beings who attained Liberation that there is no human expression that can describe the state
of Eternity. It can sometimes seem irrelevant to human life sunk in its mundane concerns of survival, as
to why should one even bother about such a Creator situated outside Time and Space. Such a distorted
idea of the Absolute has obsessed the Theological savants of Christianity for ages. In the Vedas however,
Divinity always appears much more closer at hand and in fact is present in every inch of his Creation.
He is as present in the leaf as in the water and in the good and the ugly. In the Satarudriya, the great in-
vocation of Rudra from the Yajur Veda, we see,

The verse pays homage to Rudra as the Lord of Sloth, Waste and Decay. Rudra is also the Lord of
Thieves and Looters if the verses are read literally. But in such a portrayal, we are missing a profound
Truth about the essence of Divinity. Rudra is an aspect of Shiva, a word as mysterious as it is life-afrm-
ing. Shiva is the Deity closest to the Soul of India, a God who is celebrated, loved and feared at the same
time in his aspects of Bhairava and Rudra. While these are exoteric representations, the hidden wisdom

https://ancientcharacter.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/karma-time-and-the-archetypal-life/ 1/5
8/18/2017 Karma, Time and the Archetypal Life Discourses

of Shiva is teeming with revelations. Shiva is in Truth, the rst Logos, the most sublime aspect of the En-
tity who created the Universe. He is often called Parasiva, to state the transcendent nature of his exis-
tence. The First Logos is the originator of the Will aspect of Creation. It is the Will to Create that denotes
the supreme Independence of the Logos and his Love for his children at the same time for whom He
takes on the massive work of Creation. It is this aspect of Love which is portrayed in the Puranas as the
complete non-discrimination of Shiva to anyone who seeks Him. He is as likely to reward a malec be-
ing as much a humble seeker. But this kind of non-discrimination can appear confounding as we are
used to conceiving Divinity is purely Good terms. It is the object of this essay to explain some of these
ambiguous stories and reveal a much more Grander vision of Divinity.

The highest Deities in Indian mythology are frequently depicted with their eyes closed. Narayana in the
image described earlier is said to be dreaming, which results in the appearance of Brahma from his
navel. Shiva is perennially meditating high up in Kailash and it requires extremely critical situations for
the Devas to awake him from sleep. It is said that the manifested Creation is Narayanas Dream. What
this means in Truth is that before Creation takes the shape as the physical world we see around us, It is
thought of by the Creator as a set of abstract images which are then given shape by the Devas and other
High Intelligences in the Universe. This Ideation is the rst work of Creation at very sublime planes of
Reality. The question is, what does the Creator base his Ideation upon ? Is there some source even be-
yond the Creator from where He nds a Blueprint on which He bases it ? In the Pratyabhijna Hridayam,
the great work by Kashmiri Shaivism master, Kshemaraja, the very rst stanza says,

Citih Swatantra Vishwa Siddhih Hetuhu

The absolute creates the universe out of absolute free will. Creation of a system is the supreme act of Free
Will. The universe is essentially a set of cosmic experiments to evolve consciousness to ever higher limits
and the billions of solar systems are all instances of such Grand Experiments. In the Yogic lore, this is de-
scribed as Shiva, stirred by Shakti waking up and spitting out millions of Suns and planets from his
mouth. The rst great revelation about the source of this ideation is that the Logos ideates from Self-Con-
templation. Ishwara is meditating on his own Self and this meditation is projected outward giving rise to
the Form we see in the Universe. In the Tantric system, this concept is symbolized by the Shiva-Shakti
imagery where Shakti is the projected energy of Shiva. Shiva lies hidden inside and Shakti is what we
see as Creation. This also explains the imagery of Shiva always engrossed in deep meditation and
Narayana Dreaming up the universe. The idea of a Grand Beings self-contemplation resulting in this
profoundly complex solar system boggles the human mind used to nitude and separateness. Hegel, in
an amazing turn of intuition says the same thing when we writes, The Absolute is seeking Self-Con-
sciousness through creation. Just like the ordinary human being in seeking to know his Self reaches
transcendence from the cloaks hiding that Truth from him, similarly we have to think of an innitely
magnicent Divine Being , contemplating his Own HIGH Truth hidden deep within HIM and in that
process of Self-Knowing, taking billions of lesser beings along to their individual self-knowings. Cre-
ation is an innitely repeated process of self-searchings. When we contemplate this image of a multitude
of beings stretched out in space and time, playing out their individual life-dramas, within the body of
One Great Entity like little cells in a human body, a grand Vision comes to Light. As we evolve, He
evolves since We are He. He evolved through US and We through HIM. Such a scheme of Creation was
denoted by the ancient maxim, As Above so below and The Microcosm is the Macrocosm. Thus it is
that we are made in the Image of the Creator and by knowing ourselves we shall know Him. The whole
Creation is the Body of Shiva and in Shiva Sahasranaam, we nd this in the name,

