1. A Soul’s Journey.
I want to tell you about a soul’s journey. The story of a soul’s journey is not a very interesting story with juicy details or plot twists or cliffhangers. It is rather bland with just points about the waystops a soul makes on it’s journey to be born.
Hindus believe in the reincarnation of individual souls. A soul fragments from the super consciousness, the Brahman and descends to one of the many 14 worlds created after Pralaya, The Great Dissolution.
Bhu Loka or our very own Planet Earth is just one of those 14 worlds. The cycle of birth and death is never ending because of a very cunning trick called Karma. We all know what Karma is and what it means and it’s immense influence on us incarnating again and again. Very few souls are able to attain mukti or moksha and escape playing this life-death-life game that is on an endless loop.
Our topic today is Tattvas and how is birth-death-reincarnation relevant to our subject of study? Why are we talking about the Pancha Tattvas?
From Week 1, we already know that there are actually 24 Tattvas that is being operated by Maha Maya. When Maya is active, we play the game. When Maya goes dormant, the world undergoes it’s dissolution at the end of each Kalpa. Tattavas.. like… Gunas are the basic building code of this game called Life.
The Tattvas we are going to talk about today are the Pancha Bhutas or the 5 Elements. You will recall that these are Akasha(ether), Agni(fire), Prithvi(earth), Vayu(air) and Jala(water).
When a soul wants to be reborn after it has finished tying the loose ends of it’s last incarnation, it does so with a plan. In Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra***, we pray for the release of the soul from the body like an overripe fruit falls off from the bondage of the stem.
After being released from the physical body and the soul is disembodied, the the seeds sown in that lifetime sprout, take root, and it’s karma phala ripens. The Atman decides that it is time to sow the seeds once again. The soul, fattened by vasanas and karma, is ready for rebirth.
To get to Bhu Loka is not a direct flight. There are stops in between. Depending on which loka the bodyless soul resided in after it’s last death, the soul reaches Swarga Loka first. From Swarga Loka, it has to go to Pitri Loka next.
Why Pitri Loka? This is where our ancestors live. Our ancestors and soul family from many lifetimes and with whom we have shared/created our current karmic load have an address there. Our ancestors are our descendents. Our descendants become our ancestors. Pitris and Putras. This is a family’s soul contract. If we have many births, we have been with many families. We choose our next birth family here. All Pitris reside on Chandra Mandala, the realm of the Moon. The Moon nourishes and takes care of all the souls in transit between life and death. This is why we perform Amavasya Tarpanam and annual Shraddam for our ancestors so they do not go hungry when the Moon is in his waning phase.
Chandra Mandala…although barren and without life..is Jala Tattva in our Hindu Cosmos. It is here that the soul decides where to be born on Earth after assessing it’s karmic baggage. Moon is responsible for tides and rain. The soul descends to Bhu Loka, carried in the rains that falls down to quench the thirsty earth. Bhu Devi takes this water and with sun’s rays that provide heat+light, grows nourishing crops as food for living beings. This is what we call the magic of photosynthesis in science. Seed+Soil+Water+Sunlight = Food.
As humans we eat this food and Jivatma first enters our bodies. It condenses as the semen of men and life procreates in the watery mini universe of a woman’s womb. The tattva is still that of water. So life begins in water. That is why “Water Is Life”. When we poison our waters, we poison our existence on this planet. So always protect our waters and keep our ponds, rivers, oceans clean.
After a few weeks, this little watery soul starts to solidify and well on it’s way to becoming a baby. The phase change occurs from water to flesh. Layers upon layers form what will become our sarira(physical body). This is the Prithvi Tattva representing Earth. From Jala Tattva that marks the beginning of life, the soul has now embraced the Prithvi Tattva.
At this point, even though the baby is forming and is ready to be born, it is still a pindam. A lump of flesh. The Jivatma is only one part of the soul. There is a super soul called Paramatma. (not to be confused with the Brahman, who is nirguna and beyond the realm of Maya, birth and death.) Both Jivatma and Paramatma need to be together..as mind, body and soul..to develop as life fit for earth. With Paramatma in the game, the lump of flesh becomes a house for the soul. Moon or Jala Tattva was responsible for the mind and Earth or Prithvi Tattva took charge of the physical body of the incarnation. How will this Paramatma manifest?
Paramatma manifests as that soul spark inside mind and body. Paramatma is the soul. This soul is represented by the Sun which is the fire of Agni Tattva. In Vedic Astrology, the Sun represents the soul and Lagna is the degree at which the sun is on the eastern horizon at the time of our birth. Our soul is a beautiful spark contained within our body and mind and is the fire within us. But…having said that.. it is not easy for the Paramatma to enter this foetus.
The Paramatma searches for entry ways to make the mind and body it’s home. It examines the various randras. Randra can be translated to mean entrance, threshold or orifice. The Paramatma surveys the human foetus. It has 9 orifices and it is the same as it is for a human adult: 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, 1 month and 2 below, one each for excretion and procreation.
The Paramatma rejects them as suitable entrances to settle inside the foetus. So it waits until another orifice opens. Since it comes from the Brahman itself, it will need a Brahmarandra, an entrance that is robust enough to take in the power of a fragment of the one and only Brahman. This is the soft spot on top of baby’s heads. As the baby grows older, it hardens. When the time is right..as Agni Tattva, the fiery spark of life descends into the foetus through the Brahmarandra and settles in the heart that is already functioning to keep the foetus viable. The two parts of the Atman is now fused as one.
The Paramatma brings with it another tattva. It is leashed and hidden. It will not be released until the baby is out of the mother’s womb. This is Prana. Prana or breath of life signifies the Vayu Tattva. When our earthly life winds down and it’s time for the paramatma to depart, the first one to depart is Vayu Tattva in the form of prana. Prana is the last to arrive and the first to depart at the bookends of our lives. The fused Atma uses the same Brahmarandra, the orifice connecting it to the source or Brahman to exit the body when it’s time to die. The first action of a baby immediately after birth is take in a gulp of air to fill it’s lungs. Prana denotes the stamp on the soul’s passport to enter Bhu Loka. We have arrived.
So we saw four tattvas. Jala, Prithvi, Agni and Vayu have arrived with it’s karmic baggage, but what about Ether, Akasha Tattva? Akasha Tattva, the invisible tattva is the one that holds all the other four tattvas together. Akasha Tattva is present in all the other four tattvas.
Here ends the story of the Pancha Bhutas and how we hold all of them within us. There is no assignment today. Please read this and tomorrow we will circle back to how this relates to Jyotisham.
If you have any questions, refer to this post as 1.xx. For example, this section is 1.21. Or. If you have a question about Akasha Tattva, refer to 1.19 during our live Clubhouse Q/A sessions.
***Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra***
Sanskrit:
ॐ त्र्यम्बकं यजामहे सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनम् |
उर्वारुकमिव बन्धनान्मृत्योर्मुक्षीय माऽमृतात् ||
English Transliteration:
Aum Tryambakam yajaamahe sugandhim pushtivardhanam |
Urvaarukamiva bandhanaan-mrityormuksheeya maamritaat ||
The Meaning of the Mantra:
We worship the three-eyed One, who is fragrant and who nourishes all.
Like the fruit falls off from the bondage of the stem, may we be liberated from death, from mortality.