Prakriti is the uncaused, unmanifest Nature, the Matrix as womb. She produces the entire fabric of creation which lies within her as the insentient unconscious Matrix and operates through the three gunas - rajas, sattva, and tamas. Prakriti is the uncaused cause of all entities and has no existence apart from the gunas.
This Universe the womb is where I plant Seed of all lives! Thence comes
Birth to all beings!
- Bhagavad Gita XIV.3
The etymology of the word ‘matrix’ is womb. The Sanskrit for womb is yoni. The womb of this universe is described as maha brahma which the scholar Krishna Chaitanya/KK Nair reads as the Great Nature. The Kashmir Shaivite Abhinavagupta reads maha brahma as Shakti, the instrumental power to create the entire universe. This Shakti is the womb and is svatantrya-shakti, the Lord’s ‘Great Power of Freedom’
(B.Marjanovic). The Supreme Being places the seed (grabham) in the womb (yoni) as the origin (sambhavas) of all beings (sarva-bhutanam).
The Supreme Lord [the Oneness] is the father (pita) who sows the seed (bija-pradah) in all wombs (yonis) from which every form and image (murtayas) emerges (sambhavanti). It is the nature of Shakti to ‘manifest
the universe’ (B.Marjanovic), therefore she is called the Mother.
*The 3 gunas - sattva, rajas & tamas
Prakriti possesses the three gunas - sattva, rajas and tamas. The gunas are the basis of everything produced in the temporal illusory hologram. All that is perceivable by the five senses are her effects.
While you read this teaching of the gunas and their distinctions, bear in mind what the Abhinavagupta says - “No diversity is the Real Truth!”
The One as Paramatman is Atman, the appearance of myriad Souls. The Atman is Purusha once it inhabits a form. The Oneness is Prakriti whose three gunas are activated by the presence of Purusha to produce the universe via the five senses operating on their objects. All are but aspects of the One.
During a Dissolution the gunas remain in balance. Their nascent imbalance ensues with the beginning of any creation in any of the first Cycles of Time. As the cycles proceed, the gunas move further into imbalance and it is this imbalance that causes the projection of an expression or manifestation out into the hologram.
The three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas born of Prakriti bind down the embodied and the imperishable dweller in the body ...
- BhG. XIV.5
The gunas integrate the human body; adhering to the subtle form, they
‘conduct’ the body. Our individual gunas may be described by the planetary placements in our birth chart. The Cardinal signs are rajas, the mutable are sattva, and the fixed are the guna tamas.
The gunas serve to limit us from the infinite. As our consciousness moves through the Cycles of Time, we become more and more limited by the increasing imbalances in the gunas which are governing our corporeal existence. Eventually the adventure is less than fun and we land in a Kali Yuga rut as the repeating downward cycles of the same-old same-old boring experiences hurl us into the proverbial brick wall and we are force to think. It is perhaps time to wake-up.
Oneness pervades!
It is the presence of Purusha [the indwelling 'soul' as individual &
witness] in proximity to Prakriti and her gunas that kindles, impels, and instigates the emergence of her effects in the hologram. Prakriti is the
‘final substratum of all empirical realities,’ however her unmanifest is not different from her effects.
‘What was subtle and undifferentiated is called effect when it becomes manifest and differentiated’ (Chakravarti). On the highest level of the Real even the cause, Consciousness as Purusha, is not separate from her or her effects.
God is All - Vasudeva sarvam iti - BhG.VII.19
As you absorb an understanding of the Gunas - also termed modes or qualities - you can begin to identify your patterns, those endless mood swings, proclivities and compulsions as nothing more than these GUNA Matrix 'things' which are in fact on automatic. The Sanskrit term is the YANTRA RUDHANI - translated by VanBuitenen as a water wheel.
How many people do you know who are really in control of their moods, their habits and compulsions? Most of us don't know ourselves well enough to notice our repeating patterns. We continually weave webs in and around our hologram. Over time hopefully we come to realize that we have crashed into the same brickwall over and over - and it just becomes flat-out boring.
I think it helps if you know your astrological birth chart, but only in the sense that the chart lays out some of our patterns for us. The cardinal signs are rajas, the mutable sattva, and the fixed are tamas. Our current incarnation identity is a prison matrix that we ourselves created over many lifetimes to 'play' in - as the Cycles of Time move ever onward toward Density.
Know Thyself!
Self mastery will come when we develop NON-ATTACHMENT to our Gunas, which are only operating on 'their' objects. We do nothing.
Everything is God. You are not the Doer!
Abhinavagupta:
"How can the actions performed by the sense organs - which are entirely different from my own Self [the God-Within, the Oneness] - affect me who am identical with Atman [the Oneness]."
Bhagavad Gita V.8
The man of Yoga [in union with the One, YOGA means union], knowing the Truth [that he is that Oneness],
knows that while seeing, hearing, touching, eating, walking, sleeping, breathing --- he in fact does nothing!