What is a Mandala?

By editor - 13.9 2024

Table of Contents 

1 Many Meanings and Uses of a Mandala
2 Describing Mandala as a Semantic Space
3 A Good Example of an Inward Journey
4 Topographical Features of a Mandala
5 Soul Movement vs. Body Movement
6 Phenomena Space vs. Reality Space
7 Flat Reality and Spherical Appearance
8 Materialistic vs. Anti-Materialistic Ideas
9 Materialistic vs. Spiritualistic Activities

Many Meanings and Uses of a Mandala

A Mandala is a circular or square pattern. It comprises multiple concentric parts, each of which in turn comprised of many intricate components. A Mandala represents a spiritual journey—from periphery to center (spiritually uplifting) or from center to periphery (spiritually degrading). The different positions in the Mandala denote varied spiritual states. Spiritual practitioners use Mandala for two purposes. One, they try to understand their position in the spiritual journey by locating themselves within the Mandala. Two, they meditate upon the Mandala to bring about a transformation within themselves. A Mandala is also called a Yantra. There are dozens of known Yantra denoting various types of spiritual journeys.

Mandala originated in the Vedic system, as part of the Tantra system of philosophy and practice. They were subsequently used by Buddhists and Jains. Mandalas were also prevalent in many European pagan systems, especially the Celtic and the Nordic. They were quite common in Aztec and Mayan cultures, have been found in African religions, and more recently in Zen, Shinto, and other Eastern Asian religions.

To understand a Mandala, we have to picture a unity at the center and diversity at the periphery. The unity produces the diversity by dividing itself. This process can be visualized as the root of a tree in the center and the trunks, branches, twigs, and leaves at the periphery. The unity is difficult to understand because it compresses enormous diversity. The diversity is enlightening because we can see the many parts of unity. It becomes confusing if the unity at the center is not seen. If both are seen, then unity aids in the understanding of diversity and diversity aids in the understanding of unity. Collectively, they explain unity in diversity and diversity in unity. Unity is one thing but it is not a simple thing. Diversity is many things and yet not disjointed things. A Mandala represents complexity without chaos, confusion, or disorder since the complexity is initially expanded from and eventually collapses into a central unity.

A Mandala is often compared to a lotus, which opens with the first rays of the sun in the morning and closes with the last rays of the sun in the evening. The ancients thought it to be an effusive paradigm of creation and destruction, as their cosmological time was cyclical. The universe expanded and contracted. The expansion was called creation or sṛṣṭi and the contraction was called destruction or laya. The term sṛṣṭi represents outward movement and the term laya represents inward movement. These two were often compared to the outward and inward movement of consciousness and sometimes to the outward and inward movements of breath. The inward movement sees the unity and the outward movement sees the diversity. The unity produces the diversity and the diversity collapses into the unity.

A Mandala is a useful method of representing many things—the cosmos, conscious experience, and spiritual progress. The cosmos expands out of a Supreme Person and then merges back into Him. The body is assembled based on a person’s tendencies, traits, and histories and is disassembled when the soul leaves with its tendencies, traits, and histories. A spiritual practice disentangles a person from the expanded diversity and brings him back into the self from which the diversity had expanded.

Describing Mandala as a Semantic Space

I have tried to explain Mandala as a semantic space. The origin of the space is an object and the expansions from the origin are the properties of that object. There are two types of properties, that we generally call sensations and actions. The object is the noun, the sensations are the adjectives, and the actions are the verbs. A space is created from a noun by expounding its adjectives and verbs.

Take for example the noun called car. It is defined in two ways—(a) by its sensations, and (b) by its actions. Something that looks like a car but does not work like a car is not a car. It could just be a chassis without an engine. Something that works like a car but does not look like a car is not a car. It could be a truck. The looks of a car underdetermine it’s working. For example, two cars of equal size could run faster or slower. The working of a car underdetermines its look. For example, a fast-running car could be remodeled without changing its speed. The noun car can be illustrated by literally infinite examples that look and work differently. They are all called cars. They have expanded from the primitive idea of a car.

