Yogacara Theory - Part Two: Evolving Intelligence

1. Visions of Modern Science

The way that science looks at the Universe has been steadily evolving and
changing over the centuries, according to man's capacity to study nature. However,
at least since the time of Tycho Brahe, Galileo and Kepler, it has become evident
that we reside in an infinitely complex, highly mathematical celestial cosmos,
where vast clusters of hundreds of thousands of stellar suns revolve in a shoreless
ocean of space and time.1 The stars, much like the atoms of which they are
constituted, dance to a rhythm imposed by the precise laws of physics. Planets,
revolving round those stars, given the necessary conditions, allow for the birth of
life, and that life too, follows essential physical laws governing movement, growth
and even thought. This is the Universe in which we find ourselves—a highly
organized system, filled with mystery and so enormous as to always ultimately be
beyond the reach of our finite conceptual comprehension.

The whole complex Universe, so speculates Science, came into existence some
fourteen billion years ago, in one huge momentous explosion of energy popularly
termed the Big Bang.2 After applying a host of astronomical and scientific
instruments to the study of the Cosmos, a measurement of the background noise of
the Big Bang has been heard. The Big Bang birthed the Universe and time began.

Ever since Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is unimaginably greater
than the single galaxy in which our minute solar system swims, it has become
apparent that all stars, once long ago, burst forth from a single beginning. In fact,
this was the beginning of space itself, and space has been expanding ever since.
We now know that our sun is but one star amidst over a hundred billion in our
galaxy alone. And yet our galaxy is one in as many as a 100 billion galaxies that
are known to exist. Many of the observed galaxies of the cosmos are considerably
greater than our own. And all are rushing away from one another, outward through
time into the void of expanding space.

Vast as the present Universe is, apparently at the first moment of creation,
everything exploded from a single miniscule infinitely dense point. So says
modern science. But although this is now what science has discovered, it is
startling to find a close correspondence between this modern vision and the
intuitive writings of sages who lived in the past. If we turn to Yogacara doctrine
and the "creation-myths' expressed in the Utpattikrama process of secret Tantra, we
see that the singularity from whence all matter, space and time is said to have

1
arisen, is referred to as the bindu, and it is said that this unique bindu (or first
"Point of Creation') coalesced out of "zero" (sunya) ground. Zero-ground, or
Emptiness (sunyata), is not space (akasa), nor does it endure in time (kala). It is
nothing ("no thing') whatsoever, yet everything arises from it.3

Bindu means "dot". The red dot that the beautiful women of India traditionally
place on their forehead, is referred to as a bindu. Ek-bindu means the single dot,
the one point from which all arises: the perfect singularity. And Tantra frequently
describes the entire universe as no more than an ek-bindu. Both space and time are
born with the world, at the moment of the Big Bang; at the moment of the first
Point of Creation. There is no space or time "beyond" the Universe as such. When
we talk about the expanding Universe, we mean that the universe expands space in
itself, and this interior expansion (to use a figure of speech) unfolds time. In
Tantra, therefore, space and time is a continuum (santana), and this continuum is
no more nor less than a perfect singularity (ek-bindu).4

Taking the Yogacara and Tantric doctrine a step further, we can say as follows: the
entire Universe came into being out of a deep mystery that can only be called
emptiness (sunyata), about which all speculation must remain absent. A singularity
(bindu), the beginning of time itself, exploded into existence. That explosion, the
so called Big Bang, which continues to this day, is our Universe. At the very
instant the singularity unfolded into and became this Universe, the fundamental
ground (alaya) divided into subject (consciousness) and object (phenomena). In
cosmic terms, by the word consciousness we must here understand the total unified
field of perception (alaya-vijnana) and by "phenomena' likewise the whole total
unified field of phenomena (dharma-dhatu), within space-time.

Turning again to modern science, Big Bang theory states that at the beginning of
time, there burst forth a rapidly expanding field of chaotic and relatively
undifferentiated dense energy of immense proportions. This dense dark energy
expanded outward at colossal rates of speed, and as it did so, and continues to do, it
both quieted down and also began to attain order. The ancient Greek word, kosmos,
means "order". This order was something not made from the beginning, but
something formed in the evolving, differentiating universe as it aged.

