Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva within you
Bhagavat-Sangi-Sangasya
The material world within which we all exist is full of innumerable universes. Each universe is like an egg with a thick shell of 7 layers composed of the panch mahabhuta. That is why we call it Brahmanda. When this Brahmanda appears, Lord Garbhodakasayi Vishnu enters into it and lies down on the ocean of umbilical fluid which fills half the universe. From His navel, a beautiful long stemmed lotus flower begins to grow till it reaches the top of the universe. As the flower blossoms, within it Lord Brahma is born. Lord Vishnu gives him instructions on how to proceed with creating the different planets, living entities, rivers and even abstracts things like feelings, thinking, mind, intelligence etc.
So Lord Brahma creates everything moving and non-moving within this universe by the empowerment of Krishna or Vishnu. This way it goes on for 155.52197 Trillion years. At the end of this period, Lord Brahma’s life as well as this universe comes to an end. Then Lord Shiva begins his Tandava Nritya, the great dance of Destruction. There is a great flood and storm everywhere. All planets get submerged under the flood. The beautiful lotus flower goes back into the transcendental body of Lord Garbhodaksyayi Vishnu and along with it all the living entities with Lord Brahma enter into a deep deep slumber. The universe gets destroyed again to be rejuvenated and reconstructed in the next cycle.
Do you feel something is missing? You are right. But first we will compare this with our day to day activities. Creation is an activity in the mode of passion. Now that a day has passed after the New Year, we would already be ready with our list of New Year resolutions. We all decide – This time I will study seriously. I will be punctual. I will wake up early in the morning. BUNKING? What’s that? This word will be completely out of my dictionary … and the list goes on. High in spirits, we wake up early on the first day. Everything happens as per our plan. But friends, if you remember your experience in the previous years, please recollect what happens near your exam times – “Oh! I haven’t read this subject well. My goodness! I didn’t attend the classes. Now I’m not able to understand anything. Oh God! Please somehow let this exam get over nicely. I promise you, from next year I will attend all classes. In fact just after the exam, on the first day of the vacation itself, I’ll start preparing for next semester exams!” Complete destruction of the nice plan we had at the beginning of the year.
Another one. We join a new college. Everyone is a stranger. Again our passion rises. We start making new friends – “Hi! What’s your name? Which college? Oh! I’m from the neighboring college. Shall we go for coffee tonight?” Easy! You just made a new friend. Nowadays it is even easier. Just click on “Add as Friend” on the person’s Facebook page. Now what happens after one or two months – “You know, she is not so nice. I don’t like her” “Oh! Please don’t talk about that cheater. I don’t know why I ever wasted my time talking to him”.
Destruction of the relationship that built up just few months back is even easier. In fact, you didn't have to do anything to break it. It happened as if on its own. Destruction is an activity in the mode of ignorance. This material world is full of darkness and ignorance. Left for itself everything will ultimately get destroyed over time. A dead body will decay, a house will break down and mountains will get eroded. If we remember the laws of thermodynamics, every process tends to proceed towards the state of lowest energy and highest entropy. In simple terms, maximizing the entropy itself means destruction, chaos and disorder.
But we have seen people who have been friends from childhood to deathbed. We have seen some students who regularly attend all classes, wake up early and study every day. So what is missing in our lives? That is where in our universe we have the role of the most important Personality – Lord Vishnu. That is why the scriptures say that He is the soul of the universe. Naturally His job is the most important and the most difficult of all. His job is of Maintenance. For the purpose of maintenance He appears within this world in different incarnations – Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Rama and He establishes religious principles, protects the sadhus and annihilates the demons.
Maintenance happens in the mode of goodness. By cultivating good habits, eating sattvic food, keeping association of sattvic people and most importantly by regularly monitoring our progress, we can gradually be situated in the mode of goodness. Again coming to the law of thermodynamics – to make sure that the entropy is increased, we need to do Useful Work. So, regular practice, hard work and detachment from everything that is in the mode of passion and ignorance are essential.
Thus, according to the modes of material nature – passion, goodness or ignorance, we are constantly being driven to act like Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva. We should strive to keep ourselves more and more in the mode of goodness, because the purpose of human life is to come out from this egg of the universe, the Brahmanda and be completely freed from the cycle of creation, maintenance and destruction. For that we need to be in shuddha sattva, pure goodness or transcendental to the three modes. The mode of goodness is like a springboard to jump and transcend all the three modes and get established in our original spiritual nature. So we should somehow remain on this springboard and go on making jumps.