A semantic space is a family created from a root noun by diversifying the noun along two dimensions—adjectives and verbs. This family can be personalized—the noun is the father, adjectives and verbs are the mothers, and the children produced from the intermarriage of the successive generations produced from the father and mothers are the enormous family of the father. Some people get perturbed by the seeming incest involved in this process—the children intermarry to produce successive generations. However, it is not incest if each child inherits unique traits not inherited by other children. It would be incest if children inherit common traits from their parents, as is the case with ordinary families.

The relations in a semantic space are not incestuous because the parent is the whole and the children are parts. No part is duplicated. All parts are unique. The relation is also not incestuous because these parts were already united within the whole. Their separation and union don’t produce anything that was not already part of the whole. The whole is the ideal and the parts are non-ideal. The non-ideal parts are produced by selecting parts of the ideal. For instance, we can think of an ideal car and various other cars that have some of the features of the ideal car. The noun is the ideal car. The adjectives and verbs are the properties of the ideal car. By picking some properties, the whole divides into parts, and the non-ideal is produced from the ideal. The combination of all the non-ideal parts reproduces the ideal whole.

Even the non-ideal car is called a car. The ideal is the parent and the non-ideal is the child. The non-ideal is described in reference to the ideal. This requires the use of concepts. The original concept is immanent in the derived concept and it is transcendent to the derived concept. If the original concept was not immanent in the derived concept, then we could not call the non-ideal car a car. In fact, there would be just one type of car—the ideal car. A broken car would not be a car. A car with any imperfection would not be a car. Cheap cars would cease to be cars. Non-ideal cars are also called cars because the ideal is immanent in the non-ideal. Immanence is not identity. The non-ideal does not become the ideal due to immanence. Thus, a non-binary condition is created—the non-ideal is neither ideal nor useless.

Now, the spiritual process of a Mandala becomes very simple. We are one of the cars, expanded from the ideal car. We call ourselves sedan, hatchback, convertible, coupe, and limousine. Everyone looks different. But there is a common core, a source from which this diversity expanded. What is the source? It is the ideal car. It is the meaning of a car. To transform the non-ideal car into a car, we have to go back from the expanded non-ideal examples of a car to the ideal concept from which they are expanded. It is an inward journey, in contrast to the outward journey that produced the examples from the concept.

A Good Example of an Inward Journey

The eight-fold yoga process is an example of this inward journey. At step one, the process asks us to stop doing bad things. This is called Yama. At step two, we fix the routine and frequency of doing good things. This is Niyama. At step three, we sit in a fixed posture for long durations, stopping the body movement. This is Āsana. At step four, we regulate our breath, progressively slowing it down. This is Prāṇāyāma. At step five, we stop our sensory and mental activities. This is Pratyāhāra. At step six, we search for the Paramātma in the region of our heart. This is Dhyāna. At step seven, we find the Paramātma and fix our awareness upon Him. This is Dhāraṇa. By fixing our awareness upon Him, at step eight, we become just like the Paramātma—i.e., will, think, act, feel, intend, and relate just as He does. This is Samādhī.

The self doesn’t merge with Paramātma but becomes just like Him. The sedan, hatchback, convertible, coupe, and limousine transform into the ideal car, which is also the meaning of car. All the limitations of varied types of cars are gone. All their good traits exist in the ideal car. Therefore, the outward to inward journey is the transformation of the non-ideal into the ideal. It is withdrawing our awareness from the bad deeds into good deeds, from the deeds into the body, from the body into the breath, from the breath into the senses and the mind, from the senses and the mind into the self, from the self into the Supreme Self, and ultimately becoming just like the Supreme Self although not identical to Him.

