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The Highest Spirit (parmatma) is the most distinct from the two beings (purushas). Prakriti (Nature, Material substance) in its primal state is congruous. In this primal state, the gunas (sattva, rajas, and tamas) stay in perfect balance. They represent three distinct actions: Creation, sustenance, and destruction. These three, the cosmic attributes or the gunas are represented by three manifestation of the Personal God (God with attributes): Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Sustainer, and Shiva the Destroyer.
Sant Kabir says,
The infinite impersonal supreme God is like a tree. The three Lords (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva) are the branches of that tree, and the leaves sprouting from the branches are the world.
Just as the three gunas arose from the Creator; and just as the world arose from the gunas; so from one absolute Dharma (the Absolute Truth; the Way), a sustaining principle which exists at the very basis of creation, there arose separate forms of religion (dharma), including Sanatana Dharma (Vedic),21 JudeoChristian, and Islam. The various religions represent the branches of one Tree. These dharmas, though they may seem divergent in various external ways, are related in the same way as the leaves and branches of a tree which arise from and are nourished by the same source.
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