Causal or cause. (Glossary for the Vahinis)

Sense organ. (Glossary for the Vahinis)

Karana is the casual state of deep sleep. It is only an Image, a reflection. It has no consciousness. It has neither form nor name. It is not subject to happiness or sorrow. (SS Aug 98 , p. 206)

Karana (Causal) body possesses only one nature, namely, Prajna (consciousness), pure and unmixed with the subjective and objective worlds. Since the Sthula (gross) body is fully involved with the objective world, the Vishva, it is called Vishva; the Suksma (subtle) body or the dream body is illumined by the mind and the Tejas (inner light) and so it is called Tejas; the body in the deep sleep stage, when it is latent in the cause, subsumed in the Consciousness, is called Prajna. The Truth, namely, Brahman, eludes all these three bodies (Sarira Traya). They are all involved in bhrama (illusion), not in Brahman, the Absolute. What appears true in the dream is falsified when one awakes; what one experiences while awake is distorted and devalued in dreams; sleep wipes out of memory both the dream-world and the wakefulness-world. The awareness that survives these three passing stages is the Mahakarana, the Super consciousness.

The Super or Supreme Consciousness is the Thought that became all this-the Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Womb, the primal urge, the first concretisation, Ishvara. When Being ‘thought’, it became the Many, or rather, it put on the appearance of Many. The Mahakarana is beyond Consciousness; the Sthula, Suksma and the Karana bodies into which it proliferated are beneath Consciousness. The former is true knowledge (eruka in Telugu). The latter is illusory experience (marupu in Telugu). God is the Lord of eruka, the Jiva is the slave of marupu (forgetting).

The Mahakarana, the Cosmic Consciousness, is often denoted as ‘Param’ (beyond), in Vedanta; since the concept is obviously contentless, it does not arise and fade; nor does it originate and disappear. It has no name and form, for it cannot be defined or limited or identified as separate. It is understood as Brahman – the unmoving, immovable Totality (Purna), the Eternal, the True, the Pure, the Attributeless. Just as the unmoving road enables the car to move along it, the Brahman Principle is the basis for the existence and activities of Jiva.

In fact, there is only One. The One appears to the split vision as two. Look outward! It is Jiva. Look inward, it is God. The outer vision makes you forget; the inner makes you remember. When man seeks to rise to the divinity, which is his reality, he is remembering, struggling to know and experience. When he grovels in the lower levels of consciousness and is entangled in disease, he is caught in the coils of forgetfulness. Removing selfish desires and expanding one’s urge to love and serve are the most effective means to succeed in merging with Supreme Consciousness, the Primal Cause, the Cosmic Thought, the Mahakarana. (SSS Vol.18, pp. 45-46)