As the Cosmos or Universe which we know of is fairly obviously ordered in all of

its parts, and the more immediate world that we live in is also quite ordered, it is
reasonable to assume that the ordering of the energy of Creation, and the formation
of stars and planets and living beings, is according to an intended plan. What we
mean, is that the natural laws governing the physics and mathematics of the

2
Universe had to have been in existence prior to creation itself. If the whole coming
into existence of the Universe were all just a blind accident, then nothing would
make any sense at all. It would almost be a sort of crazy bad joke. But the
observable world does make sense. It is simply impossible to believe that the order,
the harmony and system, that is observed in the existing Cosmos, could occur
randomly and without meaning. However, if it is not an accident, then what we see
is designed purpose, and this therefore implies a purposeful intelligence.

Designed purpose implies a system based on intelligent principle and natural law,
i.e., what in the East is called Dharma. When we observe the world, we see the
presence of intelligent principle and/or natural law everywhere.

The superimposition of Dharma on the universal design simply confirms what

Buddhist mystics have been saying for centuries.

Initially little order was apparent at all. For the first 100 million years after time
began, the universe consisted of only a handful of elements, mostly hydrogen and
helium, along with faint traces of lithium and beryllium, in a sort of super-dense
utterly dark soup. Then massive clouds of hydrogen started to form, collapse and
ignite in what rapidly became the blast furnaces of the first stars. When these
massive clouds compacted, the simple atoms that made up the hydrogen where
crushed together, burned and transmuted, into a growing concatenation of ever
more complex particles. At that moment the universe began to light up.

The first stars were unlike any in the universe today. They were hundreds of times
greater than our sun and millions of times brighter. They were the alchemical
furnaces in which all matter as we know it was formed. These giant masses of
compacted hydrogen burned for some three million years before their final
conversion into dead cinders. From their death, sprang forth life. Indeed, the very
elements of our bodies were churned out in those huge dying fireballs, burned out
star dust, that now exists in our blood, bones and fat, in the living cells of our flesh.
The same goes for the soil, rock and air of our Earth, all made from the embers of
giant stars that flared and faded millions of years in the cosmic past.

Our galaxy contains about 100 billion stars. Most of all the stars forming the
galaxy are concentrated in a thin disk about 100,000 light-years across and about
3,000 light years thick. These stars swim around the galactic centre in roughly
circular orbits. Our sun is just one of these billions of points of light. A further 10
billion stars form the galactic corona, a spherical magnetic envelope containing hot
gas that encompassing the entire galactic field.

3
Both western and eastern philosophy has long speculated on the existence of life
on other planets or in the cosmos itself. Buddhism has always taken for granted
that we are not alone in the universe, and that sentient beings are virtually infinite
in number throughout space. A Cosmos that starts out from a single, highly chaotic
Big Bang, then gradually forms into giant masses of collapsing fire-balls,
progressing steadily through complex chemistry to give birth to organic life,
cerebral intelligence and culture—with sentient beings who can look back and
speculate on the structure of it all—must have meaning. The fact that this
progression and steady self-organization evolves out of chaos naturally, without
external intervention from any known higher power, only adds to the wonder!

It is through the work of men like Stephen Hawking and similar scientists, as they
deal with particle physics and with cosmology in the quantum theoretical sense,
that we now may come to see just how ordered the present universal matter-energy
field is.5

If self-organization is inherent in the nature of the Cosmos, is order then the

intended state of things, or is it just an accident? The fact that the Universe is
governed by Dharma (natural law) would have us believe that ultimate order is
indeed the intended state. And if self-organization evolves out of initial chaos, as
we apparently see that it has, then this can be no accident. On the contrary, a
degree of intelligence must be present in the process itself. We must however be
careful here, since in using the word intelligence or consciousness we must not
limit such a concept to our own finite idea of a brain-based type of intelligence,
such as we experience in our human make-up. Nor a personal intelligence, the kind
of which some people attribute to their concept of a god active in nature. But the
word intelligence seems to be the nearest concept to what must be occurring when
we consider the ways that the observable universe is evolving.6

What is even more to the point, is that the very presence of this apparent
intelligence that is seemingly participant in the creation or self-organization of
order out of chaos in the world, implies a type of coherent volition or intentional
movement over time. Could this be so? And if so, then what we seem to be
discovering in our observation of the Cosmos, is the presence of an inchoate
emerging intelligence (buddhi), manifesting as volition (yatna) in the implicate
process. For there would be no Universe, as we observe it, without this organizing
principle, this movement through time towards growing Order, being present
within it.7

4
There is a phrase enunciated by Amritananda when expounding Tantric doctrine,
as follows: "The Lord (i.e., Adi-Buddha, primal Intelligence) produces Yatna
("intended design') from Prajna (wisdom), and the cause of pravritti and nirvitti
(the arising and destruction of the Universe) is Yatna."

