December 01, 2006

He/She/It is also Infinite at the same time

Re: Derrida, Death and Forgiveness by Andrew J. McKenna by Debashish on Thu 16 Nov 2006 12:44 AM PST Profile Permanent Link It is true that Purushottama and Paraprakriti are united at the Transcendental level but that does not mean they are not also separate. They are One and Two at the same time. The Supreme Transcendent is not just One, He/She/It is also Infinite at the same time. To manifest this inifinity, it appears as the Two-in-One. Or it may be more correct to say, they are One and can be seen as either Purushottama or Paraprakriti but if there is to be manifestation, then Being and Power of Being must separate themselves and enter into a play where Power of Being, chit-tapas manifests the inifinte possibilities of Being as a relational play.
As the Mother says, "Without Him I exist not, without me He is unmanifest."
In the Gita, describing the process of avatarhood, Purushottama says, "...Establishing myself in my own Prakriti I come to birth by my self-Maya." (prakritim svaam adhisthaaya sambhavaami atma-maayaya (Gita, Ch. 4, verse 6). Sri Aurobindo paraphrases this: "... he assumes birth by a supreme resort to the action of his Nature and by force of his self-Maya."
Here we see that though Purushottama is one with his Prakriti (Paraprakriti) He has to take resort to it to manifest. He does not say simply, I come to birth, he has to invoke Paraprakriti. So too in the soul of jiva, purushottama and parapakriti are together represented in individualized form since without the prakriti, one may know identity with the Divine Presence but the process of qualititive transformation of nature into Divine nature is not possible. In the Tantric conception, this is represented by the dual presence of Ishwara and Shakti in each of the chakras.

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