Nature in Bhagavadgita

By Dr. P. Nagaraja Rao, M.A. D.Litt.

I

BEFORE describing the Gita-idea of Nature, we should know to what conceptions it is opposed to. Nature, according to the materialist, is a process with no plan at its heart and no point in its evolution. It is described as the unthinking mother of man. It Works out as it likes, some of its movements are predictable and others indeterminate. Science has applied itself to certain aspects of Nature and has discovered the laws governing those phenomena. This does not mean that the entire universe is law-abiding. Some parts of it are organized and others are just cinders. At the heart of reality there is no purpose or intelligent design.

The process of Nature is alike indifferent to man’s woe and weal. An empirical investigation of the process of Nature reveals no moral principle at the of its workings. In the words of Hardy: “A blind unheeding hand is guiding us; it is a blind, unfeeling and unthinking will” and is indifferent alike to human happiness and human suffering. ^l This force drags the universe at its heels, furthers some human interests without purpose and thwarts others without malignity. Bertrand Russell gives expression to this view in his celebrated Papers The Freeman’s Worship and the Essence of Religion. ²

Russell argues that Nature on its mechanical side goes its own way. It cannot be completely brought to our bearings. Even the evolutionary process does not exhibit any unmistakable purpose. We see waste on a large scale. T. H. Huxley in the Romanes Lectures (1893) describes the cosmic process as a kind of gladiatorial theory of existence “where the strongest, the most self-assertive tend to tread down the weaker. It demands ruthless self-assertion and thrusts aside, treading down all competitors.” The law of existence is the survival of the fittest, not the fitting in of the many to survive. Thus the naturalist sees an inscrutable, crass causality working in Nature. It runs to no known or knowable end. So man cannot rely on it for his guidance in his ethical life.

If the second law of thermo-dynamics is true or to be trusted, the world will achieve a condition of eventless stagnation. All energy will be evenly distributed and the universe will come to a rest in an uniform mass of cosmic radiation. Such a world-prospect does not evoke or inspire any religious or moral feeling in us. In the words of C. E. M. Joad, the last inhabitant of the world will exhale to the unfriendly sky his last breath and he will remember nothing about our art, literature, or genius. There is a definite antithesis between the facts of Nature and the values of man. A few of the ultra-rationalistic scientists deny the very existence of value and treat man also as a piece of matter, the only difference being that he is a bit complicated. Thus they deny God, immortality, soul and its salvation as gross forms of superstitions to be discarded. The materialists exhort us to bring Nature part by part under human control.

There are a few other scientists who believe that there are values which the mind of man cherishes and that they are not governed by the laws of nature i.e., matter and motion. Such values are responsible for civilizations. The values are Truth, the Good, Beauty, and Utility. They are not super-historical, nor time-transcending objects. They are manifested here on this earth in the actions of men. Russell argues that man’s freedom consists in cherishing these values ere the blow falls. The universe is most often hostile, and the man of wisdom must not prostrate before its mighty power. “In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in aspiration we are free from our fellowmen, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even while we live from the tyranny of death.”

Thus there is the antithesis between Nature and man’s values, and one has nothing to do with the other. There are a few other scientists who look upon Nature as unfolding its potentiality slowly through the corridors of time into matter, life, mind, and in the supermen. They trace these manifestations as due to the elan vital in nature. Some like Bergson believe in creative evolution and do not consider that all the evolutes are prefigured in the unmanifest Nature. Evolution is a creative process, and not a mechanical unfolding of what is already contained in Nature. There is an immanent teleology. Mechanism in evolution cannot account for all the process. Yet others speak of an emergent evolution and describe the process as in travail struggling to produce the Deity at the end. But one important doctrine common to all the twentieth century evolutionist philosophers is that they find Nature a self-sufficient cause for the creation. They believe in the autonomy of Nature. They do not go beyond the historical present. They equate Reality with what is perceived by the senses and grasped by reason. They confine the real to the Space-Time frame. Some of our contemporary scientific philosophers derive all that is from Space-Time and Nature. They explain and interpret the natural process of the universe by its own principles. They do not seek it elsewhere. They assert the independence of Nature and do not go beyond it. They think historically and not transcendentally. They identify the ultimate with what happens in time and in space. They do not recognize the eternal or the timeless. They know progress which is in time and not perfection which is timeless and super-historical.

II

The Gita-idea of Nature (Prakriti) is not in agreement with any of the descriptions of the evolutionist philosophers. Nature is the material matrix from which the things of the world emerge due to the Lord’s creative power. Prakriti is not antithetical to man. It is not malignant and wicked to man. It is not indifferent to human woe and happiness. It is not neutral and pointless in its process. It is not chaotic and independent of all laws. There is a definite law governing the process of Nature “from the movements of atoms to the happenings in History.” Nature is not dreadful nor is it self-sufficient. Its workings cannot be fully accounted for from its own principles. It is not autonomous and self-sufficient. It has a design, a purpose, a teleology, a law governing it. Man and Nature do not work at cross purposes, they are complimentary when the measure of co-operation is known.