The bad deeds, the good deeds, the body, the breath, the senses, the mind, the self, and the Supreme Self are concentric circles of the Mandala. The Supreme Self is in the center. There is only one center. But there are infinite selves surrounding Him. They become like the Supreme Self if they accept the Supreme Self as the role model of their life. A yogi who gains perfection in this inward journey enters Vaikuṇṭha where all selves look like the Supreme Person, Viṣṇu. They will like Viṣṇu, think like Viṣṇu, act like Viṣṇu, intend like Viṣṇu, feel like Viṣṇu, and relate to Viṣṇu as their ideal, hero, and role model by thinking, feeling willing, intending, doing, and relating just as He does. They are almost as good as Viṣṇu.

The word Kuṇṭha means stupidity. The word Vaikuṇṭha means the absence of stupidity. Stupidity is being non-ideal and suffering the results of non-ideality. The absence of stupidity is being ideal and becoming free of the results of stupidity. The outward-to-inward journey can be called the journey from stupidity to intelligence. It can be called liberation, emancipation, enlightenment, illumination, and so forth.

This is a long process, which takes a lot of time. The practitioners often get frustrated. Hence, a map of the journey is drawn in the form of a Mandala. A person is placed on the map. He can see how much he has progressed and how much is remaining. He can see the challenges ahead and the kinds of changes he has to bring to progress further. By understanding where he currently stands in the map, he can look both backward and forward. The backward look is encouraging, and the forward look is challenging.

Topographical Features of a Mandala

Mandalas are often drawn analogous to geographies. After all, they depict a journey. They have mountains, oceans, rivers, forests, and trees. They don’t have factories, shopping malls, or casinos. The elements of a Mandala represent something to the spiritual practitioner, and nothing to the person who is either not inclined toward such a journey or is incapable of understanding the inward journey.

Mountains are hard and cold. Every step is difficult. There is a great risk that we can slip and fall. We will then be at the bottom of the mountain and will have to restart our climb. Rivers are easy. We just float with the river current. They will take us to where the river is going. If we know how to stay afloat, the river won’t drown us. Oceans have rising and falling tides and waves. They mostly drown everyone. An ocean doesn’t take anyone anywhere unlike a river. One has to swim in the ocean. Its waves send a person backward even as he fights to move forward. Forests are varied, luxurious, and nourishing. We meet many kinds of creatures. Some are threatening but most are harmless. We don’t meet friends in the forest. We don’t get associates or companions. We have to walk alone. There are some juicy fruit trees. We can relax under their shadow and eat the fruits. They will nourish and protect us. After that, we must walk again. There are occasional fires in the forest; we must be ready to escape them.

Different stages of spiritual practice are different like the mountains, rivers, oceans, forests, and trees. There are different comforts and dangers in each. The spiritual journey is not a straight-line path in which we walk from beginning to end. The journey is very diverse. Each person sees something different while going through their journey. There are different techniques at each stage. We can relax while floating in a river. We can enjoy while we are under the shade of a tree. We have to be careful while walking through a forest. We have to struggle for survival while in an ocean. We must exercise extreme caution while climbing a mountain unless we want to end up at the bottom of the mountain with broken bodies and bones. One size doesn’t fit all times, places, situations, and persons. Even as there is one big map of the journey, there are many paths, many different locations, and many rewards and troubles.

There are differences between the descriptions of various sages regarding the landscape of a spiritual journey. They are talking about their experience. They have performed penances for thousands of years. They gather to discuss each other’s experiences. Sometimes, an expert sage with numerous experiences talks about his experiences to others. The differences between these descriptions are not contradictions. They are a person’s experience during the journey. Others can have a different experience. It is neither the sole truth nor a lie. Hence, it is sometimes said that nobody can fully grasp the cosmos. Nobody is going to exhaustively know all the possible paths and what one experiences in those paths.

