Freemasons often refer to God as the “universal architect”. According to the Vedas, there is indeed an universal architect, but he is not God. The architect of the universe is Brahma, who assists Lord Vishnu in the creation of the universe by taking charge of the construction, using the elements and the project given by Him.
There is a description in the Srimad Bhagavatam where Brahma himself explains the process of creation. Part of it is done by the Lord Himself, and part by Brahma.
Brahma certainly exhibits a great deal of power in performing his activities. We can’t even imagine what kind of force is necessary to create a universe, including all planets and stars. Atomic weapons, often considered a technological marvel, are many orders of magnitude less potent than such a power. However, Lord Brahma admits that actually this is not his power. The Supreme Lord is behind, empowering him to perform his activities. However, not many can understand Him because the Lord has a transcendental body and has inconceivable energies.
There are five basic material elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether), as well as the subtle elements: false ego, intelligence, and the mind. All these different elements come from the interaction of material time with Pradhana and the three modes of nature. Pradhana is the unmanifested mass of all material elements, including the three modes. This unmanifested mass is activated by the look of Lord Maha-Vishnu, which injects the time energy and also the souls who are going to participate in the material creation. Just as a woman becomes pregnant after sexual contact with a man, Pradhana becomes active when inseminated with the time energy and the souls, starting the process of creation of the different material elements, and eventually of the whole cosmic manifestation. All of this is ultimately meant to be used in the service of the Lord.
In modern physics it’s believed that the universe started as a mass of energy, following the Big Bang, that gradually cooled down into hydrogen, which was in turn gradually transformed into heavier elements inside stars. The Vedas partially agree with this idea, stating that the creation of the material elements and other features of the universe starts from the most subtle elements and gradually progresses to the grossest. However, the Vedas go much beyond merely describing the process of the formation of atoms.
The process of creation of the different material elements is discussed in different passages of the Srimad Bhagavatam. It is discussed here in the 5th chapter of the 2nd canto, as well as the 5th and 10th chapters of the third canto, with additional discussions of the material elements being held in the 26th chapter of the third canto and the 22nd chapter of the 11th canto and so on. Each of these explanations gives us additional details, allowing our understanding to grow as we progress in our studies.
The Lord is completely spiritual and transcendental to all material qualities. However, he accepts through His external energy the material modes of nature to facilitate the creation of the universe. The souls are also not originally part of the material creation, but we become entangled in it due to our desire to lord over the material energy.
The soul is originally part of the spiritual energy of the Lord, but when the soul comes to the material world, his spiritual nature is covered. It then appears that the soul is eternally here. As Prabhupada explains: “This external energy of the Lord covers up the pure knowledge of the living entity’s eternally existing with Him, but the covering is so constant that it appears that the conditioned soul is eternally ignorant. Such is the wonderful action of māyā or external energy manifested as if materially produced.”
The whole material creation exists to give us a chance to remember Krsna and return to our original position.
Brahma reveals that not only he himself was created by the Lord, but that in reality, the Lord is the original creator of everything that exists. Brahma appears to create the universe, but in reality, he just reveals things that were already previously created by the Lord. This brings us to the concept of primary and secondary creation, something that was mentioned previously, but that we didn’t explore in detail. How is it that there are two creations? How does it work?
Inside our universe, creation starts with the birth of Lord Brahma, the first living being, who has the mission of creating and populating the universe, giving thus a chance for all the souls imprisoned there to satisfy their material desires and eventually become attracted to perform devotional service to Krsna.
The primary creation is done by Lord Maha-Vishnu, who creates everything that exists in the numerous universes in a subtle form (like a project or an idea). Later, Brahma is inspired from the heart to give physical forms to this project, performing the secondary creation, as he mentioned in the above-mentioned verse.
This is similar to the process of producing an article or a book. First, the author conceives it in his mind, and then it is written on paper. As soon as the author has it in his mind, the book exists, although not yet in a tangible form. Still, when the book is finally written and printed, it follows what was conceived and conveyed by the author.
Another example is that most contemporary constructions and products exist first in a subtle form (a project) and later are manifested in a gross form when finally built. Similarly, the ideas and desires stored in our minds are the basis for the gross forms and experiences that will be experienced in our future lives.
When Lord Maha Vishnu performs the primary creation, he creates all possible forms, manifestations, and experiences that exist in the material universes. This is the universal form, or Virat-purusa, which will be described in the next chapters.
During the secondary creation, Brahma creates a number of different levels of existence that correspond to the different levels of consciousness of the different living entities. There are thus 14 levels of planetary systems, subdivided into millions of planets and stars, each one containing an enormous volume of forms and experiences. By our consciousness, we take birth into one of these places, according to the level of consciousness and there we perform our small role in the creation, manipulating the different material objects and interacting with other living entities.
When an engineer desires to design a plane, for example, the Lord reveals to him, from inside his heart the knowledge necessary to build it. The engineer may thus take the credit for it, but the plane was actually conceived by the Lord long before. In reality, everything that exists inside the universe is the manifestation of ideas previously conceived by the Lord. As different living beings desire these things, the Lord gives the knowledge from the heart, so they can satisfy their desires.
The description of the creation of the universe given in the Srimad Bhagavatam (starting from the creation of material elements) gives us an idea of the work necessary for creating the environment we live in. It also helps us to better understand the nature of this world and gradually become free from it.
Srila Prabhupada frequently explains in his teachings that life in this material world is in a sense similar to a dream. We spend time in this dream thinking that we are a man or a woman, that we have this or that position and do on, but because none of it is true in the ultimate sense we need to leave these positions in due time, just like someone awakening from a dream. This however should not be misunderstood.
Like all analogies, the comparison of material life and a dream offers many similarities with reality, but like all analogies, it doesn’t represent all the intricacies of the subject being discussed. We should thus take the main meaning, which is the temporary nature and illusion of our current situation, and not start believing that we are literally living inside a dream and everything around us doesn’t exist.
A dream is illusory, but it is not false. It is real in the sense that someone is experiencing it, but at the same time, it is illusory in nature, since in the dream we forget our real identity and become absorbed in imaginary situations. A dream is thus not false, but it is illusory and based on the forgetfulness of our real identity.
Similarly, this whole material manifestation is not false. We are here experiencing it, as are all the people around us. Things are happening. It is compared to a dream because we become forgetful of our real nature and become absorbed in the different temporary roles we play here.
Because they are not connected with our eternal nature, all the roles we play in this material world are temporary. We play for some time, but eventually, we are forced to leave, and this is called death. After that, if one is still not ready to accept his real nature, a new temporary role is accepted, which we call birth.