Question For Swamiji - On Prakasha

[Guest guest]

Swamiji,

 

I have a question or two about the difference between prakasha and

pratyaya. I hope you can clarify for me...

 

In your examples it seems that you are saying pratyaya has BOTH name

and form, and prakasha may have name but has no form?

 

I just don't think I'm getting the essence of these categories. The

headache or love are both sensations, one mainly physical and the

other mainly subtle, and both have nama (name), but being sensations,

they lack form. But really, it seems to me we could say the same about

any perception of the senses at the point before the mind recognizes

the object(s). Light bounces off objects and enters the eyes. If we

are not focused, not categorizing, not naming, not "forming" the

objects with the mind, simply recognizing the light - is the

perception of light, any light, then a prakasha? What about the

perception of touch when the object being touched is unknown?

 

You seem to have placed prakasha into two basic groups, one dealing

with higher states of consciousness, we could call subtle, and one

dealing with mundane experience, we might call gross. The subtle

experience of prakasha is sublime and defies explanation, defies

rationalization. It does seem closer to a sensation or feeling than

any other word I can think of, but is much more, much greater, than a

headache, or romantic love. So what is the relationship between these

two, the subtle and the gross?

 

What about a vision, such as Vish's vision of Maa as Universal Mother,

that he recently shared with us? The object(s) in the vision had both

name and form, but it was a representation of a prakasha (and

certainly there were elements of prakasha in Vish's experience of the

vision). Was the vision then a prakasha, or a pratyaya, and why?

 

I will appreciate any light you can shed on this.

 

Jai Maa!

Chris