Prakriti and Purusha

What is natural and what is unnatural

From the view of yogic science everything in the physical world is by definition “natural.” Nothing of this world is “unnatural.” It is all viewed as prakriti, or prakritik. Prakriti refers to that which takes form and manifests in physical nature. It is consciousness that has been differentiated, and is also spoken of as a primary substance or substrate.

Whether it is an organic tomato or a nuclear weapon, both come about through the natural world. The difference is the nuclear weapon has been wrought through millennia of human ingenuity, and yet however corrupted, that ingenuity is also consistent with the changing order of nature. Humanity has made the grave mistake of disassociating itself with nature, thinking itself somehow above or removed from nature. This disassociation is what contributes to the ever increasing destruction of our mental and physical environments.

The term “unnatural” is mostly used to discredit and condemn others, as in “homosexuality is unnatural,” or “biracial marriage is unnatural,” or “veganism is unnatural.” There is nothing unnatural about these things. They are happening in nature. Look around.

From the view of yogic science, the unnatural is not of this physical world. It is of purusha. Purusha is pure, undifferentiated consciousness. I’ve also heard it referred to as “spirit substance”, as it is infinite, imperceptible, unknowable to the mind and the senses because it has no physical attributes.

This above description is what I would describe as unnatural (if I were forced to use the term) or nonnatural, being that it has no effect on nature in and of itself. While emotions such as joy, anger and fear are non-physical, they still do not qualify as purusha because those emotions come about through the dynamic tension of opposites, which implies differentiation, which implies prakriti. Consciousness must differentiate in order to know itself, much in the same way it would require another eyeball to see your own eyeball. The moment there is differentiation, there is duality. The moment there is duality there is no more purusha, only prakriti.

I often tell students that yoga is “supernatural,” as the practice commits one towards moving their life energies beyond the deterministic cycles of prakriti, whereby most surrender to the effects of gravity, time, cultural myth, and death. Yoga is a practice whereby one’s consciousness is released from prakriti so it can return to purusha.

Hopefully this makes sense.

Namaskaram to you all.