The Gita-idea of Prakriti is very close to the description of the same in the Sankhyan system of Philosophy, the one great difference being that Prakriti in the Gita is not an independent principle as in the Sankhyan system. The origination of the world is attributed by the Sankhyans to the spontaneous evolution of Prakriti. In the Gita Prakriti and the Lord together are responsible for the origination of the universe. Nonsentient Prakriti by itself has no power, nor does the Lord create the world out of nothing. Prakriti is the material cause (Upadana Karana) and the Lord is the instrumental cause (Nimitta Karana). But there is nothing in the world which is not of the nature of Prakriti. There is nothing in heaven or earth, among the Gods or men that has not Prakriti as its constitutive stuff.”³ Prakriti in the Gita is described as the power or the energy of the Lord, and Lord is the Energiser.⁴ He is the Mayin and Prakriti is his Maya.

The great Sankara posits Brahman as the chief philosophical category and the only one which cannot be adequately described in terms of any attribute, because there is nothing besides it. All description is relational and mediate. So we require for it at least three terms, the two terms correlated and a relation. As there is nothing besides Brahman in terms of which it can be described, it is said to be indeterminate. In fact, but for Brahman, we have no basis for existence or sustenance. Sankara holds the view that Brahman when confronted with activity and creation is Isvara or God. That is, when Brahman is conditioned by Prakriti he becomes the God of religion. He takes hold of Prakriti and harnesses it to the purpose of creation. The Prakriti of the Gita has two aspects. Prakriti as characterising and conditioning Brahman which activates it is called Para (Higher Prakriti). This has no taint and does not bind Him. It is made of Suddha Sattva. Theists hold the view that the physical frame of the Lord in his avatars is made of Suddha Sattva. The Lord repeatedly tells us that the activities of Prakriti do not affect Him at all. Prakriti is dependent on Him. He is independent of it. He bears them and is not in them.

Now let us see what is the character and nature of the Lower Prakriti with which the Lord creates the universe. It is a complex entity of three Gunas: Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. In the fourteenth chapter we have an elaborate description of the nature of these three constitutive elements of Prakriti and their functions. The centre of our consciousness, the divine in us, the spirit in man is impaired, overlaid and confused with thick layers of unreality by the binding power of Prakriti. Prakriti is responsible for bondage and the separatist feelings in us. All activity is the result of the association of Prakriti. It is Prakriti that prompts men to God-eclipsing activities. He needs to liberate himself from the chains of Prakriti. Prakriti Sambandha (getting related to Prakriti) is Samsara. The first of the three elements, Sattva, is shining by its pure light. It makes us long for happiness and knowledge. It enslaves the happy. When it is predominant the senses are clear and they are in a concert pitch, perfect for their respective functions. It is mostly divine. Rajas is the passionate in man. It thirsts after pleasures and possession and hungers for action. It is responsible for greed and restlessness and a never-ending chain of unregenerate activities. It is never still and ever agitates our minds and muscles. When Rajas predominates we have the man of action without vision and religious faith. Tamas is responsible for ignorance, sluggishness, stupor, and dullness. It bewilders men and keeps them in perpetual delusion. Men go dark and feel stupid when Tamas predominates. Every action is the work of the Gunas. The individual soul identifies himself through delusion with the workings of Prakriti and so he experiences anguishes and thrills. As long as the delusion is there, man is bound to think that he acts and not Prakriti. But with the onset of the recollection it is Prakriti that acts, there is an end of the delusion. Lord Krishna, through his Gospel, helped Arjuna to regain his lost memory of the Great Truth. The Lord is the directive force of the Prakriti. It obeys His behests. It is moral and law-abiding. The world is not amoral and a chance-universe nor is it the evolution of an unthinking matter without any agent. It is a purposive process and its workings are informed by the laws and purposes of God. It is perfectly Pre-established–the course of the stars and the sun: the flash of the lightning and every detail–as to sustain moral values and help the spiritual aspirant to attain it. Nature is not unfriendly to man nor is the universe hostile in spiritual aims. The Lord prescribes the moral and physical laws of the universe. So the world is a valley, in the Keatsean phrase, “for the art of soul-making.”

^l  See the three following poems of Hardy; (i) “Nature’s Questioning”, (ii) “New Year’s Eve”, (iii) “God-forgotten.”
² See Russell: Selected Papers pp. 1 to 15, and Hibbert Journal, Oct. 1912.
³ Gita, XVIII–40.
⁴ Svetasvara Upanisad, IV–40.