into a single entity known as the cosmic Atma and went to take rest in the heart of
Lord Vishnu who was none but the “Viraat Purush”, the cosmic form of the Supreme
Being who is the final resting place for all the creatures.
After the ‘cooling-off period’ when the time came for reactivating the process of
creation (because creation and destruction is an endless cycle for the simple reason
that the energy of one creation does not vanish but re-emerges in another form and at
another time according the principle that “energy can change form but never vanish”;
the ‘energy’ here refers to the cosmic Consciousness that is an eternal non-perishable
power-house of all life in this universe), two primary entities first emerged—(i) one
was the “Purush” (the positive charge or aspect of the cosmic energy that was
represented by the ‘cosmic Male’), and (ii) the other was the “Prakriti” (the negative
charge or aspect of the cosmic energy that was represented by the ‘cosmic Female’).
The “Purush” and the “Prakriti” were two faces of Brahm, the cosmic
Consciousness from which the creation would emerge.
These two opposing factors neutralized each other when they were in the form of
their primary aspect of Brahm, but when they were separated as “Purush” and
“Prakriti” and brought together, a third element emerged. This was known as
“Ahankar” (pride in one’s ability to do something). That is, now they (Purush +
Prakriti) thought they could together ‘do’ something that was extraordinary, and
‘achieve’ something stupendous and astounding.
Thus, the primarily neutral Brahm now had become tainted with ‘Ahankar’,
leading him to fall in the quagmire known as “Sristi” or creation which was nothing
but the ‘creation’ of his own mind that thought that it ‘can do this and that’.
If something is created, it must be sustained and looked after. This cosmic need
translated into the formation of Brahma the creator, and Vishnu the sustainer. [In
other words, these two primary and senior gods were actually the same Brahm
assuming two functions of creation in two distinct forms—one was to ‘create’ in the
form of Brahma, and the other was to ‘sustain’ what has been created in the form of
Vishnu.]
These two entities developed competitive attitude and were jealous of each other.
They competed with each other—‘let’s see who produces a creation first and who
would successfully populate the world below, i.e. the earth’. [Remember: This is how
and why the world that would eventually come into being had these attributes firmly
ingrained in its psyche—having pride, competition and envy.]
Since Vishnu is regarded as the first and foremost form of Brahm (the Supreme
Being; the cosmic Soul) in his cosmic form known as the “Viraat Purush” (literally
meaning a vast and colossus form of the Supreme Being that encompasses everything
in creation), all these developments created a lot of agitation in his heart. This
agitation literally heated his heart where the ‘souls of all the creatures of the previous
creation, which had joined together to form one composite mass, had come to take
rest’. In other words, the souls of all these creatures had merged with the soul of
Vishnu to become one with it and indistinguishable from it. In fact, this is the
metaphysical philosophy of the destiny of the individual soul of all living beings—
that they would ultimately find rest when they merge with the primary Soul of
creation.
The heat generated in the agitated Vishnu’s heart caused the ignition of a fire
with bright yellow flames like the raging fire of a furnace. This resulted in the
melting of the combined souls of the creatures of the previous creation. This melted
matter began to flow downwards towards the earth and was about to land on it (in
order to ‘seed’ the earth with the first elements of life represented by the ‘soul’) when
Brahma’s son known as Daksha held the flowing liquid in the sky itself before it
could actually touch the surface of the earth, and then drank it.
Since this divine liquid which Daksha drank was empowered to ‘create life’, he
begot a daughter with a body as beautiful and charming as a blue lotus. The reason
was that Vishnu, from whom this liquid emerged, too had a body as charming as a
kiana
(Kiana)
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