In a recent off-line message, Shri Madathil has raised the question of
how a physicist might look at this month's discussion about 'purna'.
It's an interesting question, because modern physics has a particular
problem with the notion of 'completeness'.

The problem is that modern physics is a specially restricted subject.
Its study is restricted to an external world, which is observed
through material instruments. This restriction excludes the minds
through which the observations are interpreted. A mental component of
experience is thereby excluded, from our modern understanding of the
word 'physical'.

But when we use the word 'physical' like this, we are degrading the
meaning of a much older word, which was used in a more subtle and
profound way. The older word was the Greek 'phusis', which has come to
be written 'physis' by the idiosyncrasies of English spelling. In
ancient Greece, this word essentially meant 'nature'. And that
'nature' was essentially complete.

For the ancient Greeks, 'phusis' or 'nature' was understood in
distinction from 'tekne' or 'technique' and 'artifice'. The difference
here is that nature functions from within, expressing its own
underlying principles of growth and organization. This is quite
different from our technological use of artificial instruments.

A technical instrument is essentially partial. It is constructed and
operated from without, by limited persons who have devised it for
their use. As it is used, it is driven artificially from outside,
expressing a motivation and an organization that has been imposed from
somewhere else or from someone else.

But nature is not driven in this way, devised and motivated from
outside. As nature functions, its happenings take place spontaneously,
acting of their own accord, so as to express an order and a meaning
and a harmony that we can somehow recognize and understand. Our
recognition and our understanding comes by reflecting back into our
own experience, thus going down into an underlying nature that is
shared by differing appearances.

When nature is considered in its true completeness, it includes not
just the world that is perceived, but also the perceiving faculties of
sense and the conceiving faculties of mind. Then it is seen that
nature manifests itself, producing of its own accord all the
appearances that come and go in everyone's experience.

But what is it that spurs a complete nature into these changing
activities of manifestation? What is it that makes nature manifest
itself in such different and changing ways? In ancient Greece,
Aristotle answered this question by speaking of an 'unmoved mover'.
That 'unmoved mover' is an inmost knowing principle, which inspires
nature's changing actions. It is for love of the knowing principle
that nature is inspired to act.

The acts of nature thus arise inspired from within, of their own
accord, from an unmoved ground of pure knowing consciousness. In
India, essentially the same conception has of course been conveyed by
the words 'prakriti' and 'purusha'. 'Prakriti' is 'nature' in all its
completeness -- producing all the appearances that anyone perceives.
And 'purusha' is unmoved consciousness, illuminating what appears.
Nature's acts are described as 'purushartha', meaning that they are
all done 'for the sake of illuminating consciousness'.

As it is put in the Sankhya-karika (stanzas 57 and 60):

As milk unknowingly performs
a function nourishing the growth
of a young child; so also
primal nature serves the unmixed
freedom of the knowing principle.

All qualities belong to nature,
as she acts in many ways;
not for the sake of objects gained,
but serving only for the sake
of that true inner principle
which has no qualities itself
and is not moved by any act.

These concepts, of purusha and prakriti, give yet another way of
interpreting the Upanishadic invocation that we are discussing this
month.

When it is said 'purnam adah' (literally 'The full is that'), it may
be interpreted by taking 'adah' ('that') to be 'purusha' or
'consciousness'. And when it is said 'purnam idam' (literally 'The
full is this'), it may be interpreted by taking 'idam' ('this') to be
'prakriti' or 'nature'. So, taking these two phrases together, the
meaning would be that when either consciousness or nature is
considered in all its completeness, each one turns out to be the same
reality.

Next, when it is said 'purnat purnam udacyate' (literally 'From the
full, the full arises'), this may be interpreted to mean that nature's
functioning arises from its underlying ground of consciousness.

And when it goes on to say 'purnasya purnam adaya' (literally 'Of the
full, when the full is taken, ...'), this may be taken to describe
nature's functioning, as it is taken out through expression into
manifestation and back through reflection into its originating
consciousness.

Then, when it is finally said 'purnam evavashishyate' (literally '...
the full alone remains'), this may be taken to say that the common
reality of consciousness and nature must remain utterly unmixed and
always the same, as nature's acts take their expression out into
manifestation and then reflect the expression back into unmanifest
reality.

So, an interpretation could be made as follows:

That which is found to be complete
is consciousness, unmanifest.
The same completeness is seen here,
expressed as nature's changing show.

It is from that completeness there
that nature rises manifest,
here in the fullness that appears
to be a world of partial things.

As that completeness seems to rise,
emerging into outward show
and getting fully taken back
into its inner purity,
it always stays just as it is,
untouched by partiality.

But this of course is only one of many different interpretations that
the original keeps on provoking, as we have seen this month.

Ananda

Namaste Anandaji.

Many million thanks for your post 22396 which brilliantly and
successfully attempts a new interpretation of the pUrNamadah...
prayer.

Just this small doubt occurred to me when I read it. There of course
is a difference between phusis and tekne. But, as the unmitigated
protagonists of fullness, are we not bound to include all tekne under
phusis? Weren't all that we term artificial conceived in our minds
and created by us? How could then they be external or extra-phusis?
In fact, this is the opinion aired and shared by many a Western
thinker in the last century. The nuclear bomb is thus fullness as
also the olive branch and the doves of peace. Am I not right, Sir?

PraNAms.

Madathil Nair
_____________________________

--- In advaitin (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, Ananda Wood <awood@v...> wrote:
>
> For the ancient Greeks, 'phusis' or 'nature' was understood in
> distinction from 'tekne' or 'technique' and 'artifice'. The
difference
> here is that nature functions from within, expressing its own
> underlying principles of growth and organization. This is quite
> different from our technological use of artificial instruments.
>
> A technical instrument is essentially partial. It is constructed and
> operated from without, by limited persons who have devised it for
> their use. As it is used, it is driven artificially from outside,
> expressing a motivation and an organization that has been imposed
from
> somewhere else or from someone else.
>
> But nature is not driven in this way, devised and motivated from
> outside. As nature functions, its happenings take place
spontaneously,
> acting of their own accord, so as to express an order and a meaning
> and a harmony that we can somehow recognize and understand. Our
> recognition and our understanding comes by reflecting back into our
> own experience, thus going down into an underlying nature that is
> shared by differing appearances.