Purna and prakriti -- How can nature be complete?

[Guest guest]

In a recent off-line message, Shri Madathil has raised the question of

how a physicist might look at this month's discussion about 'purna'.

It's an interesting question, because modern physics has a particular

problem with the notion of 'completeness'.

 

The problem is that modern physics is a specially restricted subject.

Its study is restricted to an external world, which is observed

through material instruments. This restriction excludes the minds

through which the observations are interpreted. A mental component of

experience is thereby excluded, from our modern understanding of the

word 'physical'.

 

But when we use the word 'physical' like this, we are degrading the

meaning of a much older word, which was used in a more subtle and

profound way. The older word was the Greek 'phusis', which has come to

be written 'physis' by the idiosyncrasies of English spelling. In

ancient Greece, this word essentially meant 'nature'. And that

'nature' was essentially complete.

 

For the ancient Greeks, 'phusis' or 'nature' was understood in

distinction from 'tekne' or 'technique' and 'artifice'. The difference

here is that nature functions from within, expressing its own

underlying principles of growth and organization. This is quite

different from our technological use of artificial instruments.

 

A technical instrument is essentially partial. It is constructed and

operated from without, by limited persons who have devised it for

their use. As it is used, it is driven artificially from outside,

expressing a motivation and an organization that has been imposed from

somewhere else or from someone else.

 

But nature is not driven in this way, devised and motivated from

outside. As nature functions, its happenings take place spontaneously,

acting of their own accord, so as to express an order and a meaning

and a harmony that we can somehow recognize and understand. Our

recognition and our understanding comes by reflecting back into our

own experience, thus going down into an underlying nature that is

shared by differing appearances.

 

When nature is considered in its true completeness, it includes not

just the world that is perceived, but also the perceiving faculties of

sense and the conceiving faculties of mind. Then it is seen that

nature manifests itself, producing of its own accord all the

appearances that come and go in everyone's experience.

 

But what is it that spurs a complete nature into these changing

activities of manifestation? What is it that makes nature manifest

itself in such different and changing ways? In ancient Greece,

Aristotle answered this question by speaking of an 'unmoved mover'.

That 'unmoved mover' is an inmost knowing principle, which inspires

nature's changing actions. It is for love of the knowing principle

that nature is inspired to act.

 

The acts of nature thus arise inspired from within, of their own

accord, from an unmoved ground of pure knowing consciousness. In

India, essentially the same conception has of course been conveyed by

the words 'prakriti' and 'purusha'. 'Prakriti' is 'nature' in all its

completeness -- producing all the appearances that anyone perceives.

And 'purusha' is unmoved consciousness, illuminating what appears.

Nature's acts are described as 'purushartha', meaning that they are

all done 'for the sake of illuminating consciousness'.

 

As it is put in the Sankhya-karika (stanzas 57 and 60):

 

As milk unknowingly performs

a function nourishing the growth

of a young child; so also

primal nature serves the unmixed

freedom of the knowing principle.

 

All qualities belong to nature,

as she acts in many ways;

not for the sake of objects gained,

but serving only for the sake

of that true inner principle

which has no qualities itself

and is not moved by any act.

 

These concepts, of purusha and prakriti, give yet another way of

interpreting the Upanishadic invocation that we are discussing this

month.

 

When it is said 'purnam adah' (literally 'The full is that'), it may

be interpreted by taking 'adah' ('that') to be 'purusha' or

'consciousness'. And when it is said 'purnam idam' (literally 'The

full is this'), it may be interpreted by taking 'idam' ('this') to be

'prakriti' or 'nature'. So, taking these two phrases together, the

meaning would be that when either consciousness or nature is

considered in all its completeness, each one turns out to be the same

reality.

 

Next, when it is said 'purnat purnam udacyate' (literally 'From the

full, the full arises'), this may be interpreted to mean that nature's

functioning arises from its underlying ground of consciousness.

 

And when it goes on to say 'purnasya purnam adaya' (literally 'Of the

full, when the full is taken, ...'), this may be taken to describe

nature's functioning, as it is taken out through expression into

manifestation and back through reflection into its originating

consciousness.

 

Then, when it is finally said 'purnam evavashishyate' (literally '...

the full alone remains'), this may be taken to say that the common

reality of consciousness and nature must remain utterly unmixed and

always the same, as nature's acts take their expression out into

manifestation and then reflect the expression back into unmanifest

reality.

 

So, an interpretation could be made as follows:

 

That which is found to be complete

is consciousness, unmanifest.

The same completeness is seen here,

expressed as nature's changing show.

 

It is from that completeness there

that nature rises manifest,

here in the fullness that appears

to be a world of partial things.

 

As that completeness seems to rise,

emerging into outward show

and getting fully taken back

into its inner purity,

it always stays just as it is,

untouched by partiality.

 

But this of course is only one of many different interpretations that

the original keeps on provoking, as we have seen this month.

 

Ananda

[Guest guest]

Namaste Anandaji.

 

Many million thanks for your post 22396 which brilliantly and

successfully attempts a new interpretation of the pUrNamadah...

prayer.

 

Just this small doubt occurred to me when I read it. There of course

is a difference between phusis and tekne. But, as the unmitigated

protagonists of fullness, are we not bound to include all tekne under

phusis? Weren't all that we term artificial conceived in our minds

and created by us? How could then they be external or extra-phusis?

In fact, this is the opinion aired and shared by many a Western

thinker in the last century. The nuclear bomb is thus fullness as

also the olive branch and the doves of peace. Am I not right, Sir?

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

_____________________________

 

advaitin, Ananda Wood <awood@v...> wrote:

>

> For the ancient Greeks, 'phusis' or 'nature' was understood in

> distinction from 'tekne' or 'technique' and 'artifice'. The

difference

> here is that nature functions from within, expressing its own

> underlying principles of growth and organization. This is quite

> different from our technological use of artificial instruments.

>

> A technical instrument is essentially partial. It is constructed and

> operated from without, by limited persons who have devised it for

> their use. As it is used, it is driven artificially from outside,

> expressing a motivation and an organization that has been imposed

from

> somewhere else or from someone else.

>

> But nature is not driven in this way, devised and motivated from

> outside. As nature functions, its happenings take place

spontaneously,

> acting of their own accord, so as to express an order and a meaning

> and a harmony that we can somehow recognize and understand. Our

> recognition and our understanding comes by reflecting back into our

> own experience, thus going down into an underlying nature that is

> shared by differing appearances.