Om Mahakayayai Namah.

https://ancientcharacter.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/karma-time-and-the-archetypal-life/ 2/5
8/18/2017 Karma, Time and the Archetypal Life Discourses

The word Kaya means body but not really the physical one. We must remember that in Yogic terminolo-
gy, every human being has many bodies or Koshas, increasingly subtle. In Buddhism, the Buddha has
three bodies, Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya. The physical universe is shaped on the
abstract conceptual body of the Logos. The work of giving this deeply abstract ideation, a form is the
work of another set of grand intelligences called the Pitris or the Lords of Form. These beings are great
Devas who shape matter in accordance with Ideas. Brahma in reality denotes this collective set of Beings
which is the reason he is called Prajapati, the lord of all creatures. Now we must not quickly jump to the
conclusion that the above description is in contradiction to the previous image of Rudra being present in
the leaves and the rocks and in the whole of creation. It is in Consciousness that the Creator Pervades his
Creation and not in Form, just like Shiva being hidden in Creation. This is the Omniscience aspect of Di-
vinity which denotes Him being aware of every inch of Creation. One great feature of Indian Spirituality
is the multitude of Paths through which one can reach Divinity. The route which emphasizes the Con-
sciousness aspect says, Shiva is Absolute Consciousness and attempts to raise the Human Consciousness
to merge with the Consciousness of Shiva. The Tantras have a route which emphasizes the Will or the
Omnipotence aspect of Divinity. Contemplating on this grand Truth of the Self-Contemplation of the
Creator resulting in this manifold universe gives us a profound detachment from desire and craving. The
most famous depiction of this Truth comes from the Rig Veda in the Purusha Sukta whose rst line says,

The absolute has Thousand Heads, Thousand Eyes and Thousand Legs. He envelops it from all sides
and extends it by 10 inches. 10 is a mystic number denoting innity for reasons which shall be ex-
plained later. Thus this whole creation is the Absolute realizing himself through every living being. Each
of us forms a miniscule cell in the body of the Divine. The next verse says,

All this creation is the Purusha alone, whatever is and whatever will be. He is the Lord of Immortality.
All beings are only one-fourth of him while three-fourths of him are in the immortal planes.. Perhaps a
more sublime image for contemplation has not been written. The aspect of eternity is described here as
the whatever will be. As said here the Divine is situated in temporality and in eternity where whatever
is and whatever will be, all appear as a single NOW. This innite awareness of the Divine through every
unit of Life is responsible for giving form to creation including the human body. It is described in the Pu-
rusha Sukta how Creation was lying scattered as loose units of forms until the Purusha sacriced him-
self, forsaking innity and entered Creation thus shaping creation as ordered forms to begin evolution.
All spiritual scriptures mention the presence of a thumb-sized ame deep in the cavity of the heart
which burns forever. This is the Akshara-Purusha or the Divine realizable in deep meditation through
which the Absolute is aware of our existence. We are alive only because the divinity resides within us
and ensouls our bodies. This gives us the understanding that Consciousness at its essence is the same for
all and all our surface thoughts and emotions never approach our true reality which is the Divinity with-
in us, independent of space and time. This is the realization of all seekers who have reached the shore.
They found that when they delved deep into their own being, they reached the consciousness of Divinity

https://ancientcharacter.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/karma-time-and-the-archetypal-life/ 3/5
8/18/2017 Karma, Time and the Archetypal Life Discourses

which was not something separate from them but within them all the while. All spiritual traditions pro-
claim this truth in manifold ways. The Human being, in his quest to know himself always nds that He
is One with Divinity at his core. A modern day Sage on reaching this state remarked,

I knew myself to be beyond space, time, and causality. As the substantial, spatial, and transcendent
I, I knew that I sustained the whole phenomenal universe, and that time, space, and law are simply
the self-imposed forms whereby I am enabled to apprehend in the relative sense. I, thus, am not depen-
dent upon the space-time manifold, but, on the contrary, that manifold is dependent upon the Self with
which I am identical.