A Universe operating under the super-imposition of Dharma, but involved in

evolving order out of chaos with meaningful purpose, must be a relatively
intelligent universe. But the key concept here is in the term evolution. Everything
that we can observe about the universe, and thus every hint we can glean
concerning the nature of the intelligence that would appear to be present in the
known universe, implies that this intelligence or consciousness is evolving.
Something within the make up of the entire world is accumulating or growing in its
total information content all the time, and this accumulation of content is adding
itself to the whole consistently. In other words, inherent intelligence is an emerging
state born of constant proliferation. We may recognize this in the fact that the
entire Universe is itself one total expanding system.

Consequently we can speculate as follows. The process of Creation is a continuous

one, in which Intelligence recreates itself out of itself, continuously, emerging
within the universe in the steady accumulation and proliferation of growing
information, stored in the total ground (alaya) of existence-as-such, and gathered
from the total interplay (lila) of all infinitely continuous series of interdependent
realities (pratitya-samutpada) that are occurring, each relative in their reality to
one another, throughout the whole of one space-time continuum. The ultimate
result of this self-organizing ordering process is the infinite evolution of
Consciousness (vijnana) in the Universe.

2. The Yogacara Model of Mind

Having speculated with science on the meaning of the Universe, let us turn to look
at some theories expounded by certain Yogacara masters in the past.

The Yogacara model of mind is unique to itself and different from the teachings of
any other school of Buddhism.8 It is, however, solidly founded on certain
references made by the historical Buddha that may be found in scripture. This is
true even for early scriptural statements in the Theravada and Sarvastivada canons.
For example, in the Saddhatu-sutra, mention is made of an eternal consciousness at
the back of all experience, and in the Digha-nikaya there are scattered
identifications of the absolute with an "invisible infinite consciousness shining
everywhere" (Pali: vinnanam anidassanam anatam sabbato prabham). Side by

5
side with the often asserted denial of ego (i.e., the doctrine of anatmya) there are to
be found statements, as shown by Conze (Recent Progress in Buddhist Studies,
The Middle Way 34, 1959-1960), affirming a fundamental consciousness (mula-
vijnana) as the permanent centre of personality. In some scriptural references,
translucent mind (prabhasvara citta) is shown to constitute an ultimate reality in
what otherwise is considered a conditional and transitory world.

There are a number of scholars, notably St-Schayer, Constantin Regamey and

Marylla Falk, who have made an effort to subject scriptural study to comparative
criticism, in an effort to penetrate to the early pre-canonical layer of Buddhism.
They tackled the problem by assuming that, where the common canon contains
tenets that conflict with the distinct scriptures of the Sarvastivada and Sthaviravada
schools—tenets which, nevertheless, appear to have been carried through into the
Vaipulya-sutras of the Mahayana school—the said tenets belonged to an earlier,
original layer of doctrinal exegesis. The result of their investigation was to disclose
a consistent belief, in the pre-canonical period, of an underlying condition of subtle
mind (citta) transcendent from, or prior to, the acknowledged five components
(skandhas) of ordinary life. This parallels fairly well certain statements to be found
in the Dharmapada, to the effect that mind is the master of everything, and that
everything ultimately derives from mind.

There is also the classic statement of the Buddha that may be found in the
Anguttara Nikaya, which says:

"Luminous is mind, brightly shining forth, but obscured by the attachments

reflected there in. Unlearned people do not understand this, therefore they do not
cultivate this mind.

"Luminous is this mind, brightly shining forth, ever free of the attachments
reflected there in. Noble followers of the way do understand this, therefore they
cultivate this mind."

Poetic contrast is created by these two verses, the first describing the state of
Samsara, or worldly created existence, and the second describing Nirvana, which is
transcendental and uncreate. Thus, in this statement from the Anguttara Nikaya,
"mind" is deliberately pointed out as the primal root (mula) or single common
ground (prakriti) of the fundamental opposites, Samsara and Nirvana.

