Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantapart of this universe and came to certain conclusions, which we, analysing thephysical part, must come to, for they both must lead to the same centre.You must remember that the first manifestation of this Prakriti in the cosmos iswhat the Sankhya calls "Mahat". We may call it intelligence — the great principle,its literal meaning. The first change in Prakriti is this intelligence; I would nottranslate it by self-consciousness, because that would be wrong. Consciousness isonly a part of this intelligence. Mahat is universal. It covers all the grounds of subconsciousness,consciousness, and super-consciousness; so any one state ofconsciousness, as applied to this Mahat, would not be sufficient. In nature, forinstance, you note certain changes going on before your eyes which you see andunderstand, but there are other changes, so much finer, that no human perceptioncan catch them. The are from the same cause, the same Mahat is making thesechanges. Out of Mahat comes universal egoism. These are all substance. There isno difference between matter and mind, except in degree. The substance is thesame in finer or grosser form; one changes into the other, and this exactlycoincides with the conclusions of modern physiological research. By believing inthe teaching that the mind is not separate from the brain, you will be saved frommuch fighting and struggling. Egoism again changes into two varieties. In onevariety it changes into the organs. Organs are of two kinds, organs of sensationand organs of reaction. They are not the eyes or the ears, but back of those arewhat you call brain-centres, and nerve-centres, and so on. This egoism, this matteror substance, becomes changed, and out of this material are manufactured thesecentres. Of the same substance is manufactured the other variety, the Tanmatras,fine particles of matter, which strike our organs of perception and bring aboutsensations. You cannot perceive them but only know they are there. Out of theTanmatras is manufactured the gross matter — earth, water, and all the things thatwe see and feel. I want to impress this on your mind. It is very, hard to grasp it,because in Western countries the ideas are so queer about mind and matter. It ishard to get those impressions out of our brains. I myself had a tremendousdifficulty, being educated in Western philosophy in my boyhood. These are allcosmic things. Think of this universal extension of matter, unbroken, onesubstance, undifferentiated, which is the first state of everything, and which beginsto change in the same way as milk becomes curd. This first change is calledMahat. The substance Mahat changes into the grosser matter called egoism. Thethird change is manifested as universal sense-organs, and universal fine particles,and these last again combine and become this gross universe which with eyes,nose, and ears, we see, smell, and hear. This is the cosmic plan according to theSankhya, and what is in the cosmos must also be microcosmic. Take an individualman. He has first a part of undifferentiated nature in him, and that material naturein him becomes changed into this Mahat, a small particle of this universalintelligence, and this particle of universal intelligence in him becomes changedinto egoism, and then into the sense-organs and the fine particles of matter whichcombine and manufacture his body. I want this to be clear, because it is thefile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (90 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:34 AM