Let us proceed a step further and see if we understand the basic speculation in the Vedanta literature. We had defined a quantity Brahman which creates, contains and pervades all universe. Brahman is neuter and is unidentifiable with any object we might know, think or imagine.  In order that creation is made, we ascribe the possibility of an attribute like "desire" to Brahman.  A desire is joyful and Brahman by definition has the attribute of pure joy.  A desire can reside in joy leading to creation.  The desire needs a repository and that repository has been termed as Mana, the mind.

 

The mind of Brahman and the desire of Brahman are also contained in each object created, but the object is endowed with its own mind and its own desires.  There is joy in life when we synchronize our personal desires to the desire of the Brahman.  Then we know what is "desired" of us as an action.  The action in such situation is cosmic. All problems go away, the living becomes easy removed from all conflicts. The process is often called to release our mind from our body and to comprehend the trivial nature of our self-identification.  When we realize that our existence is a desire of Brahman, we are in the calm refuge of serenity.

 

To realize anything in mind needs a sense of awareness and this is the attribute of vAk.  The ability of recognition, discrimination and expression is contained in this attribute.  The ideas exist inside of us, but we become aware of them through vAk.  Thoughts come to us via this ability.  All literature, arts, insights and analysis are the performance of vAk.  There is no single word translation of this attribute, though sometimes we settle for the phrase "awareness".  We are in the dark when vAk is silent and we are eloquent when we have the grace of vAk.  The power of vAk is latent in us and its manifestation is considered divine in origin.

 

vAk is the origin of desire in mind. It recognizes ideas and helps sprout them.   In the vedas it has been given the icon of Gayatri, the power of speech, the origin of the unmanifested sound.  In mythology, it's Saraswati, the eternal mother who acts as the source of knowledge to iconic Brahma to help create the universe. vAk is the creative element in Brahman and like the latter it is all pervasive and contains everything.

 

vAk expresses internally in mind as ideas and externally as cosmic sound.  The power of vAk is our realization of our true nature and the realization graces us with the cosmic joy.  In western religious traditions, the manifestation of vAk is all that is good and sweet in the universe.  In vedanta philosophy, vAk is the whole attribute there is and it gets mixed up with the local self-identification. The self is only a part of Brahman and the ability to clear the illusion is the grace of vAk in human life.

 

If we consider Mana as the storehouse, vAk is the potential.  Like Mana, vAk is also infinite in extent but triggers one thought at a time.  When vAk is rendered it becomes vachana, the statement. Because of the eternity on vAk, the vachana remains eternal even though we don't always perceive the eternity of what we say.  The best experiment one possibly can do is to trigger thoughts of will power and when the will is activated, vAk would generate ideas to fulfill the desire of the will.  In order to give shape to the ideas we need a third entity and that is prANa. We will take up the discussion of prANa in the next essay.