Prakrithi: Part Two: The Eternal Yearning

Photo: Geoffrey Dunn

Purusha and Prakrithi are the two principle experiential domains of reality. Purusha is the movement out of form, out of time and of space, and into the movement beyond all paradigms including those of beginnings and endings, and source and destination. Prakrithi is the movement into form which includes universes, the earth, the mind, senses, thoughts, languages and our body. It is desire or yearning that moves Purusha into form or manifestation, and it is desire or yearning that moves Prakrithi towards dissolving of form.

Yearning is the fabric of reality. It infuses all form, it moves through the elements and it is the source of thought and language. The primal yearning is that of the intimate seeking of Purusha and Prakrithi for each other, and this underpins all other movement.

The yearning is eternal, because it is unconditional. It moves in the eternity of form and dissolving of form, and cannot end by fulfilment. The movement of contemplation in Prakrithi is to align with this dance of yearning.

What does it mean for us as humans with bodies, and minds and senses to inquire into this yearning? We could start with a story—and so we have the wondrous story of Radha’s eternal yearning for Krishna. Krishna moves in and out of Radha’s life, as she does in his. Her yearning is painted in the sensuous colours of spring, the cool breezes of the Yamuna river, the scent of sandalwood and the voluptuousness of body.

We could start with the Shalabhanjika, the exquisite sculptures of dancers embedded in trees. When we move the physicality of Shalabhanjika, we feel the yearning of our body when it becomes the movement of the tree as it twists beneath the ground, the arch of the trunk as it yields to the winds and the longing of the branches as it reaches for the sky.

Moving the dance of yearning is to taste how every movement of nature is infused with this feeling. It is an invitation to perceive the material as an emotional experience. We do this by stepping beyond the form, the meaning and the stories we have inherited about reality. This is the movement from the head/intellect/language towards feeling/body/movement.

The dance of Prakrithi is the movement of alignment to the feelings that shape action, events and the course of reality. We taste what it is to “know” the same impulse that is both the source of form and the end of form, and how this initiation is profoundly poignant, sensuous and abounding with beauty.