Monistic Dualism in Higher Hinduism
In a beautiful tale about the life of Acharya Shankar, perhaps the greatest proponent of Advaita Vedanta and non-dualism in the Hindu philosophy and theology, we meet a beautiful concept - the understanding of the universe and its mechanism through the paradigm of twin causes, the Purusha (the passive principle), and the Prakriti (the active principle).
The Story
Shankar was a sage who championed the view that other than Brahman, there is nothing. Nothing else is required other than the background reality, the noumena that acts as the support and firmament of all that is existent. This view of the supreme reality, the uncreated creator of the universe devoid of all qualities, is known as the concept of Nirguna Brahman.
However, as he would realize later in his life, he was clearly mistaken. A more elegant theory of reality arose in his mind, and some say that this was triggered by a supernatural incident (although there's hardly anything supernatural about it).
One day, after taking his bath at the bank of the holy Ganga in Varanasi, Acharya Shankar was ascending the stairs of the ghat. On the way, he met a woman, who kept a corpse of a man on her lap, evidently her recently-deceased husband.
The Acharya asked "Mother, can you kindly shift the corpse to a side? I have to go on my way, and it is improper for me to just walk over it".
The woman replied "Why son? Ask the corpse itself to shift to a side. Why ask me?".
The Acharya replied "Mother, I sympathize with you, but it appears that you've lost your mind in your grief. How can the corpse move by itself? It doesn't have the energy to do so".
The woman smiled, "But my son, you preach and teach that everything in the world, visible and invisible, perceivable or imperceivable, thinkable or unthinkable, is Brahman. So, naturally your reasoning implies that the corpse is also Brahman. As such, why can't it move?".
The Acharya was dumbfounded - he realized that he had made a crucial mistake in his philosophical discourse. Only the passive principle, the Brahman or Purusha alone can not function. It requires something else, the active principle or energy, to accomplish the task of creating, maintaining and dissolving the cosmos! But then again, how could the simple rural woman in front of him know what he, the most revered among the learned scholars, didn't?
It is said that when the Acharya looked again, he saw that the woman sitting in front of him was none other than the great Goddess Shakti, shown in popular religion as the wife of Shiva (Brahman). She alone is the indestructible cause of every effect, and is the influence of Shiva, indistinguishable from Shiva in the noumenal world beyond time and space, but existing in a separate form in the phenomenal world for its maintenance. And the corpse was Shiva in disguise.
The Philosophy
The Hindu philosophy and especially higher Hinduism (which is beyond the apparent polytheism, idolatry, superstitions), are rather hard to master. I say this not as a Brahmin myself, but rather as a neutral observer of the glorious religion.
Contrary to what many non-Hindus think, Hinduism is not exactly a religion. It's more like a way of life, a system of many different and versatile philosophies that aims to understand the nature of the earth and heavens.
As I narrated the story here, you can see that if you're not sufficiently familiar with the details of Hindu philosophy and especially the Vedantas, these concepts might be totally alien to you.
In the story, we initially find that Acharya Shankar was of the opinion that everything other than the true form of the Brahman, is a lie. But upon realizing what the Goddess told him, he understood his own mistake, and realized that far from being false, the various forms of the visible phenomenal world are actually manifestations of the Brahman. And as such, how can they be false?
Shakti or what we'd call energy in the modern scientific terms, is indestructible. It is more versatile than matter, it can neither be created nor destroyed, but it is actually just another form of matter. I am not saying that the Indian philosophers knew that Einstein mathematically concluded later, but just that the elegance of their rationalism is something to reflect upon.