Now, when we come to examine the classic Yogacara treatise known as

theBodhicittabhavana, written by the seventh century master Manjusrimitra, we are

6
told that mind and mental-activity arises in the Universe in three ways.9 The three
evolutes of mind (citta), as described by Manjusrimitra, are:

1. All-ground Consciousness (Alaya-vijnana).

2. Obscured-mentation (Klista-manas).
3. Manifest localized Consciousness (Pravritti-vijnana).

It is only the last, or third state of mind, which is ordinarily known to us. This third
evolute of mind-in-general, is the individual body-based consciousness of
everyday experience. Even though there is a great deal of mental activity and
memory that goes on beyond the veil of our conscious experience, who we are as
an organic sentient entity, is localized to the body.

But Manjusrimitra's discussion about mind does not start with an analysis of our
localized finite consciousness. Instead, he begins, as it were, at the very beginning,
in that he first lists what is called "all-ground consciousness". All-ground
(Skt. alaya, in Tibetan Kun-gzhi, the whole or entire basis) literally means the basis
of everything, the ground of the whole of existence.10 All-ground Consciousness
therefore means a consciousness that is co-extensive with the ground of all.
Furthermore, the Sanskrit word alaya carries the meaning of storehouse, or
receptacle. The alaya-vijnana is thus considered both the common ground and the
repository of everything.11

All-ground Consciousness is the complete store-house not only of the

imprints (vasanas, trace impressions) of every experience ever occurring, but also
retains the accumulated content of all sentient being's lives. This unimaginably vast
Universal Consciousness exists as an endless continuum from the very beginning
of beginningless time, until the final end thereof. Buddhism is imbued with the
idea that the world operates according to the law of cause and effect—the principle
of Karma. Every action therefore leaves its own vestigial imprint (vasana).

Even the tiniest shift in energy from the time of the inception of existence may be
included in what is here meant by karma or activity, and the Big Bang – the arising
of the natural forces or impulses (samskara) of Creation itself—that started it all, is
likewise part and parcel of causal proliferation. And every karma, even the most
imperceptible activity, leaves its imprint. Therefore Manjusrimitra argues:

"The vestigal imprints (vasanas) of the creative impulses (samskara) as a whole,

proliferate and accumulate. When the [compounded] power (prabhava) of this has
ripened [i.e., has obtained critical density] then Mind-in-itself (cittatva, essence of

7
mind, pure Being) shines forth (abhasa) as subject-identity (atmabhava) and
[external] objects..."

What Manjusrimitra is saying here, is that when critical density is reached, a

symmetry-collapse manifests, shattering the wholeness of original Intelligence
(vidya) and giving rise to the duality that we see in Creation. For Manjusrimitra
intelligence is primary and the world as such secondary. The world is the stage on
which the play of consciousness occurs; a consciousness born out of the collapse of
pre-Creation's latent state. This duality manifests therefore as all things throughout
the world—both as observing consciousness and so called external objects.

The split between the conscious intelligence emerging in the universal order and
all that consciousness may be aware of, gives rise to a fundamental obscuration
that lies at the basis of samsaric existence. This obscuration emerges as obscured
mentation (klista-manas). Manjusrimitra says:

"Identification (lamba) with the activity of the continuum (santana) of

accumulative vestigal imprints gives rise to manas, experienced in terms of a 'self'
(atman), which however it is not."

The further obscuring effect of the power of the creative impulses (samskara)
inherent in the nature of existence only further leads to subtle diminutions of states
of awareness, giving rise to the six sensory consciousnesses localized to sentient
life.

What Manjusrimitra seems to be saying here, is that from the first an intelligence is
emerging from the fabric of Creation, but this intelligence, which is one with the
inherent ground of existence itself, resulted from a breakdown of pre-cosmic
wholeness. An inherent flaw in this emerging Universal Mind, is itself the cause
for an obscured mentation to arise, which is the basic root of division between
subject and object, spirit and matter, consciousness and phenomena. Intelligence is
inherent to Creation, but somewhere along the way it became caught up in the
duality that creation itself necessitates.

Furthermore, when and where ever living organisms begin to form, or for example,
in the moment when conception occurs between ovum and spermatozoon, a further
diminution occurs, in the form of a quantum collapse throughout the generalized
field of obscured mentation (klista-manas). This transformation is an immediate
alteration from the state of undifferentiated monad (vyakta) to that of individual
particle (vyakti); in other words, from that of nonlocal unified field, to that of a
localized consciousness (pravritti-vijnana). Thus multitudes of conscious beings
8
take birth as distinct waves, or individual consciousnesses, within the otherwise
endless single field that forms the great swelling ocean of universal mind.

