There's this thing that advaita says, that makes no sense. On one hand they say that everything around us is Brahman AKA Atman, including our mind, subtle body, mountains, trees etc. And then they make a distinction between Atman and the objects of this universe.
Atman or Brahman is pure consciousness that pervades everything including energy and matter, which are its gross forms or manifestations.
We now know that all matter is energy at a subtler level thanks to Einsteins discoveries in the twentieth century. The ancient and modern enlightened masters say similarly that both energy and matter are grosser manifestations of pure consciousness which seems to be the fundamental state or subtlest state.
I have already remarked about this with examples in this
post.
Does Atman travels after death in advaita vedanta?
In nuclear energy, you are interested in the energy contained within a solid block of uranium, not in the block itself.
Here is an excerpt of Swami Vivekananda's interaction with Nikola Tesla when he was in the west....
Swami Vivekananda, late in the year l895 wrote in a letter to an English friend, "Mr. Tesla thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy. I am to go and see him next week to get this new mathematical demonstration. In that case the Vedantic cosmoloqy will be placed on the surest of foundations. I am working a good deal now upon the cosmology and eschatology of the Vedanta. I clearly see their perfect union with modern science, and the elucidation of the one will be followed by that of the other." (Complete Works, Vol. V, Fifth Edition, 1347, p. 77).
Nikola Tesla and Swami Vivekananda
It was however Einstein later on who proved that matter is reducible to potential energy.
Mass–energy equivalence - Wikipedia
If Prakriti is not a separate entity (i.e. if this insentient matter called prakriti dwells within the vast infinite canvas of Atman) then why do they create distinction between them? If they're one and the same, then why not worship prakriti instead (paganism) or remain happy with matter?
The egocentric impressions or vasanas within the causal body is but matter or energy-particles in a sense(distinct from the Atman or pure consciousness) which perpetuates bondage to matter by creating desire for material objects or sense-pleasures.
As long as one is in the grip of the ego or craving-aversion, one is said to be under the influence or domination of Prakriti.
Just as one takes a bath to get rid of dirt, spiritual practices is nothing but spiritual bathing to get rid of the vasanas or impressions in the causal body which perpetuate bondage to matter through cravings/aversions.
In the yogi or enlightened one in whom all vasanas have been annihilated through spiritual practice, pure consciousness is dominant and is not under the domination of Prakriti anymore.
In yogic parlance, it is then said that Prakriti becomes a slave or friend of the enlightened one and does his or her bidding.
'The Purusha has no sorrow, no anxiety, no worry; he has no fear, no pain, no suffering. His experience is always peace and bliss. He is beyond dualities. He is perfect and self-sufficient, and therefore, always free from all afflictions. But yet, due to his proximity to Prakriti and involvement in Prakriti, many of the experiences that lie is Prakriti become superimposed upon the Purusha. And the Purusha, as it were, seems to be suffering also, undergoing all sorts of negative painful experiences—fear, anxiety, worry, sorrow, hunger, thirst and so on. The aim and objective of Yoga is to once again liberate the Purusha from this involvement and give him a state of being established in his own Self-experience. That is the state of liberation.' - Swami Chidananda
The Philosophy, Psychology and Practice of Yoga
Then another question arises. If Atman/Brahman is immovable (i think the sanskrit term is achala or stheera), then why do we see movement all around us. If its prakriti that moves, then that too should be Bahman, don't you think, since they're one and the same thing.
Prakriti as in matter,energy, space, time and causation is the grosser, varied and dynamic manifestation of the static and unitary Brahman or pure consciousness.
At the fundamental or subtlest level, it is all Brahman, One without a second.
And as Swami Vivekananda stated, " Knowledge is nothing but finding unity in the midst of diversity."
'It is true that the Upanishads have this one theme before them: "What is that knowing which we know everything else?" In modern language, the theme of the Upanishads is to find an ultimate unity of things. Knowledge is nothing but finding unity in the midst of diversity. Every science is based upon this; all human knowledge is based upon the finding of unity in the midst of diversity; and if it is the task of small fragments of human knowledge, which we call our sciences, to find unity in the midst of a few different phenomena, the task becomes stupendous when the theme before us is to find unity in the midst of this marvellously diversified universe, where prevail unnumbered differences in name and form, in matter and spirit — each thought differing from every other thought, each form differing from every other form. Yet, to harmonise these many planes and unending Lokas, in the midst of this infinite variety to find unity, is the theme of the Upanishads.' - Swami Vivekananda
