How do you establish a similarity between the concept of purusha and prakriti and the concept of division of Spirit i.e. God the Father, God the Son and God the Cosmic Vibration? Since God is everything, how do you separate Him in relative terms (i.e. not as indivisible Spirit) from the rest of creation (human soul, physical world , 24 cosmic principles, power of delusion)? In short who is the Divine Mother/Aum/ pure consciousness in relative terms?
—Sam, India
Dear Sam,
God is one. You may call Him Purusha. When there is no creation, there is only Purusha: Absolute Consciousness, or Spirit, also called Sat-chid-ananda.
When that Spirit creates, He remains one, but assumes three appearances:
1) God the Father, Purusha, Spirit beyond creation. Christians call Him the “Father”. Yogananda describes Him as “Cosmic Consciousness”.
2) God the Son, Spirit within creation, Christians call Him the “Son”. Yogananda describes Him as “Christ Consciousness”. It is also known as kutastha chaitanya.
3) God the Cosmic vibration, which is AUM: God as creation. It is the Holy Spirit of the Christians. In this “role” of AUM God creates the 24 principles which Shankhya describes, the three gunas, the law of duality, relativity, maya or illusion, time, space, and everything there is in creation.
To answer your question: who is Divine Mother? Yogananda says that She is the AUM, the shakti which creates everything.
Spirit, when there is no creation, is neither male nor female, but simply Absolute Consciousness. However, when there is creation, God assumes the aspect of both Father and Mother. The Mother is AUM, the creative force. “Mother nature” as we say.
I hope this is somewhat clear. In short: God is always ONE, is always Spirit. The rest is all nothing but a great appearance, an illusion. Separation is nothing but appearance, the world too is a mere appearance, where many separate things seem to exist. But it is in truth all ONE Spirit. Wherever you look, you see Spirit in appearance. If you meditate deeply you can look behind the appearances and see Spirit everywhere. The thing is, within that appearance of creation (which is like a big dream) God plays the above three roles. Yet he is always and forever ONE.
Ekam sat, the Scriptures say: only ONE exists.
God bless you,
Jayadev