Manjusrimitra adds, "It is from that [i.e., from those three stages in the evolution of
mind], which has the characteristic of successive contamination, that conceptual-
constructs between 'self' (atma) and 'other' (dharma) continuously reiterate."

This outlines the threefold nature of intelligence in the Universe, as seen through
the teachings of Yogacara. Elaborating on the trend of the argument put forth by
the Yogacara masters, it would seem that the lives of sentient beings are part of a
complex energized feed-back loop between the All-ground Consciousness of the
whole universe, on the one hand, and the entire bio-mass of infinitely diverse
numbers of beings on the other, in which Klista-manas operates as the mediating
principle. Should we take this concept a step further, perhaps it might be worth
suggesting that the nature of individual sentient life is to act as experiential
sensory-units for the implicate totality? In which case, we are all part of a vast
unified field of energy that is mutually becoming ever more conscious, as it
progressively adds to the accumulated body of its over-all information.

As Manjusrimitra says:

"Once that intelligence becomes the site of unbounded activity, imprints (vasana)
proliferate endlessly and indeterminately. With the ripening (vipaka) of these
vestigal imprints, further conditions for their production multiply profusely. The
ripening of imprints are the co-operating conditions from whence the
concatenation [of effects resulting in the emergence] of organic beings (deha)
occurs."

3. Some Conclusions Drawn from Yogacara Theory

The above is indeed very profound. There are however, some further minor
conclusions that can be drawn from the Yogacara theory of mind.

Just as the bulk of information in your computer is not on the screen, so too the
bulk of information stored and manipulated in the Universe is not on the screen of
your consciousness. This implies a barrier between the so called bulk of
information not readily available to local consciousness, and local consciousness
itself. We may take it that this barrier is formed by the obscuring Manas.

If we view klista-manas as essentially what Western psychologists call the

unconscious mind, then it is possible to imagine the Manas as a semi-permeable
9
boundary between the individual consciousness and the universal ground of
intelligence in which the individual consciousness lives. Our body-based
consciousness is finite and local, whereas Universal Consciousness would certainly
be non-local and cosmically boundless. The unconscious mind might therefore be
viewed as a semi-bounded permeable veil mediating, as noted above, between the
lower (microcosm) and the higher (macrocosm) aspects of intelligence in the
universe. Were it not for the existence of this obscured state, there would be no
separation between individual consciousness and the general unified field of
consciousness existing throughout the Universe.

Our finite individual consciousness (pravritti-vijnana) encompasses only what is

made available to it through the five senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch),
and through what we call the mental-consciousness (mano-vijnana). Mental-
consciousness perceives only those thoughts, feelings and impulses that it is
capable of registering. This mental-consciousness is, more over, only aware of
those memories that it accesses from time to time. Consequently individual
consciousness is a limited gateway of perception.

Individual consciousness is said to consist of six types of consciousnesses. These

six are:

1. Mental-consciousness
2. Visual-consciousness
3. Auditory-consciousness
4. Smelling-consciousness
5. Tasting-consciousness
6. Tactile-consciousness

The mental-consciousness is that aspect of mind that is capable of both inductive

and deductive reasoning.

The unconsciousness or obscured-mind (klista-manas), on the other hand, is not

readily known to the mental-consciousness. We find buried within the
unconsciousness the long memory-stream of all our experiences, in minute detail.
Normally we cannot access these experiences or memories, except by unusual
processes, such as hypnosis, psychotherapy or meditation. But no experience has
ever been lost. The entire stream of who we are is all there in the unconscious
mind; every experience we have ever lived through. In this sense the Manas
appears similar to what the philosopher Leibnitz described as the monad; that
indivisible and impenetrable quantum of psychic energy that exists as the active

10
essence or continuum of individual life within the cosmic whole. It is the Manas
that contains the memories going right back to our birth, and even prior to that, the
experience of being in the womb and being born. The Manas is the collective
stream of who a person is, from life to life.

The obscured mind (klista-manas) or Monad is neither negative nor positive in and
of itself. It is simply an impartial function of universal intelligence, conditioned by
experience (karma) and natural law to react in a certain way. Its reasoning ability is
limited to the deductive mode only; it cannot reason inductively. This may be
proved by psychological testing under hypnosis.