The cosmos is described in the Vedic texts in terms of levels of the soul. There are upper, middle, and lower planetary systems. There are distinctions of outer and inner in each planetary system. There are oceans, rivers, mountains, forests, and trees. All these are drawn in terms of different Mandalas. There is a depiction of the middle plane called Bhu-Mandala. There is a tradition of drawing a Svarga-Mandala while doing Vedic rituals in which different demigods are given places in different locations and directions in the Mandala. Many planets and planetary systems in the Vedic texts are described in terms of lotuses instead of a Mandala. They have a fixed number of petals. A deity sits at the center of the lotus, presiding over the planet. Each petal represents a deity subordinate to the primary deity. The subordinate deities are parts and aspects of the presiding deity. The presiding deity is the center and the subordinate deities are the dimensions of space.

Soul Movement vs. Body Movement

Most people presently don’t understand what a Mandala is. They think that rivers, mountains, oceans, forests, and trees, are geography. They find it weird that the Earth is described as a flat plane when it is spherical to our observation. They find it poetic that some planet is called a lotus with a presiding deity seated in the center. They think that a higher plane in the cosmos must be above our heads and a lower plane must be below our feet. They don’t know about the tradition of describing the universe in terms of a spiritual journey completely disregarding body movement. Since this is a complex topic, therefore, we can spend a few moments discussing the difference between the body and the soul movements.

Our body is a collection of potentials, just like a bag of balls. The soul is the observer of these potentials. The soul exists in the same bag as the potential that it sees. Experience is created by the combination of the soul and the potentials under the control of cosmic time. Each experience within a body is like seeing one ball within the bag. The bag is not changing. The balls are not moving. Rather, a sequence of balls is seen. The soul identifies with this vision and loses the separation between himself and the observed. The soul is thus entangled in the bag. He can see what is in the bag and not outside. Everyone cannot see everything. The external reality, which we never see, is also many different bags with balls in them.

Causality is some balls and bags interacting with some other balls and bags. As one ball in one bag is selected, other balls in other bags are selected. This is how one person’s experience comports with another person’s experiences. This is why we think we are living in a shared reality although we are all living in a private reality. Each person sees the balls in their bags although correlated to the balls seen by other persons looking in their bags. The balls in their bags are the phenomena. The balls in other bags are reality. We never perceive reality. We always perceive phenomena. The phenomena we see can be crisp and clear or hazy and vague. If the phenomena are crisp and clear, we say we are close to something. If the phenomena are hazy and vague, we say we are far from something. A succession of hazy and clear phenomena appears as the motion of things. That motion is just like watching a movie. The screen is static. A succession of images projected on that screen creates the illusion of motion although factually nothing is moving. There is just a bag with numerous balls, which are perceived one by one. The balls are hazy or clear. Just by sequencing the hazy or clear balls, an illusion of motion is created, without motion.

In contrast to the body motion, there is body change. This involves an observer moving from one bag of balls to another. Different balls are perceived in the changed bag even while interacting with the same external world. Now, the same reality seems different. New things—that were previously invisible—may also be seen. Similarly, previously seen things may become invisible. When the observer changes the bag of balls, we call that body change. The new bag interacts with other bags creating new phenomena and hiding older phenomena. Body motion is selecting balls in a bag. Body change is changing the bag.

Body change and body motion occur simultaneously. As we see something, our bag changes a little. If we experience a lot, the bag changes a lot. Modern science focuses on body motion and Vedic science focuses on body change. The change of body is soul motion. It is the soul hopping from one bag to another. There are bags called childhood, youth, and old age. There are bags called human, animal, fish, tree, bird, and insect. There are bags called sage, demigod, human, and demon. There are multiple schemes for classifying the bags. All these bags collectively constitute the terrain of the spiritual journey. The soul is moving from bag to bag. It is getting newer bodies. It is going from planet to planet. It encounters forests, trees, oceans, mountains, and rivers. Vedic cosmology is the study of this complex change.

Phenomena Space vs. Reality Space

Accordingly, there are two notions of space. We can call them phenomena space and reality space. The phenomena space is our senses and the mind. It is the bag of balls in which we are currently confined. It is our personal space. It can be called the relative space because it is unique for each individual.

