The implausible act of ‘one becoming many’ (Upanishads)

Almost every religion has a creation myth. The religions that believe in a personified God, have elaborate stories about how this all powerful God created this entire universe, over a period of time by its sheer ‘power’. What do Upanishads say about the creation of the world? 

Upanishads consistently say that nothing can be created nor destroyed. Things only take or change forms. 

But the world exists. From where did it arise? As the father in the Chändogya Upanishad wonders,

“How can this world arise from nothing? There got to be something from which this has come up!”

Upanishads give several analogies to explain how this world, the beings in it, came about. But as Šankara says, these descriptions are not meant to be creation stories, but allegories intended to convey a unified view of this world.

Atma (supreme soul) becoming many

The Chändogya Upanishad says that

There was only the Ätma in the beginning. In that case, how did this world come about?

It goes on to say 

That Ätma willed – “Let me be many”. First it ‘became' the basic elements that constitute this world. These basic elements combined among themselves and formed newer and newer composites or compounds.

That is what we call as ‘matter’. But this matter is inert and insentient.

So the Ätma went on. It replicated itself as multiple Ätmas or souls. These souls entered the sheaths formed by matter. They identified themselves with each of these sheaths or bodies. And so, the world of ‘multiplicity’  or the world of 'name' and 'form' came about.

What is interesting is that, the Ätma that started this entire process remained as it is along with all this multiplicity. In fact, the material things, the bodies, the souls that are associated with these bodies are all nothing but the forms of the Ätma itself. What Is more, these forms co-exist; while all of them are nothing but the Ätma itself.

Another Upanishad namely the Shwetäshvatara Upanishad says that

The Ätma exists in three different forms – as the formless Ätma, as various souls with their individual sheaths and also as the matter itself that forms these sheaths.

As far as my understanding of the Upanishads goes, they don’t say that these multiple forms of the Ätma are illusions. It is only that the formless Ätma which took all these forms is boundless, ever blissful, omniscient, and omnipresent; while the forms have their own limitations and restrictions depending on the form.  They are within the purview of space/time. The formless Ätma is beyond space and time.

Meditation momentarily removes some of the limitations of the individual soul, and makes it realize who it really was before it took the form. That is what ‘self realization’  is all about. If it chooses to, it can discard the form and once again become the formless Ätma from which it ensued. That is the ultimate liberation from the trap of the form.

Let me conclude this series in the next post, with the core message of the Upanishads, which I find very relevant these days.

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