Samādhi Pāda · Lesson 4

Title: Samadhi Pada: Lesson 4 Date & Place: Teacher: Swami Shambhudevananda Link: https://online.sivananda.co.il/courses/the-road-to-samadhi/lessons/samadhi-pada-lesson-4-short/

The Reflection of Intelligence: The Birth of Cosmic Mind

I’m going to record for you a few clips because this coming Sunday, you will be seeing it on Sunday, and the next Sunday I will be able to teach you live online. This Sunday is the New Year’s Eve of the Jewish calendar, and at 5 o’clock p.m. Israel time, we’ll be just in the last preparations before their holiday feast, so I won’t be able to broadcast. And next week, on Sunday, I will be somewhere up in the sky on my way to the Bahamas, back to the Ashram. So what I decided to do is to record for you a few clips that I will send to you during those two weeks, and we’ll recapture things that we’ve learned, maybe bring some new ideas and some new insight, and also make the theory more practical, which is fundamental to this course. So each clip, I will try to make it short so it will be more digestible, and you can also repeat it a few times in order to make things well-digested and get a clear-cut picture in your mind about the teaching of this particular clip.

The Idea of Reflection

So I just want to start with the point where I ended last time, and this is the idea of reflection, and the clip that I shared with you about the molecular machines and what those machines reflect. The idea is the reflection of intelligence. And you have to understand that in these days, the idea of intelligence—creating intelligence, creating what is called artificial intelligence—this whole idea of intelligence is very, very, like, this is getting to the cutting edge. So what is the story of intelligence, and why does it really intrigue the mind of the yogis—the ancient yogis—and the modern scientists? Because the question is: where does intelligence come from? Where does intelligence come from? Does it come from the thing itself, from atoms, from matter itself? Is matter the substratum out of which intelligence manifests? Or does intelligence come from above—from the divine?

Matter and Consciousness: Two Views

Well, this question is a fundamental existential question. And the materialistic point of view will tell us that matter is fundamental and matter is the reality, and out of it intelligence manifests. But the Sāṅkhya system, the Yoga system, the Vedānta system will tell us something else. In the Yoga systems, we have Puruṣa, which is the consciousness, pure consciousness. Then we have Prakṛti, which is the manifested nature. Now, when the light of Puruṣa, the light of pure consciousness, is being shed on Prakṛti, it is being reflected. It’s like allowing Prakṛti, the unmanifested Prakṛti, to awake, to become manifest and start to do its thing, which is to reflect—to reflect that light of pure consciousness. But once it reflects it, it infuses into this pure consciousness its own, nature’s own qualities. And this combination of the light of consciousness and the qualities of nature creates what we call cosmic intelligence.

The Birth of Mahat — Cosmic Intelligence

So, Father Puruṣa (pure consciousness) and Mother Prakṛti (the qualities of nature) give birth to the firstborn of this creation, which is called Mahat, or Hiraṇyagarbha, or Brahmā—the Creator—or the cosmic mind, or the cosmic intelligence. So from the point of view of Yoga, intelligence is the combination of pure consciousness and the qualities of nature. Now, this intelligence—this cosmic mind—starts to create. It is the creator. And the way it creates, it creates on a mental level. In that mind, all the qualities start to manifest and differentiate and divide, but its intelligence—the creator’s own intelligence—reflects in all of them.

The Threefold Division: Knower, Known, and Knowledge

Now, there are three aspects or three divisions to this manifestation. As I said earlier, there is the division of the knower—the person, the “I,” the individual, the subject. There is the division of the object—the outer, the thing known. And there is the process of knowing, of perceiving. So there is the perceiver, the perceived, and perception—knower, known, and knowledge. And intelligence is reflected in all of them because it is inherent to the creator. So the creator is in everything—in the perceiver, in the perception, and in the perceived.

The Intelligence Within Creation

So what I wanted to show you with the clip about the molecular machines was how intelligence is reflected in molecules—small, microscopic molecules that can manifest so much intelligence. They can create machines that operate at the speed of a jet engine. And there are billions of them in each cell of your body. And there are so many different machines that operate in an unbelievable orchestration that even the most sophisticated industry or factory of today will not work so efficiently and in such speed as those machines, which operate in each one of your cells. And there are billions of them—and you have thirty trillion cells. So just think about the number of those machines that operate this show that you call your very existence, your very physical existence. And they do it every split of a second without you even noticing it—with you just taking it for granted, with you just being casual about it, thinking, “Oh, I’m just resting. Oh, I’m just, you know, doing nothing.” As you are “doing nothing,” there is such an operation here allowing you to do nothing.

Recognizing the Source of Intelligence

So, the thing is—why do we have to know? Because not knowing it is the nature of spiritual ignorance. Because we feel that this body has intelligence—we have intelligence—but we don’t understand that that intelligence we experience in the body, in ourselves, in the mind, in the world, is not of the world, is not of the body, is not of us. It is of the cosmic intelligence; it is of the creator. And this giving back of the credit to the creator is the process of meditation. It is the process by which we understand how the light of intelligence of the creator reflects in each part of creation—in the known, in the knowledge, and in the knower.

Closing and Meditation

So this is the first clip, this is the first lesson, and now we will have a short meditation for it. So we’ll conclude here, and in the clip attached, you will have also a meditation on this.