The reality space comprises all the bags with balls in them. The soul hops from one bag to another at every moment and also between lifetimes. While it is in one bag, the interaction with other bags triggers different phenomena in a person, akin to seeing the balls in the bag one after another. As the soul sees balls one after another, the bag and the balls change. The soul moves from one bag to another. The reality space is the terrain of bags. It is the terrain of soul movement. It is different from the terrain of body motion. Movement in the body motion terrain causes movement in the soul motion terrain.

While modern science draws maps of phenomena space, traditional cultures draw maps of reality space. Modern science talks of body movement while traditional cultures talk of soul movement. The science of the soul motion was forgotten when some religions rejected reincarnation of the soul from one body to another. They tied each soul to a body. The soul moved if the body moved. People stopped discussing self-transformation. They ignored the fact that as a person interacts with a world, he evolves, although he remains the same individual. The space of soul motion called the Mandala was replaced by the space of body movement called geography. Change only meant body motion and not self-transformation.

Flat Reality and Spherical Appearance

Almost everyone has trouble understanding how the reality space of soul motion depicted in a Mandala can be flat while the phenomena space of body motion appears spherical. This appears as the flat vs. round earth debate. People insist that since we observe the earth to be round, therefore, it cannot be flat. No consideration is given to the possibility that a flat reality can appear spherical to us. We assume that reality must be just as we see it. Therefore, let us spend a moment discussing this possibility.

Let’s suppose we are looking at one of the faces of a cube. While seeing one face, we cannot see the other five faces. If we turn the cube, we can at most see three faces at once—the nearer points will be clear and the farther points will be hazy. Now let’s imagine that this cube we are turning is actually a digital file stored in a computer and we are looking at that file’s visual representation on a computer screen. The file is a linear sequence of numbers; it is one-dimensional. But the computer screen depicts it as a three-dimensional object. How? The computer display software selects a subset of the points in the file to display. When some points are selected, other points are deselected. When some point becomes clear and near, other points become hazy and far. By selection and deselection of points, along with clarity and haziness, a three-dimensional picture is created from a one-dimensional reality. The picture is on the computer screen. The reality is the data in the computer disk. They can be called phenomena and reality, respectively. This example is not just a possibility. It is a very common fact.

There is a basic principle of reality involved in the appearance of sphericity—I call it the perspective view of reality. We cannot see the whole reality at once. We can see it part-by-part. When we see one part, the other parts disappear. When we see something clearly, another thing becomes hazy. We cannot see everything clearly at once. That is because both reality and our senses comprise three qualities called sattva, rajas, and tamas. Under the influence of these qualities, we have to describe the senses in three ways—creators, perceivers, and filters. Everyone can imagine a select few things. Everyone can perceive a select few things. While imagining one thing, we cannot imagine some other things. While perceiving one thing, we cannot perceive other things. While seeing something clearly, another thing becomes hazy. The filtering property of our senses is like the computer display showing us one face of a cube while hiding the other five faces.

The general problem of perspectives is also called the problem of duality. It is sometimes called the elephant and the five blind men problem. Our tendency to universalize one part of the elephant as the whole creates contradictions when other parts of the elephant are seen. The journey of truth involves reconciling all the parts into the elephant. When we can see everything as one part of the elephant, the same situation is called non-duality. It is not the end of variety. It is the unity of diversity.

The problem of reconciling flat vs. round earth results from thinking of space uniformly and the senses as blank slates. Both of these are false. Space is not uniform. Different locations in the space are different quality combinations. Our senses are not blank slates. Different senses are different quality combinations. Causal interactions occur between these qualities. When one quality appears, the other qualities are hidden. When one quality predominates, the other qualities are subordinated. When reality and our senses are qualities, then we cannot see everything at once. When reality is uniform and our senses are blank slates, then we can see everything at once. Therefore, the problem of flat vs. round earth arises as a result of thinking of qualitatively diverse reality in terms of qualitatively uniform reality.

