Pratiprasava: Devolution or Evolution?

Pratiprasava is a key concept from sankhya and yoga that pervades Indian thought and is helpful for understanding numerous things, including the concept of Kali yuga.




FB Jan  7, 2016
Pratiprasava is a key concept from sankhya and yoga that pervades Indian thought and is helpful for understanding numerous things, including the concept of Kali yuga.

We tend to think that humanity is evolving as it becomes increasingly diversified and complex. Sankhya philosophy thought evolution was going downhill from even before the first amoeba. And that emancipation meant reversing the flow, going inward instead of exploding outward, going backward, devolving as it were into the very essences that comprise our bodies and minds.
One element inherent in this world view is that desire (and of course consciousness) precede creation, as much as the desire for an I-Phone preceded its creation as well as its consumption. Thus in the universal buddhi, the matrices of creation are already contained and they begin to take shape in the particularities of ahankara, from where the senses first, then the tanmatras, and finally the gross sense objects, arise.
To go backward, you must follow the chain from the gross body, to the mind, to the subtler aspects of the inner instrument, and finally to the self, in its pristine state, the essence of your own being.
Photo taken in Rishikesh Jan 7 2013

 FB Jan 7 2014

In Krishna Sandarbha 2, Jiva Goswami says that Bhagavan's power comes from his ananda. In other words, strength comes from love.
Jan 7 2011


Comments

Prem Prakash said…
"...strength comes from love."

I'll add my 2 cents: All other power is temporal and karmic.
Saturday, 08 January, 2022
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