Brahman and Knowledge are One - Maha Bharatha series 86

Book 12 tested my patience. I had to plod through because I kept finding gems buried between repetitions and outmoded ideas. This is the final post from this book called Shanti Parva. There are six more books to cover.

 In one passage, Brahman says that for this universe and the world to exist four things are needed: Knowledge, Action, Cause and Effect. Brahman says that He is ALL FOUR. 

The Universe is made of matter(Prakriti and the Five elements, namely space, air, fire, water and earth) called Pancha Bhutas. We all know that Time (kaala) is another item needed for something to appear from something else. This was well-recognized in Maha Bharata and other ancient texts.

Our mind also asks “who did it?” and “why?”. Majority of the humanity will say “God” and then will fight to establish that “their god” is the real one. Leaving that apart, that “God” has to have a “desire” to do something. That becomes iccha shakti in the Vedic writings. He or It needs “Knowledge” and that becomes gnana Shakti and the action itself becomes kriya Shakti. 

And what is “knowledge”? One passage says that when the one and only Brahman dissolves the universe into Himself, He was “alone with knowledge as my only companion”. This is very profound because of my intuitive feeling that information is one of the most fundamentals of this universe. Just, replace the word “Knowledge” with the word “Information”. It becomes the sixth element. 

If we update this knowledge to our understanding of the universe in the 21^st century, we should replace space, air, fire, water and earth with the following: matter, energy, space, time and information. 

As I have written in earlier blogs, to make anything we need matter (prakritit). For performing an action and to make something, we need energy (Shakti). To desire and to know what to make, we need knowledge and Information. As Seth Lloyd pointed out in his book on  Programming the Universe:"To do anything requires energy. To specify what is done requires information". 

Information is inherent in matter. This seems to be the modern equivalent of samavaya of Vaiseshika  philosophy.