The Brahma Sutra on the Final Salvation of the Soul: 1.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Wednesday, 04November 2026, 18:30.
Book
Vedanta & Upanishads
The Brahma Sutra on the Final Salvation of the Soul: 1.3
Chapter 1: An Overview of the Brahma Sutra - 3
Swami Krishnananda

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The organic interconnectedness of the parts of the individual body are a miniature explanation of the structural pattern of the whole cosmos. If that is the case, we cannot be born into this world without communicating this fact to every other thing that is happening in the world. Any event is everywhere, just as any occurrence in any part of the body is an occurrence that affects the total body. For instance, we chew our food, and then it passes through the oesophagus and enters the stomach and intestines. The food is converted into essential fluids and absorbed into the whole system. When it enters the bloodstream, it is charged with oxygen that is pumped inside by the breathing process. The heart cooperates. What a wonderful cooperative family we have inside our own selves! Nothing can happen in the body unless the whole body cooperates.

So is the case with every event in the universe, considering the interconnectedness and organic relation of the whole of creation. It is a simple matter to understand that we seem to be interconnected with the whole universe. Even rain is a very intricate process. The heat of the sun draws moisture from the sea. Moisture is blown through the wind; it condenses into water particles, and there is the cooperation of the gravitational forces of the Earth which does not allow the clouds to rise too high. A requisite distance is maintained between the surface of the Earth and the clouds. Such a mysterious activity is taking place even in rainfall.

Similar is the mystery involved in the birth of an individual. We all belong to all things. Just as every point of the body belongs to the whole body, there is no such thing as an independent, isolated individual anywhere. Again, I am bringing to your notice the example of the body structure where every part of the body is all the body. The finger is the body. The nose is the body. The eyes are the body. The legs are the body. Everything is the body. In a similar manner, our involvement in the cosmical setup is such that for us to descend into the Earth plane by birth, all of the elements of the cosmos have to cooperate. A stir takes place in the heavens. We first are born in the heavens before we come to the Earth. It is said, humorously, that marriages and wars take place in the heavens first, and then they descend into the world. Even disease is not a sudden occurrence on the surface of the body. It is an internal maturity of a dislocation taking place in the deepest recesses of the body's structure. We fall sick inside first; only then do we know that we are sick outside.

In a similar manner, a vibration is set up at the apex of the cosmic process. Modern science tells us the creation of the universe was originally a process of vibratory activity. There was only a non-spatial and non-temporal point. In the Tantra Shastra of Indian philosophy, it is called a bindu. It was an atom. Once upon a time, the whole universe was an atom, but it was not a physical atom, which has a slight dimension. It was a dimensionless, spaceless and timeless atom, inconceivable by human thought. It exploded. This is what is called the Big Bang in scientific language.

The very same thing is mentioned in the Manu Smriti. Even before physicists developed the Big Bang theory, the Manu Smriti had already mentioned it. The Cosmic Egg split into two parts. There was a bang, but there was no person to hear that sound, because no one had been born yet. There was an impersonal brahmanda, or a cosmic egg-like existence which split into two parts, one part pulling the other. The attraction and repulsion that we feel in life is due to this event that took place. The two points do not stand apart, because they belong to a single whole. That is the reason why every one of us feels a pull toward something in the world. And, at the same time, we are repelled by the very same thing. We like a thing and also dislike it, simultaneously, for various reasons.

In this process of the division of the subjective and objective sides, the first parents could be envisaged. The first father and the first mother are the two aspects of this cosmic split that took place. They are not human in nature. We cannot even call them superhuman. Inexplicable principles operated, positively and negatively, we may say, explaining everything that has taken place and is taking place afterwards.

In the Purusha Sukta of the Veda, we are told God performed a sacrifice by alienating Himself into two parts for the sake of the manifestation of plurality in the universe. He began to behold Himself as the object. The 'I am' is the subjective side; the universe is the objective side. So, when a statement such as 'I am the universe' is made, the subjective side and the objective side, which are apparently dichotomised, are brought together into a comprehensive and unitary experience.

Do we not feel that we are the body? But the body is not us; the 'I' is not the physical frame. We say, “I am coming.” When we make a statement like this, it does not mean that the body is coming; otherwise, we would say: “The body is coming.” “The body is going for a walk.” We say, “I am going for a walk.” We know very well this 'I am' is different from the body. Yet, for all practical purposes we say, “Here is the 'me'.” “I am.”

Such a situation is said to be the beginning of all things. Then, there is a slow condensation of the process. There are miniatures of the very same bipolar existence. In the Tantra Shastras it is called Siva and Shakti. We may also say that it is something like the electrical positive and negative. Therefore, we are also a blend of positive and negative. In every man and every woman there is both a male aspect and a female aspect. No one is entirely one thing. This is the reason why there is attraction and repulsion, and a sense of inadequacy and dissatisfaction with every kind of experience.

The cosmic vibration which originated in the manner explained is to be regarded as the highly complex origin of our birth into this world. We are born from the universe by universal parents, and not some so-and-so, in this country or that country, which is a poor understanding of what is actually happening. The high heavens are conscious that we are here because they gave birth to us, so that in this little frame of our body that is seated here, the whole universal stuff is operating. When we move, we are moving like the universe. Birth has taken place. Well, what is the consequence of this birth?

Because of the division that has taken place, and a descending order of inadequacy implied in this coming down into the formation of a body, the finite consciousness became more and more pronounced, and now we feel like nobodies in this world. The world is segregated from us. The universe is cut off from our perception. It looks as if the universe is an object of our perception. We are only a subjective side, and the world defies us in every way. This is the misery of birth and samsara. This is to speak briefly about the modus operandi of the birth of a person into this world. We shall continue this subject later on.

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Chapter 2: The Intention to be Born as an Individual
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