Everything we are aware of is Prakriti. I am not aware of anything other than Prakriti. All the usual things we see like people, houses, trees, are names and forms in Prakriti — the idea of naama roopa.
Everything we are aware of, and its polar opposite, is in Prakriti.
Prakriti is built in such a way that everything in it is in ceaseless motion, ceaseless change.
This ceaseless motion is driven by forces. These forces are a feature of Prakriti. Forces are in the physical plane, like the wind, the waves, the tsunami, or the motions of planets. Forces are also in other planes, e.g. storms of feelings and emotions. These forces make things move and change. Physical forces like winds and waves move physical objects. Storms in more subtle planes move things indirectly. For instance, storms of fear, anger, curiosity, lust, etc. move living beings to act. On a larger scale, social and political forces change civilisations. These forces are a fundamental feature of Prakriti — it is as if storms are ceaselessly blowing through every corner of her.1
In Prakriti, living beings are given sensory organs and minds so that they may engage with the ever-changing show which is Prakriti. Therefore, by definition, minds are restless. They are restless because only restless, curious, reactive minds will engage with, and be “modified by”, the show which is Prakriti. And they are restless because they are by definition ever-changing, since they are a part of Prakriti, and it is the very nature of Prakriti to be ever-changing. Little wonder that the yogi struggles to still her mind, because the mind, like every other atom in Prakriti, was not designed to be still. If things in Prakriti were to be still, would they continue to be Prakriti?
Staring at, and drinking in, the ever-changing dance of Prakriti is a perennial joy for all living beings.
I see Prakriti as one. Individual objects are forms in Prakriti.
Is Prakriti God? I don’t know what God means, so I am not too interested in this question. But if God means some being who listens to us and answers prayers, then Prakriti is certainly not that. She is just energy, manifesting in and as everything we perceive. All things are forms of, and in, her. Prakriti is the stuff of physics. And “things” here are not just material things which have mass and volume, they include subtle things like ego, thoughts, feelings too.
Students of advaita vedanta say that Prakriti is not real — they use the term maya, and refer to the entire material universe as an illusion, because it is transitory. I believe that something cannot be labelled unreal, or less real, just because it is ever-changing. The surface of the ocean is an ever-changing pattern of waves, but this is not grounds to deny the reality of the ocean, or of the waves. Students of advaita vedanta say that the underlying unchanging reality is Brahman. I feel that this is just a mental model — no one has seen Brahman divorced from Prakriti. My eyes cannot perceive beyond Prakriti. Maybe there is a Brahman, but I feel that if there is, then he is a facet of Prakriti, not separate from her.
I encounter the statement “Try to see the divine in everything.” My master too says this. I don’t feel that this sentence is very precise — the phrase “the divine in” implies that there is an “outside” which is separate from the divine which is “in”. I clearly see everything as divine. Everything is Ma. There is no separate “outside”. So, the choice of words which seems more precise is “Try to see everything as divine.”
- Because of my cultural conditioning, Prakriti is female to my eyes. โฉ๏ธ