Materialistic vs. Anti-Materialistic Ideas

A Mandala is flat but it is not uniform. The flatness of a Mandala pertains to one class of life forms. As a person goes inward in this Mandala, he does not have the experiences of other life forms. He experiences deeper realities of his lifeform. The varied life forms are stacked hierarchically. They are higher and lower lifeforms, and each one has its own Mandala. The Mandala is simply the map of their life experience.

The two dimensions of a Mandala are the two ways to define nouns—adjectives and verbs. At each point in the Mandala, we can have different sensations and perform different actions. Everything cannot be seen everywhere. Everything cannot be done everywhere. Trajectories in a Mandala are life experiences—a series of sensations and actions—that change the person undergoing these experiences as he moves to a new point in the Mandala undergoing his self-transformation.

Vedic cosmology becomes incomprehensible under materialism because—(a) all observers are blank slates not better or worse observers based on qualities, (b) all places in the universe are the same and not better or worse places based on qualities, (c) all change is body motion and not self-transformation, and (d) the body is an object while the soul (if it exists at all) is an object within the bodily object.

Vedic cosmology inverts materialistic ideas—(a) each observer is different based on their qualities, they are better or worse observers, and they see different things clearly or hazily, (b) each place in the universe is different based on qualities and meant for different quality observers, (c) the bodies are not moving, rather the self is moving from body to body, and (d) the soul is the object while the body is its properties.

The paradigm of motion changes when we talk about transforming our senses and mind into something different. The paradigm changes when we talk about going from one type of sense and mind to another. The paradigm changes when we talk about different kinds of senses and minds seeing different things because of the capacity for seeing things differently. The paradigm changes when the entire focus of life is on self-transformation and all activities in this life are geared toward that transformation. Then we understand that the body motion is an illusion and the self-transformation is real. The body is not moving. But even through the appearance of body movement, the soul is moving to a different body.

Any attempt to reconcile Mandala with geography results in a catastrophic failure. If our only experience is body motion and not soul motion then we cannot understand Mandala. Therefore, Vedic cosmology also rests on mystical experience—we have to focus on how we have changed instead of what we have done. If a lot of things are done but we haven’t changed, then that activity has been wasteful. On the other hand, if we have done little and yet transformed ourselves, then that activity is useful. We should focus on transitioning to a better bag rather than going round and round inside the existing bag.

Materialistic vs. Spiritualistic Activities

In one sense, it is very easy to understand a Mandala—going from bag to bag instead of wandering inside the bag. It rests on the distinction between soul motion vs. body motion. In another sense, unless our body motion results in self-transformation, we cannot understand how the soul is moving from body to body. We will keep moving inside the bag and not understand how to change the bag itself.

Many people think that spiritual activities are wasteful compared to ordinary activities. They will ask: What is the use of spiritual activities? Why not work in the world and transform the world? Withdrawing from the world and doing all these spiritual activities is not making the world better. There are three responses to these criticisms. One, nobody can change the world before its time, and more than the destiny fixed by time. At the appointed time, a person suited to bring that change appears. If we are qualified to bring change, then time will use us in its schemes and plans. Our focus should be on preparing ourselves to become useful for change when the time arrives. Two, we can make the world a better place by becoming better persons. If we are not better persons then we cannot make the world better. We will cause havoc, destruction, exploitation, and confusion. Three, the process of becoming a better person is a spiritual activity. The activity may look meaningless in terms of body motion because we are talking about the soul motion as the result of this body motion. When body motion makes us better persons, then we can make the world better, when the time for it arrives, up to the destiny. However, even if the time and destiny don’t arrive, we transition ourselves to a better place.

Therefore, a material activity is that which keeps us going round and round in the current bag and world. A spiritual activity is that which moves us to a better bag and world. The focus on world transformation is also spiritual. It is about creating better persons. That is also a science of motion. It is the science of how the soul goes from body to body, place to place, and whether those bodies and places are better or worse. In this science, we talk about good and bad bodies, good and bad activities, progress and regress, going inward, upward, outward, downward, and around. We stop thinking about body motion and focus only on soul motion. This alternate type of motion can be understood if we know what a Mandala is.