This is Purusha as He is in his True state and which we are able to realize as verily our True state also.
This explains the real purpose of Creation and the great Sacrice mentioned in the Purusha Sukta. Cre-
ation was undertaken by the Divine so that all his children could realize their true state, a state he Per-
manently abides in and goads us to reach through all the trials and tribulations of Life. This brings us to
the question to Karma and our embodied human life with its mundane joys and sufferings. Krishna re-
marked in the Bhagwad Gita that though he does manifold actions, he remains untouched by Karma. It
is well known that for any human being to be liberated, his or her Karma must be nished. Liberation is
in essence the withdrawal of identication with form and consequently form based life. After that, hav-
ing realized the Truth of ones divinity, one can be in form like Avadhoots or Avataras but lacking identi-
cation with the act, will be unstained by Karma. Thus a divine equilibrium has been attained. This
equilibrium is the essential truth of the eternal planes where all forces throughout all Time exist in a state
of perfect equilibrium. But in the temporal planes, such an equilibrium is not possible because every ac-
tion consumes Time and it is only in Time that equilibrium can be attained. This constant interplay of
forces in Time is what we know as Karma. A perfect equilibrium in the Eternal plane can be replicated
only by an imperfect equilibrium in Time. The Man who seeks liberation must equilibriate all his forces
in Time by which he can transcend Time itself. By doing so, He replicates Timelessness in Time and con-
sequently frees himself from its bondage. What we call Karmic dissolution through Yoga is this process
in practice where we see seekers burning up their vasanas and samskaras through the Fire of Tapasya.
All vasanas and subconscious tendencies are just forces we have set up in thousands of Lives, out of ig-
norance of our true nature, be they emotional, mental or physical. Situated in Time, they seek expression
in it, through projection in the realms of Illusion and Form, and unless burnt up by Striving, will keep us
rolling in the drama of embodied life for innite Time. When all such accumulated hindrances and dis-
tortions are removed, we have reached the state of divinity which is our True Home. By creating a state
of divine equilibrium in the realm of Form, he brings down Perfection from its High Station into the
grossness of Matter and thus extends Divinity into the farthest corners of Creation. It is this perfection
which has been envisaged as the ultimate goal of all existence. This Goal has been reached by certain
Planets but Earth is quite far still and for evidence, we dont need special knowledge. We can see it
everyday in the newspapers. When Purusha has been able to realize himself in his True state through his
children, He will have nished the Great Purpose which propelled his taking incarnation as a Solar Sys-
tem. By that time, every human being will have transcended his personality into an archetypal individ-
ual fullling the grand Plan of Creation. Thus brings us into some startling aspects of the Vedic age.

We moderns are sometimes surprised at the grandness of the everyday address-modes of the ancients.
Every member of the community was called Arya which means noble. The Husband was called Para-
meshwar meaning the Absolute Divine. The Man was called Purusha and the Wife, Devi meaning God-
dess. It is a travesty that our own fallen state of spirituality makes us project our own aws onto the an-
cients and condemn them for being hypocrites through using such names. We must remember that the
Vedic age belonged to a Time when the True goals of Creation were known and society was ordered with
an aim to further that aim. The lawgivers of that age were divine Sages and they understood that the

https://ancientcharacter.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/karma-time-and-the-archetypal-life/ 4/5
8/18/2017 Karma, Time and the Archetypal Life Discourses

Human is a creature on his way to Divinity and the best way to accelerate that process was to convert his
everyday life into a Divine receptacle in which he learns to approximate a transcendent structure of exis-
tence. It was with this objective that the names given were those of Transcendent meaning since That
was what he was emulating in his life. Man was called Purusha since by emulating the Divine, he was
preparing to reach his Goal. The wife saw her husband as Parameshwar not because he was in reality so,
but because she was replicating a Divine order where the spiritual principle was playing out through the
Man in the marriage which was also a miniature creation ground. Similarly the Wife was addressed as a
Devi since that was her archetype of emulation. By converting the mundane into the transcendent, the
ancients aimed to attain liberation. The strictly regulated everyday life punctuated by hundreds of ritu-
als also aimed at disciplining the impulses and negative thought forms which ravage the ordinary hu-
man life. Such discipline effectively transformed every moment of existence into a living Tapasya in it-
self. Today such deep knowledge is missing and we see the absolute terror in which human life is en-
meshed in. It is only by reverting and adapting this ancient wisdom to our own times that we too can
hope to reach our own essential Truths.

Published by silentalan

Telemachus View all posts by silentalan

CREATE A FREE WEBSITE OR BLOG AT WORDPRESS.COM.

https://ancientcharacter.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/karma-time-and-the-archetypal-life/ 5/5