The Manas does not speak to us in word-language. By this, we mean that it does
not know French or English, German or Spanish, nor any other word-language on
Earth. It can, however, speak through the language of symbols and icons. Insofar
as words may be used, such words and their related concepts will be used purely as
symbolic values. Thus the individual consciousness cannot communicate with the
Manas, except mystically, even though it is all a part of the one being.

If we do wish to communicate with the unconscious mind, our Manas, we have to

learn the language of symbolism, and know how to manipulate symbols so as to
talk to the depth. (This is where some occult tools adopted by Jungian psychology,
such as Tarot cards, can actually take on practical value, not for the low practice of
reading people's supposed fortunes, but rather as aspects of a symbolic language to
communicate with the obscured mind buried within.) Tantra uses symbolic
language and ritual conduct as one way of penetrating the unconscious barrier and
accessing higher Consciousness.

The vast unconsciousness (klista-manas) is far more complex, far greater in

principle, than the little day to day consciousness to which the individual is
normally bound.

4. Simultaneously Arising

There is yet another truth that Yogacara presents for our attention. This is the fact
of what is called simultaneous arising.

Attempt to imagine, for a moment, being conscious, when there is absolutely

nothing to be conscious of. Imagine seeing, when there is nothing to see; or
hearing, when there is absolutely no sound. Try to imagine experiencing a certain
feeling, or a thought, in a world where feeling and thought does not exist.

11
We are only conscious when there is something to be conscious of. If there is
absolutely nothing that can be observed, then no observation can be taking place
—without an observed, there can be no observer. And therefore vice versa, without
an observer there can be no observed. What this means is that if there is no light,
no sound, no scent, no taste, nothing to touch, and likewise no interior values such
as thought, feeling or desire, then one cannot even imagine being conscious,
because there is absolutely nothing to be conscious of.

Conversely, without consciousness there can not be any intelligible phenomena.

This is hard for individuals to recognize. The individual sees the world as external,
outside of consciousness. The world that the individual is conscious of, is made of
consciousness. What is called matter is nothing more than a certain form of energy,
and all energy has consciousness inherent in itself. Thus what the individual calls
the world is entirely consciousness. This is what we call the simultaneous arising
of subject and object. Or the simultaneous arising of consciousness and
appearances.

What this means is that consciousness is the very space in which the world moves,
the time in which it lasts. Consciousness is the love that gives the world life.

If there is no one to observe a tree falling in the woods, did the tree actually fall?
(This is a question recently asked, with some degree of tongue in cheek, by modern
quantum physicists.) The answer is, of course it did. But it did so, not because an
individual localized consciousness (pravritti-vijnana) did or did not observe it fall,
but because it's falling was part of the total experience of what the Universe is as a
whole. In other words, it falls, precisely because it's falling was part and parcel of
the consistent and evolving unified field (alaya) of Existence.

Thus, Yogacara doctrine puts forth the axiom that neither subject (noumenal
consciousness) nor object (phenomenal existence) can exist independently. Subject
and object exist simultaneously. One outcome of this approach, is that if subject
and object are mutually entangled, then this proves the existence of Universal
Mind (mahat) as postulated in Yoga philosophy.

In other words, if simultaneous arising is a fact, then a single unified field of

consciousness must exist; where it not so, then the whole basis of simultaneous
arising would break down, and the world would not be as it is.

12
So let's take a moment to ponder what this principle of simultaneous arising really
means in terms of alaya-vijnana.

According to the reasoning stated above, all-ground consciousness as subject, and

all the phenomena of the Universe as object, must be born simultaneously in the
first moment of creation. Therefore we can understand that both consciousness and
appearance are mutually evolving forms of a single experience contained in the
whole. Both are mutually evolving, that is, from a highly chaotic inchoate energy
state, toward an ever more organized ordered state of coherence, exactly as
suggested in the first portion of this essay. But here you can see how this must be,
since in terms of simultaneous arising, the total information packet of universal
consciousness can never be greater than the total evolved state of the expanding
Universe.

