Consciousness stirs creative expression

Consciousness pervades everything ranging from the smallest to the largest existing particle in matter to every living and non-living thing.Consciousness is really a divine force unifying the entire universe. The all-pervading Brahmn is nothing but that which binds us together; it is testimony of oneness with the supreme power of consciousness, God. 'Kan, Kan Me Bhagwan' ^ God is present in every particle howsoever small ^ is a popular household belief in the subcontinent. Kalidasa has repeatedly tried to reveal consciousness in clouds and rivers in his Mahakavya or great work of poetry, the 'Meghadutam'. English poets like Wordsworth, Shelly and Keats have echoed similar sentiments, their poems replete with personifications of nature, often emotional in recognising the consciousness omnipresent in their natural surroundings. Hindi poets like Jai Shankar Prasad and Sumitra Nandan Pant also have drawn a lot of inspiration from consciousness hidden in Nature. In biology it is said that a 'flagella motor' within the bacterial cell is using around 30 moving parts to rotate at around hundred thousand revolutions per minute. Further in the world of chemistry if one analyses chemical reactions one can only wonder the way these react with atoms of each element forming myriad compounds present in the universe as though self-driven. In the biological domain too new cells and bacteria continue to get formed that in turn collaborate or destroy each other to create yet new biological kingdoms. This could be an indicator of consciousness present in every small part of matter.

In the Vedas and the Upanishads, this unifying consciousness of living and non-living in Sanskrit is called Maha-tattva. This divine energy according to Vedic philosophy is present in the entire universe. The division of this Maha-tattva between the material world and the living is known as Pradhana and Sit-Shakti. Pradhana is the unconscious separated energy of material space while 'Sit-Shakti' is the conscious energy, which includes the individual spiritual soul and universal consciousness of God. Maha-tattva is thus a dynamic combination of these two basic energies of the Supreme.

The Upanishads call this energy as Brahmn and Atman in two forms. Radhakrishnan in his commentary on the Upanishads says that Brahmn is the ultimate reality and is the eternal quiet underneath the drive and activity of the universe while Atman is the foundation reality underlying the conscious powers of the individual in the human soul. In order to explain the eternal character of this ultimate reality Brahmn, the Upanishads raise the question: What is that reality which remains identical and persists through change?

Are mind and matter different? In Vedanta both mind and matter are considered to be the by-products of an underlying field of consciousness. The individual mind refers to the individual consciousness of the spiritual soul, whereas the external matter refers to the universal consciousness of the Supreme Being. Individual consciousness and the consciousness of the Supreme being pervade the whole of material creation.

All Creation including flowers, butterflies or any material objects in nature are the result of the underlying consciousness in nature and material world. With humility, accept divine power and get rid of human arrogance and Ahankaar and our false sense of superiority over other creatures and material domain all of which are the result of the same Maha-tattva.