The Concept of Bindu

● And now we will see how bindu addresses this duality of nature :-

(1) We first look at the Brahmabindu Upanisad which literally means “esoteric instruction on the bindu that signifies the (higher) Brahman” [14]. In the first shlöka the duality is said to emanate from the mind – the very seat of consciousness :-

manaao ih iWivaQaM p`ao>M SauwM caaSauwmaova ca. ASauwM kamasaMklpM SauwM kamaoivavaija-tma\.1.

The Mind, they say, is twofold, either impure or pure.
Impure, when it imagines desires; Pure, when it is free from desires.

The connotation is that desire is the first disturbance in consciousness and this can have two aspects, viz. desire in which the mind is involved, and the other is, desire in which the mind is not involved. So here this shlöka is pointing towards the idea of niśkāmkarm, or action without worrying about its fruit or end-result. We can also see the first hint of the ‘order-disorder’ dichotomy. (note: talk about ‘rhythms of nature’)[15]

The literal word for dimension in Sanskrit is parimāṇ ( pirmaaNa ) . The suffix pari ( pir ) means ‘extensive’, ‘surrounding’ or in terms of quantity ‘substansive’ and again is ‘measure’. Thus parimān could apply to space, weight or in general to any measurable entity and this is to be achieved by division.
This is a natural stop for ‘Dimension – I’. We will look at the unfolding of the dimensions in the next talk and see how the concept of bindu first leads us to a duality and then a multiplicity that eventually encompasses this entire conscious universe – the māyā .