Research paper No 1944

Written by London swaminathan

Date: 20^th June 2015

Uploaded in London at 21-50

‘Yat Pinde tad Brahmaande’

It is a well-known fact that Alexander the Great developed great interest in Hindu ascetics because of his mentor Aristotle who was trained in Plato’s Academy. Plato and his Guru Socrates were interested in Hindu Upanishads. Vegetarianism, Rebirth, Upanishadic question and answer method (which the westerners named as Socratic Method later) and several other Hindu principles entered the Greek world through these people. Since Hindus migrated to Greece and other European countries long before Socrates and Pythagoras, we find lot of Sanskrit and Tamil words in Greek language (I have already given the list of Tamil words in Greek in my earlier post).

Vedic dog story (Sarama=Hermes), Five elements (Pancha Bhuta, Earth is Mother (Gaia = Atharva Veda—Mata Bhumi Putoham) and hundreds of things were borrowed by the Greeks from India. Max Muller also acknowledged it. But not many people know the concept of microcosm and macrocosm also went to Greece from India.

Tamils say that “Andaththil Ullathu Pindathilum Ullathu” = What is found in the Universe is in your Body.  Yat Pinde Tad Brahmaande is the Sanskrit saying. Sufi Muslims, who are 50 percent Hindus in their approach to spiritualism, also had similar principle.

Microcosm and Macrocosm

Microcosm means ‘little world’. Greeks applied it to man. They considered man as a world in miniature like the Hindus. Macrocosm means the earth or the whole universe.

Sanskrit scholar Radha Vallabh Tripathi, in his article ‘Vedic World View and Modern Science’, says,

“The scientists who attempted to see the atom found a world within it that could not be described in ordinary language. They saw everything within the atom – the speed, energy, waves and matter all mixed. They found that if they could know the atom, they could know the whole truth of the cosmos. Yat pinde tad Brahmande  – that which is in microcosm is in the macrocosm – that is what the ancient seers of the Upanishads had said  — One is in all, All is in one. This is the essence of Quantum theory also. The entire universe is inter- connected, inter-related and inseparable. In the same way, connection between modern physics and Indian mysticism has also become inseparable.

The matter inside an atom cannot be said to be moving nor can it be said to be static. This is how the Upanishads describe the Ultimate reality. “It is neither gross, nor fine, neither short nor long, neither growing red like fire, nor fluid like water, neither shadow, nor darkness, neither air nor space, unattached, without taste, without smell,  without eyes, without ears, without voice, without mind,  without radiance, without breath, without mouth, without measure, having no within and no without. It eats nothing, nothing eats it (Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad III.8.8, translated by Dr S Radhakrishnan). This is the oldest of the Upanishads dated to 850 BCE.

It says

“It is full, this is full, from fullness, fullness proceeds. If we take away the fullness of fullness, even fullness then remains (ibid.V.2.1)

It is unmoving; it is one and it is faster than mind. (Isopanishad)”.

The more we understand science the better we understand our Vedas. Light is the fastest thing in the universe according to physics. But Hindus believe that Mind is faster than anything else. Mind can travel to a star 500 million light years away in a fraction of a second. The power of thought is not fully understood by the western scientists yet.

Chandogya Upanishads:

1.   Om. There is in this city of Brahman an abode, the small lotus of the heart; within it is a small akasa. Now what exists within that small akasa, that is to be sought after, that is what one should desire to understand.

3. “As far as, verily, this great akasa extends, so far extends the akasa within the heart. Both  heaven and earth are contained within it, both fire and air, both  sun and moon, both lightning and stars; and whatever belongs  to him (i.e. the embodied creature) in this world and whatever  does not, all that is contained within it (i.e. the akasa in the  heart).”

-Chandogya Upanishad, 8-1-1/3

“Indian thought conceived an intimate unity between the macrocosm of nature and microcosm of the human body, between the ‘Adibhautika’ and the ‘Adhyaatmika’ aspects of nature; the latter is an epitome of the former. The gods thus represent not only the forces of external nature mythically conceived, but also the sensory and thought forces within the man” – says Swami Ranganadananda (The Message of the Upanishads).

Vedanta upholds the unity of the macrocosm and the microcosm. Swami Vivekananda says,

“The whole of the universe is built upon the same plan as a part of it.  So, just as I have a mind, there is a cosmic mind. As in the individual, so in the universal. There is the universal gross body; behind that there is a universal fine body; behind that a universal mind; behind that universal intelligence. And all this is in nature, the manifestation of nature, not outside of it”.

In another talk, he says,

Truth may be one and yet many at the same time, that we may have different visions of the same truth from different stand points. Just as nature is unity in variety an infinite variation in the phenomenal – as in and through all these variations of the phenomenal runs the infinite, the Unchangeable, the Absolute Unity, so it is with every man; the microcosm is but a miniature repetition of the macrocosm; in spite of all these variations, in and through them all runs this eternal harmony, and we have to recognise this”.

Garuda Purana

In layman’s term we can compare the rivers on the earth to blood vessels in the human body, mountains to chest and plants to hairs etc.

Garuda Purana has a lengthy comparison:

Garuda Purana compares the 14 lokas – 7 worlds under and 7 worlds up – to parts of the body from foot to head; E.g.sole-Atalam, head- Satya lokam.

Then it compares it 7 Dwipas – from Jambu Dwipa to Pushkara Dwipa to other parts of body.

Then it compares the seven seas to seven liquids in body such as urine to salt sea, water to milky ocean, blood to curd sea etc. These seven seas are listed in all our Puranas/ mythologies.

It continues comparing the two chakras in the body Nada Chakra to sun and Bindu chakra as moon. Other seven planets are also compared with eyes ( Mars), Heart (Mercury), Mouth (Jupiter), Semen (Venus), Belly Button (Saturn), Face (Rahu) and Leg (Ketu).

We may not know the link between each part of the body and different things. But the interesting thing is that Hindus saw the entire universe in human body. The universe is divided into 14 worlds in Hindu mythology. Neither the Greeks nor any other culture has gone to this extent in the subject of microcosm and macrocosm. Since Upanishads were written before the Greeks started writing, it is certain that they borrowed this idea from us along with the principle of Panchabhuta/five elements.

Sufi Saints

Philosopher and ex President of India Dr S Radhakrisnan says (on Sufism),

“The one aim of all the orders was to lead men along the path whose goal is the realization of the unitive state. The theory is that man is the microcosm, in contrast to the universe the macrocosm, contains within himself the elements of the world of command (Alam-I-amr) and the world of creation (Alam—Khalq). The first is the world of spirit and the second of matter. The five spiritual elements in man are heart, soul, consciousness, the hidden, the deeply hidden. The five material elements are ego and the four elements – earth, water, fire and air (History of Philosophy: Eastern and Western, Edited by Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan)