Vedic Integral Model of Being

Vedic Integral Model of Being

Background

To help us arrive at a Vedic-inspired super-theory of Psychology, we needed a comprehensive model of conscious being and its relation to the Universe as per Vedic philosophy. However, there are numerous strands of Vedic thought based on diverse interpretations of Vedic sources (Vedas and Upanishads), each stressing a different aspect more than others. To a lay audience, this can create confusion regarding the exact connotations of the terminology. For example, there exist several darshanas or perspectives such as Vedanta in its several flavors, Agamas,  Sankhya, Tantra, Nyaaya, Mimaamsa, Vyakarana, Jyotisha, Ayurveda and Natyashaastra. They all use similar terms but with sometimes differing connotations. 

 

We believe that in spite of variations, all these perspectives are not in conflict and can be reconciled to arrive at a coherent operational view of conscious existence. Such an operational view is essential for our objective which is not speculative philosophy but practiceable psychology.

With this purpose, we attempted to frame a single picture that can integrate all key concepts across multiple vedic perspectives and show how they relate to each other coherently. Above picture is the result of our exercise. This forms the basis of our Vedic theory of Psychology outlined in a separate article.

Vedic Integral Model of Being

In this picture, we put together numerous concepts of the Vedic philosophy from diverse perspectives into a grand unified model of being. We have borrowed  from Sri Aurobindo's integration of the Vedic systems as detailed in his magnum opus, The Life Divine. The closest traditional source that we try to follow is trika siddhanta / kashmir shaivism as it takes a similar approach of explaining multiple perspectives using common taxonomy.

At the centre is the 7-rung manifestation of conscious being (labelled in the figure as koshas), symbolically referred to by the Vedic system as sapta-lokas. The pancha koshas are a coarse approximation of this. Sri Aurobindo calls it the sevenfold chord of being. It is divided into the upper and lower hemispheres of existence shown in the figure with a dividing line. The lower hemisphere comprises the triple of Mind / manas+buddhi, Life / praana and Matter / annam. Its characteristics are limited perception and its consequences of Falsehood, Error and Suffering and Evil. The upper hemisphere is characterized by direct awareness of truth and its consequences of freedom, power and joy.

 

On either side of the 7 realms in the picture, we show common aspects of being that manifest differently at each realm. They are the blue rectangles. 

 

These common aspects are

• Those that constitute the core identity, substance and purpose of being (sacchidananda),
• Those that govern its manifestation or self-unfolding in the cosmos (koshas / lokas),
  
• Those that shape its behavior or action including its motive (guna), variety (varna) and evolution (smriti).

There are several other concepts discussed in Vedic philosophy, but we feel that they can be derived from these fundamental concepts.

The Essential Nature of Being

Sat-chit-ananda is the Vedic description of the essential Nature of being, both at individual (pindaanda) and universal / cosmic (brahmaanda) scales. It is actually one but appears as three aspects:

• Sat / existence is who I am, the experiencer 
• Chit / consciousness-force is how I manifest as experiencable substance and force
• Ananda / delight is why I manifest, my experience of myself and my manifestation. 

Sat  manifests as my core personality or I-ness at each of the koshas. Chit condenses to form the base material or substance for the various koshas. For example, matter is chit solidified with its self-determination withdrawn. Ananda is the joy my personality experiences in its existence at a kosha.

Involution of a jiva (limited experiencer) sacchidananda progressively retracting its infinite potential down to act like inert matter. Evolution is the gradual unfolding / blossoming of sacchidananda back to its infinite potential.

How chit manifests as this massively diverse Universe is explained by different darshanas in slightly different ways. Each darshana emphasizes one aspect over others based on its purpose / prayojana.

Manifestation of the Universe

Chit takes two forms: as passive substance and as active shakti that operates on that substance. The passive substance or building material of the Universe is the five primary building block elements called pancha bhutas formed out of combination of 5 elemental progressive grossifications of chit called the pancha tanmatras: Sabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa and gandha.

The active shakti that animates the Universe is threefold: icchaa / will, jnaana / awareness and kriya / dynamic force.

The 3 gunas (sattva, rajas and tamas) are not substance with which the universe is made, but the primal modes that chit adopts to sustain its manifold forms and their activities.

The 4 varnas (Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vysya and Shudra) are the four types of functions that are needed to sustain any system.

The koshas denote grades of being at individual level, whereas the 7 lokas are the grades at the collective level.

Memory: Nature's Mechanism for Efficiency and Scale

Smriti or memory is Nature's mechanism to record an activity, and it helps repeat an effect with much less expenditure of energy. Memory exists in all koshas and differs in what gets recorded. Muscle memory operates in the physical body / annam, whereas thought memory captures and repeats inference patterns of Buddhi in the manomaya kosha. These recorded patterns are called samskaaras / impressions and determine the majority of human behavior. Jyotisha shaastra can be considered a science of predicting behavior based on the force of past samskaaras.

We use the word chittam to mean memory. This is in line with Yoga sutra's connotation of the word. Chitta vrtti is recycling of past impressions stored in memory and associated storing and retrieval activity that most of our thoughts involve.

Deriving other Vedic Concepts 

Purusha is Sat. Prakriti is chit. The ultimate Purushaartha is Ananda and the 4 purusharthas are its subordinates. The indriyas / senses are a physical manifestation of chit, so is the physical body. Praana is chit maintaining praanamaya kosha. The sukshma indriyas or subtle senses and their powers of remote sensing, sight etc. belong to the praanamaya kosha. What western psychology refers to as subconscious is largely praanamaya and manomaya koshas. The word chittam is used to refer to manas in some vedic treatises and to memory (storehouse of samskaras) in some others.

There is an opinion that the tri-doshas of Ayurveda are tri-gunas operating at body level (annamaya kosha).

The 5 States of Consciousness 

The states of consciousness refer to the modes in which a conscious being cognizes and experiences the world. Our integral model can describe those states as follows:

1. Jaagrat / waking state is when the being cognizes external objects indirectly based on the data supplied about them by sthula indriyas or gross senses.
2. Svapna / dream state is when the being cognizes objects based on their past impressions in its memory  and not via indriyas. While this happens naturally in dreamy sleep, it can also happen in what we call imagination.
   
3. Sushupti / dreamless sleep state is when the being's experiential activity of objects perceived externally is completely suspended, including both memory and indriyas.
4. Turiiya state is when the being's higher koshas are in direct contact with their counterparts external to it. For instance, its sukshma indriyas with praanamaya jagat, its thought flow with the kaarana jagat, etc. Here, cognition happens not indirectly via data supplied by the gross senses, but directly via coupling of the being's chit with that of the external object. In all the above 4 states, the experience happens from the standpoint of the individual being's ego.
5. Turyaatiita state is when the being sheds its separate identity and takes on universal identity. Hence the cognition is via utter identity with whatever object it interacts with, not from how its individual ego perceives that object. Sri Aurobindo calls it knowledge by identity.