So, while consciousness on the cosmic plane is evolving and growing from a less
sentient toward an ever more sentient, self-organized state, on the individual plane
the subject-object dichotomy of this consciousness acts as the support for our
individual experience of the Universe being something out there, and ourselves
being something here, as distinct and separate entities. When this dichotomy,
rooted in the Manas itself, reverts back to a singularity through transformation of
individual consciousness, then at that very moment self-reflexive awareness
(samvedana, i.e., Enlightenment) emerges in individual consciousness. Although
the totality of the Universe in the sense of Universal Consciousness vs. All
Phenomena will continue for many more billions of years in celestial time, the
individual sentient being will have awoken to the underlying reality in which both
are simultaneous. Essentially this is achieved in the same way as the quantum
particle reverting to field symmetry, except here we are not talking of physics, but
rather of metaphysics.

When the subject-object dichotomy converts to its former state of symmetry, by

reverting back upon itself, it is NOT a case, as some believe, that the projected
material universe dissolves into Mind—that Ultimate Reality is seen to be Mind.
This view is what is known as the teaching of the Cittamatra School,12 which arose
as a popular offshoot of the Yogacara. This teaching of the Cittamatra School has
an inherent flaw in it. This flaw is what is known in philosophical language as
idealism. A lot of seekers get caught at this point in an error that incapacitates their
insight and consequently blinds them to making a breakthrough.

Philosophic idealism (cittamatra) is not what Vasubandhu and Manjusrimitra, the

original masters of Yogacara, were teaching.

13
The teaching of Yogacara says that Consciousness and the phenomenal Universe
comes into existence simultaneously. What comes into being simultaneously, must
also pass away simultaneously.

The totality is born, the totality will pass away. The totality will be born again, and
it will pass away again. In other words, the entire Universe (which with us,
includes Consciousness) is an endless series of oscillations: of Universes being
born and dying, endlessly. This immeasurable cycle is what is called Samsara. The
Universe awakes, endures for a while, then returns to a latent (pralaya) state, only
to be repeated on the ceaseless ground (alaya) of absolute Being.

If we can imagine it, the oscillating universe, the immeasurable cycle of Samsara,
makes a beautifully coherent sine wave, occurring in the wisdom (prajna) of
Enlightened-mind (bodhicitta). To the extent that one grasps the concept that this
sine wave of consciousness is nothing more than pure cosmic ideation (visva-
vikalpa) arising in the total set of primordial Intelligence (vidya), then it is possible
to appreciate both the creation and the destruction of the observed universe as a
mere play in Great Emptiness (sunyata). When both subject and object cancel each
other out, what we are left with is nondual Ultimate Reality (dharmata), from
which everything has come forth in the first place.

Footnotes

1 For an enjoyable discussion of these personalities, see John Robert Christianson, On Tycho's Island, Tycho
Brahe, Science & Culture in Sixteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 2000

2 Joseph Silk, The Big Bang, W.H.Feeman & Co., New York 2001

3 See N.C.Panda, The Vibrating Universe, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1995, 2000

4 N.C. Panda, Maya in Physics, Motilal Banarsidass, Dehli 1991

5 Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality, Anchor Books, New York 1985, 1987. Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of
Physics, Simon & Schuster, NY 1966

6 Lee Smolin, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Basic Books, NY 2001

7 See, Davies & Brown, The Ghost in the Atom, Cambridge University Press, 1986.

8 for a general introduction, see Ashok Kumar Chatterjee, The Yogacara Idealism, Motilal Banarsidass, Dehli
1962

14
9 Manjusrimitra is here repeating what already had been formulated by the early Yogacara masters, Asanga
and Vasubandhu. See Asanga, Abhidharma-samuccaya, The Compendium of the Higher Philosophy,
originally translated into French by Walpola Rahula and English version by Sara Boin-Webb, Asian
Humanities Press, Fremont, California 2001

10 For more detailed discussion of the Tibetan perspective, see: Tsong-kha-pa, Ocean of Eloquence, translated
by Gareth Sparham, State University of NY Press, 1993. Maitreya, Asanga, Distinguishing the Middle from
the Extremes, Ch. 5, translated by Michele Martin, Marpa Institute, Kathmandu 1991. Gadjin M. Nagao,
Madhyamika and Yogacara, State University of NY Press, 1991

11 Cf. Susumu Yamaguchi, Mahayana Way to Buddhahood, Buddhist Books International, Tokyo 1982

12 Cf., Demonstration of Consciousness Only by Hsuan Tsang, in F. H. Cook, Three Texts on Consciousness
Only, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley, California 1999

15