Darkness not always what it seems:Bhagavata cosmology as allegory

[krsna]

http://chakra.org/discussions/ODiscNov11_04.html

[Pankaja_Dasa]

 

 

 

Read this as well, says about Shadow and such,

 

http://www.bvml.org/SBRSM/fhtc.html

 

I'll paste a bit here: I am in awe!:

 

 

Mr. Murphey: So that shadow is Rahu?

 

Srila Sridhar Maharaj: When we conceive of the personal representation of that shadow, it will be known as Rahu. Everything is conscious. The shadow, its effect - everything. When the moon is between the sun and the Earth, the shadow of the moon is coming here, and what is coming is also conscious. Everything is conscious first - then there is matter. From the personal conception things evolve to gross consciousness. It is all personal. So the rsis with such a vision of reality used to address everything as a person the trees, the mountains, the sun, the moon, the ocean. When pure consciousnessis coming to experience pure matter, then there must first be some mixed stage, and that is a person suffering in karma. Person means they are not a fully developed spiritual person at present, but in a mixed condition. So what the rsis are saying - that everything is a person - is real; it is not a concoction.

 

Everything is conscious. As the present scientists say everything is matter, we have real cause to think that everything is conscious. Whatever you see does not matter; we can directly feel what is in our nature. That is conscious. Our consciousness may be in a developed or degraded position, but consciousness is nearer to us. We feel our mental energy only.

 

 

 

 

[Pankaja_Dasa]

 

 

When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura was in Puri during his last days and an eclipse came, one devotee who was supposed to know siddhanta, the conclusions of scripture, was sitting next to Prabhupada. He suddenly ridiculed the idea given in the Bhagavatam that during a solar or lunar eclipse Rahu devours the sun or moon. I could not tolerate that such a remark should be passed in regard to the Bhagavatam and argued that what Srimad-Bhagavatam has stated is not to be taken lightly. I offered what seemed like some far-fetched support. I said that in his Jaiva Dharma, Bhaktivinoda Thakura has created so many characters, but I think that they are not imaginary. What he has written might have occurred during some other millennium (kalpa), or day of Brahma, and that has now come to the surface. In this way I went on to support the cosmological position of the Bhagavatam by arguing that what is necessary to prove reality must also have some real position. It cannot but be. In this way my argument went and Prabhupada supported me. In understanding the position of the planet Rahu, what Sukadeva and Vyasadeva have said is geographically impossible, but their statements are there in Srimad- Bhagavatam, and the literal meaning of the scriptures is not to be taken lightly. Considering the importance of the literal meaning of scripture, Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja presented Bhagavad-gita As It Is. I thought, "How am I to prove what the Bhagavatam says? I don't know. But what is said in Srimad-Bhagavatam must be true. I have faith in that."

 

There are so many statements on the cosmology of the universe in the scriptures. The Aryans, the spiritually developed men of former times, used to see everything as consciousness. They saw that the shadow is also conscious. The shadow, abhasa, is also considered to be a stage of consciousness. Only through that shadowy stage of consciousness can we come to the material conception of a thing. Before we reach the conception of a shadow, we must pass through some mental stage, and personification may be attached to that mental stage. The personification of the shadow may be referred to as "Rahu." The soul approaches matter, the material world, but before that, he must pass through a shadowy stage of consciousness called cidabhasa. Consciousness passes through the shadow level of consciousness into matter, non-consciousness. And that shadow stage of consciousness has its personality. It is also conscious, and may be known as "Rahu." Every material conception presupposes a spiritual conception of that particular thing. The shadow through which consciousness must pass in order to perceive things as material has personality, and in the Bhagavatam, the rsis, the seers of the truth, are addressing it as Rahu. Because they are highly developed, they find the personal aspect of existence everywhere. What we perceive to be dead matter, they perceive to be conscious. Therefore, they always take the personal perspective.

 

The soul, when going to experience any material conception, will have to pass through a medium which influences his consciousness to see things as material. What is concrete matter is unknown. It is a mere effect of consciousness. As everything material must have some conscious origin, or origin in personal consciousness, there must be a personal conception of the sun, the moon, the Earth, and all the planets. Before we reach the conception of a shadow or any other object, the soul has to pass through a conscious stage. That stage has some spiritual existence as a person. Therefore the Bhagavatam refers to the sun, the moon, and the planet Rahu, as persons. Everything - the Earth, the moon, the stars, the planets - has a personal conception. In the background of what we can perceive with our dull senses, everything that is said to be matter, there must be a personal conception. Without the influence of a personal conception, consciousness cannot reach the stage of gross matter.

 

Therefore, in the ancient scriptures we find that the great sages and rsis are always addressing everything within this world as a person. Although to us it is dead matter, they have considered them as persons. Why? The matter is rather the shadow of the personal entity. The personal, conscious entity is more real, and the matter we perceive through dimmed consciousness is less real.