In a recent discussion on another forum, the nature of creation arose. In the Yog Vasishtha (from the Ramayana), the story of Bhusunda the crow is told. He is a being who has learned how to continue to exist when creation ceases. He has thus lived through 10 creation cycles.
He tells Vasishtha that Vasishtha has come to see him in 8 of the last 10 cycles. This tells us creation repeats itself over and over with small differences in detail.
But if the purpose of creation is for Self to know itself, whats the point of doing it over and over again?
This comes down to perspective. From one viewpoint, it can seem it is all arising from memory (smriti). Creation is an impression in That, cycling out over and over in the flow of attention. It is only in time that there is sense of sequence, cycle and repeating.
If we take a deeper step outside of time, we can see all of creation as an impression in wholeness. While attention may move across the details, there is no coming and going, just a totality of knowledge. Creation is not repeating itself, it simply is. Complete. Memory is not a playback device but a totality of knowing.
This is the superior understanding. But it is through experiencing it in time that we can come to know the totality of it, beyond time.
Now.
Davidya
Just to be clear, being on the timeline (with a past and future), the present now, all time as eternity and timelessness are different ways of experiencing reality.
The now can feel eternal as that’s it’s foundation. But all-time eternal is a deeper experience than just being in the present.
Beyond time is beyond the subject-object dynamic that founds all experience. One gets into Tao sorts of discussions. It is defined by what it’s not. It neither is nor is not. It is not really without time so much as time being meaningless.
Hi Davidya!
Would you mind elaborating on this phrase from above from an experiential standpoint?
“Memory is not a playback device but a totality of knowing.”
Hi Ben
Memory in the common sense of the word is associative – we connect to other experiences similar to the current one.
In this context though, I’m referring to memory as in a lame translation of the word Smriti. This is a little difficult to describe. It is impressions in consciousness at it’s most profound level. Impressions made by congnizers of truth, the sages of all time. It is beyond the field of creation; in fact it is is the seeds of all creations and the core of everything that unfolds on call. (via the Vedas, sound, voice of God) It is the intelligence behind the intention to express any given creation. (by creation I mean, in our case for example, the massive structure that includes many universes)
Experientially, this is like a field of lucite slabs that contain total experiences or cognitions. They are grouped by the cognizer and include all key discoveries of all creations in all time. Thus, a totality of knowing.
For others reference, this is far deeper than the akashic records, a record of events in space-time.
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It’s also worth noting that those small variations in any given unfolding would require a replay if we are to thoroughly experience the fullness of all. So in one sense, it is totality all at once. In another way, it is the infinite unfolding of infinite variety for infinity to know itself completely.
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A quote from the Srimad Devi Bhagavatam
“The necessity of creation, again and again, after the Prakritic Pralayas (dissolution of the universe), is due to the fructification of those Karmas of the Jivas, whose fruits were not enjoyed before the Pralaya; so when creation again commences, the above said differences are found to appear.”
It’s worth noting that the “creation” i refer to in this article is our universe. That exists as a nested space in a still larger para-space I more commonly call creation on this blog. Such creations arise in the mind of God, the second of 7 koshas or sheathes.