The word “purusha” means man or masculine. What is referred to as the “purusha” is the cause, the main induction which sets things going. When the existence was primordial, when it was not in a state of creation, what caused it to snap up and suddenly become creation is referred to as “purusha”. Whether a human being is born, or an ant is born, or a cosmos is born, it is happening the same way. In terms of human understanding, the induction which sets things going is referred to as male or masculine.
The whole human population happened because of a single act of a man, because of copulation, isn’t it? That is not a great act; it could happen in any way. It could happen irresponsibly, forcefully, in anger, in hatred — it need not necessarily happen beautifully. Whichever way you do it, population will come.
But what happened in the womb cannot happen whichever way. It has to happen in a very orderly and beautiful way otherwise it will not work. If it goes wrong or happens violently, life will not happen.
So when we look at this basic process that set creation going, that process is just like one act. That is known as “purusha”, but what takes this on and slowly evolves into life is called “prakriti” or nature. There is a whole grace to it. That is why nature is represented as feminine; the symbolism and the comparison is very much there. It is exactly like that.
In yoga, we say that “shakti” is the “prakriti”, Shiva is the “purusha”. When we say “shakti”, we are referring to that energy which makes every atom work. That energy which makes the atom work is the same energy which makes the cosmos and everything in the existence happen.
This primordial energy is always identified as feminine. It is just lying there, throbbing, but it cannot do anything by itself. It needs this induction.
Today, scientific experiments have shown that if you take a state of vacuum, protons and neutrons are constantly springing up and going away, appearing and disappearing at random, without any particular direction. If you apply an electrical charge outside the vacuum, suddenly all these protons and neutrons start going with a certain pattern, in the form of an ellipse. So “prakriti” is just primordial energy. An outside charge happened. The moment it happened, everything started moving in an ellipsoid.
Once the elliptical movement comes, it is the beginning of creation. Initially it was energy, slowly it became matter, and that is how the whole cosmos happened like this.
