The Mysterious Parabrahman

Unmanifest Reality, Ultimate Reality, The Self, The Self-God, The Truth, The Mystery, The Secret. These are some words that gurus who give their sermons in English use to refer to Parabrahman.

In the Nataraja temple of Chidambaram, there is a shrine that is called the 'Chidambaram Rahasiyam.' Chidambara Rahasiyam translates to the secret of Chidambaram. This shrine is to the left of the main Lord Nataraja Shrine. If you were to stand infront  of the Chidambara Rahasiyam shrine a carved stone lattice with little openings will obstruct your view of the shrine. After the priests shows the main aarati flame to Lord Natarja, he will bring the flame to the Chidambara Rahasiyam shrine and direct your attention to it. He will then say, "Look closely, see The Secret of Chidambaram. Look closely." He will show the flame for a few more seconds in the shrine to light it to allow devotees to catch sight of The Secret.

After the worship the priest will often ask devotees what they saw in the shrine. Devotess have testified to seeing the form of Lord Shiva or a sight like a clear star lit night sky or flashes of light among other things. What is actually in the shrine of Chidambara Rahasiyam is a curtain of bilva leaves made of gold.

The Chidambaram Nataraja Temple is one of the five elemental temples of God Shiva. This temple is dedicated to the element akasha or pure space (ether). Akasha is the element that is used to symbolically represent Parabrahman. Akasha is the only material substance that we can experience with our senses that can be used as an example of Parabrahman; and that too only if we can somehow experience complete vacuum like in outer space. This is why the shrine of Chidambaram Rahasiyam is constructed in such a way that when a person looks into its dark interior the flashes of light that reflects off the gold bilva curtain from the aarati mimics the starlit night sky; to symbolize the ultimate experience of God as Parabrahman. This is  The Secret of Chidambaram – The Chidambara Rahasiyam.

Akasha is only symbolic for the experience of Parabrahman, it is not the actual experience of Parabrahman itself.  In a sense when we experience space on earth it is tainted by our atmosphere. The air or wind provides a feeling to the space around us, but if imagined we were in a vacuum environment like outer space, this would be pure akasha. What would we feel if we were in a vacuum? First of all we cannot enter into a pure vacuum like outer space without some kind of breathing apparatus and a pressure suit. In other words it is impossible for us to experience akasha with our physical senses. If one were to imagine it, the best description one can come up with, is nothingness.

However nothingness is akasha, not Parabrahman. At best akasha is inert; but Parabrahman is the source of all that exists even Parashakti. Satguru Sivayasubramuniya a highly accomplished guru said of Parabrahman, " the nothingness of space is not the Self. The Self is the not the absence of anything like a void but the fullness of everything that exists." This is one of the mysteries of Parabrahman – One can experience it through the depth of meditative experience in the ultimate meditative goal of nirvikalpa samadhi, but it can never be described because it defies our senses and the intellect.

There is also no place where Parabrahman might exist. Being transcendent, there is no point in space where we can say the Self exists. We cannot even say that the Self is All-Pervasive like Parashakti, because that would mean the Self is everywhere. This is not true too, however the Self is at the core of all existence. This is  why one of the pseudonyms for the Parabrahman is the Self, or as my guru Satguru Sivaya Subaramuniyaswami coined the word for Parabrahman, The Self-God. The Self is at the core of our existence, the core of our soul, but where this core is, cannot be said.

The experience of the Self is also not really an experience in the normal sense. As the Self is undefinable, the state of Self-Realization is actually an aftermath of experiencing Parabrahman. When we are in nirvikalpa samadhi which is the experience of the self, our individual existence has been transcendent. We only know that we have experienced the Self or Parabrahman after the fact; and this too with the help of a guru. The experience of Parabrahman changes our perspective of life drastically. A guru will be able to indentify this change in our consciousness and help us realize that we have achieved nirvikalpa samadhi.

Yet another mystery of the Self-God is its relationship with Parashakti. Logically Parabrahman and Parashakti are antithesis to each other. Parabrahman transcends all modes of existence and Parashakti is the foundation of all existence, yet they are of the same being, God. In one sense there seems to be no connection between the two, yet there is one. The paradigms of reality created from the experience of Parashakti and Parabrahman in an experiencer's perception cancels out each other though they are equal Realities.

This is reflected in the varied philosophical systems in Hinduism.  For instance, philosophies based on Vedanta theorize that the reality of the world as we experience it, is an illusion. This perspective is surmised from holding of Parabrahman as the only Reality, thus negating the experience of all form. Siddhanta philosophies, postulate the intrinsic reality of the world and may even deny the existence of God's transcendent Aspect or at least deem the experiences of Parabrahman unattainable; whereas Advaita Siddhanta philosophies combine both perspective into a synthesis of different perspectives of reality. Confused! Well then these  are the mysteries surrounding Parabrahma.

The Patanjali Yoga Sutras offers the following analogy to explain the mysterious connection between Parabrahman and Parashakti. The sutra explains how the two states of reality exist simultaneously by comparing the state of dreaming during sleep to normal consciousness. When we dream we are oblivious of our sleeping physical body. We become totally engrossed in the reality of the dream, that it effects us as if we were experiencing all those dream events as if when we were awake. When we wake up we dismiss the dream experience as an illusion and continue with our conscious experiences in wakefulness. However this doesn't mean that what we felt in our dreams were any less real than when we are awake. Such are the mysteries surrounding Parabrahman and its experience in relation to all other experiences.