3. Saadaakhya tatwa:

In this “will” is predominant. In other words, Iccha shakthi is predominant here. We desire to have something. Let us say that we desire to have “this”, which has been referred in the beginning of part II of this subject. You have still attachment to the worldly things at this stage. You are still attached with “this”. You still say “I”. For example, you still say that ‘this’ car belongs to ‘me’. Here the emphasis is more on ‘I’ than ‘this’. Why ‘I’ is predominant? It is Iccha shakthi that is predominant here. Only ‘I’ can have desires or iccha. “This” is the object and “I” is the subject. Subject desires to have some object. For example you desire to have a car. Here ‘you’ (that is I) is the subject and car is the object. This stage of desire or will or Iccha leads to the next stage.

4. Aishwarya tatwa:

In the saadaakhya tatwa you had desire or will to create some thing that is to possess some object. In the above stage you did not have the specific idea about a car. At that time you did not finalize which brand of car you have to buy. In this stage of Aishwarya tatwa jnana shakthi is predominant. Jnana means knowledge. The “I”, the subject gains better knowledge about the object “this”. So ‘this’ being clearly defined here. You get to understand the different brands of cars. Having obtained the knowledge of the object, you move to the next stage.

5. Suddhavidya tatwa:

Here kriya shakthi is predominant. Let us see how. In this stage ‘I’ and ‘this’ are equally realised. ‘I’ the subject defines clearly the object which is ‘this’. You (‘I’) have decided to buy a car. You have not decided on the brand of the car in the earlier stage. In this stage, after gaining sufficient knowledge about the cars, you proceed to finalise the brand of the car. Let us say you have decided on the brand ABC. Your idea of buying a car is being decided. The subject finalises the object. “I” finalises “this”. Before proceeding further, let us review what we have discussed so for. In the above three tatwas are directly related to the three shakthies viz Iccha, jnana, and kriya which have been discussed in part III. We have also seen that Saadaakhya tatwa is ‘I’ is predominant. In Aishwarya tatwa ‘this’ is predominant and in Suddhavidya tatwa both ‘I’ and ‘this’ are equal. The will of the ‘I’ leads to knowledge about ‘this’ and the ‘I’ decided to act to get the ‘this’. The next five tatwas are grouped under “maya” or illusion.

Understanding maya is very important. Understanding maya as illusion alone leads to self realisation, which we have discussed in the earlier postings. Only maya leads to Brahman and without understanding maya’s importance, we can never have emancipation. Maya always conceals the Brahman residing within us. Whatever we are discussing is only to understand maya. If maya goes away, we can always identify the inner Self. Maya is the covering on the Self. It is like ‘kavacham’ or covering made up of gold and fixed on an idol in a temple. We are happy on seeing idol with gold covering and we fail to understand that the idol inside is responsible for this covering. We are deceived by the glittering gold. Let us take another example. The banyan tree has grown from a tiny seed. On seeing the lush green tree, we forget the tiny seed that was responsible for this huge tree. Seed is the inner Self and the foliage is maya. We will discuss more about maya and other tatwas in the subsequent parts.