How perfect is the
'Perfect' Prayer?

by Peter Bonnici

Part II

Part I

6. The mantra, pUrNam adaH, pUrNam idam, is the most succinct expression of the truth of the relation between the individual, the creation and Reality. An enquiry into this simple statement reveals the profundity of the Vedic vision that banishes self-ignorance with awe-inspiring brevity – using just one noun, two pronouns, two verbs and one emphatic particle.

pUrNam (completeness, wholeness, limitless fullness) (noun)
adaH (that) (pronoun 1)
idam (this) (pronoun 2)
udacyate (arises/comes forth) (verb 1)
AdAya (having taken/having removed) (verb 2)
avashisyate (remains) (verb 3)
eva (alone) (particle)

To begin, the common understanding of the noun and two pronouns need to be re-assessed and re-defined…

7. ‘Perfect’ is not a helpful translation of the noun 'pUrNam' in this context. pUrNam is more accurately translated here as ‘completeness’, ‘limitlessness’. One can have a perfect sphere and a perfect gentleman. But completeness leaves nothing out. If it did, then it would not be complete. The first two statements now become: 'That is complete. This is complete…'

8. idam, ‘this’, means ‘this manifest creation’ (as stated in the IshopaniShad: 'idam sarvam'). It stands for everything that can be objectified now and in the future. In short, idam is mithyA jagat. So pointing to the surroundings is okay; but, only half-okay because mithyA also covers everything about myself that can be objectified – my body, my mind, my senses, vital force, etc. ALL that is not-I (individual as well as universal) is meant by the word idam.

9. adaH, ‘that’, must, by remainder, stand for everything that is not capable of being objectified. Instead of pointing to something remote in terms of distance, it indicates something remote in terms of understanding – the objectifier, the subject, ‘I’. Understanding what ‘I’ really is, seems to be a distant prospect. I take myself to be body mind amalgam, despite scripture telling me otherwise, leaving a large gap between belief and teaching. That ‘I’, which is distant in understanding, is what the mantra means by adaH, ‘that’.

Oops, we’ve hit a bit of a snag…

10. Comprehensive as idam and adaH are, we’re left with an apparent contradiction in the statements: pUrNam adaH and pUrNam idam. The contradiction is as follows: if idam is everything except the ‘I’, then it cannot be pUrNam because there can be nothing outside pUrNam. Equally if the subject ‘I’, adaH, is distinct from all the perceived objects, then it too cannot be pUrNam for the same reason. So does this mean that this mantra is not tenable?

11. The water-wave metaphor can once more be pressed into use. Take the point of view of a wave: it may accept that it is water, but it still sees itself as different from the vast ocean. But from the point of view of water, all waves are encompassed and so is the whole ocean. All waves arise out of water, are pervaded totally by water and resolve back into water. Water is the same truth of every wave and is thus the truth of the ocean. Similarly, if we consider pUrNam adaH and pUrNam idam from the point of view of idam and adaH, there is an apparent problem because they both exclude the other and are therefore not complete. But if we start from the limitless pUrNam, then everything is included. The seeming differences between idam (the world) and adaH (I) are swallowed up by pUrNam.

Isn’t this just a semantic trick?

The Vedic thinkers employ a technique called ‘shaking the post’ in their discourses to test their propositions. Like the person who bangs a post into the ground gives it a good shake it to see how solidly it is embedded, so too arguments are given a good shake to test their robustness. Below we employ this to test the strength of vedAnta’s propositions.

12. SHAKE 1. The question that arises is: why bother to use two separate words that cause so much confusion, when it would be easier to say, ‘Everything is pUrNam’?

Answer: Because this mantra starts from where we are. Experience tells me: there’s me and there’s everything else that’s not me. If the intention is to show the essential unity, then it is not useful to deny the perceived differences as non-existent, because at one level they DO exist. The intention is to show that they have no absolute reality: they are only apparently real. So we start from apparent difference to end up at absolute non-difference.

13. SHAKE 2. Common experience throws up another problem with the statements. I see myself as incomplete, limited. And I spend my life struggling to overcome this sense of limitation. I am limited by space (I am bounded by skin), by time (I was born and will die) and by objects (I cannot occupy the space occupied by something else). Observation also shows that everything that is not me also has similar limitations. And yet the mantra says that I, and the universe, are pUrNam, without limitation – contradicting experience. So how can I be pUrNam? Equally, how can the bounded jagat be pUrNam?

Answer: Whilst experience backed by reason shows that everything in the jagat has limitations, only experience tells us that ‘I’, aham, is limited – this is NOT backed by logic. I believe that ‘I’ am limited because that is how I experience myself, but logic says:

• There can be just one experiencer, one ‘I’;


• If that ‘I’ has a boundary, it means there is something outside the ‘I’ to experience it, and that new experiencer will be saying: 'I have experienced the "I" ';


• This makes the second ‘I’ the experiencer and that ‘I’ then needs to be without limit;


• If not, we regress endlessly looking for the ultimate ‘experiencer’;


• Thus we conclude: I, the ultimate experiencer, is limitless (pUrNam).

14. SHAKE 3. Despite this rational conclusion we still lean towards experience that insists on reminding us of our limitation. It’s like insisting the sky is blue despite knowing for a fact, as proved by science, that the sky is not! This shows that fact doesn’t necessarily remove false experience. If experience is so hard to dislodge, then what can help me discover the limitlessness of ‘I’?

Answer: The words of shruti are the pramANa for self-knowledge. A pramANa is the unique means of valid knowledge. Eyes, for example, are the pramANa for the perception of light – only eyes perceive light, ears won’t do. So too shruti is the only pramANa for dis-covering knowledge of Reality. shruti does not tell us that the experience of difference is non-existent: it tells us that it is not absolutely real. Having faith in shruti comes in handy in dealing with doubts and clearing misconceptions.

shruti teaches that pUrNam is brahma through the upaniShad statement: satyam, j~nAnam, anantam brahma. (existent, conscious, boundless is brahman). anantam = brahma. pUrNam is a synonym for anantam. Therefore pUrNam = brahma.

shruti also says that brahma (pUrNam) is the material cause of creation (i.e. the ‘stuff’ from which the creation is made) through the statement: yato va imani bhutani jayante… (brahma is that from which these beings are born, that by which, having been born, they are sustained, that towards which they return after having gone forth.) So pUrNam is the material cause of idam and adaH.

shruti also teaches by inference that pUrNam brahma is the efficient cause of creation (i.e. the intelligence that brings it about) through the statement: so kamayata bahu syam prajayeyeti. (Let me be many, let me be born as many.) pUrNam is thus implied to be the efficient cause of idam and adaH.

Logic is also called upon to reinforce that pUrNam brahma is both the material and efficient cause of creation. Our normal experience is that the material and efficient cause are different entities. The material cause of a wooden door is wood, the efficient cause is the carpenter. But in the case of the creation, if pUrNam brahma (the efficient cause) has to use some other material, then brahman cannot be pUrNam as there is something other than brahma for brahma to use as the material for the creation. This cannot be so as pUrNam does not admit of any other. brahma thus must be the material cause as well as efficient cause of adaH and idam.

Two things having the same material and the same maker are the same. Thus, despite the experienced differences and limitations, adaH and idam are identical in their completeness. Completeness does not deny difference, it does not deny experience; but it denies that the difference is absolute: it is purely cognitive. Even though I see the sky as blue, I KNOW it is colourless, and therefore accept that it colourless – this is maturity: not going against the facts. Similarly, if one trusts in shruti, one accepts the completeness of ‘I’, despite all that experience indicates.

Part III

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