brahman is the material cause

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Pranams to all vedantins

 

The apparent confusion in discussing this very subtle subject arises

first of all from the word "cause"

Cause implies something has "become" something else.

e.g when we see steam we say the material cause for the steam is water

but the action or cause that resulted in water becoming steam was heat.

 

Brahman being beyond time/space/and causality can never really be said

to be the cause of anything. If i say Brahman is the material cause

for jagat then jagat becomes different from brahman and that is absurd.

Perhaps an easier way of understanding would be say that Brahman is as

it were the substratum of everything.

 

If Mother Shruti talks about a cause(or about Brahman as it were

himself entering the worlds etc etc) it is with an extreme measure of

benevolence purely to help us understand it.

 

Let us take the example of a ray of white light which on travelling

through a prism becomes as it were a dazzling array of colours.

To a beholder of the colours who does not see the prism the different

colours are decidedly different and plural. He can only conceptualize

that perhaps they all cam from only one source and maybe the

differences in their wavelenghts etc are only apparent. The yellow is

white - all the oter colours except yellow and blue is again white

minus all except blue. So realy all these colours are white only.

 

When extending this example to brahman the matter is compounded

because the ray of light itself is the observer looking at the colours

- if we were viewing this as an illustration the original ray of light

comes full "circle" and is behind the eye of the person seeing the

array of colours. ANd the prism? the prism is the "veil" of

beginingless avidya.

 

I, the Saakshi or witness, am myself "as it were seeing" the play of

plurality of which I myself is the substratum. Wonder of wonders!

I am the material cause for this entire spectacle. I am the seer the

seen and the seeing all in one! The dream example can be used to

understand this.

In fact I alone am.

This plurality is but a nama-roopa.

 

So the answer to what is the material substratum of the srshti can

only be I, Brahman. Then what about prakrti? Prakrti is a term mother

shruti uses to help us understand, as it were, purusha.

Once that is clearly understood then prakrti conceptually is reduntant.

Prakrti has no subtantive existence - it is not sat.

Anything that is not sat can never be the ultimate substratum for

anything.

 

"...Na tad asti vinaa yatsyaan mayaa bhuta characharam"

 

The "mayaa" here is none other than I the saakshi, the chit, the sat vastu

 

Om Tat Sat

 

Shyam