The Point of Creation - Maybe

There has been one question that has been bothering me for sometime now. Infact, it is one of the most pertinent questions that we as intelligent beings have been asking from time immemorial now – What is the point of creation?

By no means do I claim to have an answer to this question. That would be stupidity of epic magnitudes to claim solution to a question that is like an unsolved puzzle from time immemorial.
The purpose of creation, the question itself is more of a spiritual quest on the surmise that there is a god & it is he that created everything in the universe including the universe itself. Our scriptures liken this creation of god to the web of a spider. A spider spins his web & stays in the centre fully aware of any vibrations in any of its strands.

Let us start with the assumption that yes, there is a god & he created this universe. But to create something as huge & seemingly endless as our universe would need a sentient being that is perfection itself in all his attributes. So what would be God’s attributes? He is a source of limitless energy. Why? Imagine the energy that was required to start creation. It is a small fraction of this energy that is still being used by our Sun & that is the source of all life on Earth. Then think of the innumerable stars lining our galaxy & other countless galaxies across the universe. So I do not think god has any energy problems to put it mildly.
Let us then come to God as an intelligent being. Think about our complex universe. All the laws of nature that we know to be true. The beauty of creation that uses for e.g. mathematics, Fibonacci Sequence in nature.(The west became aware of this only in 1202 when Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci showed it for the first time in his Liber Abaci. However, the ancient Indians were very well aware of this thousand of years before the west). Therefore mathematicians like to say that God is a mathematician. In the same vein, the he is a master of Physics, Chemistry etc. I am sure you get the point. So when it comes to intelligence, he is the source of it & what we have is but a miniscule fraction of it. Therefore he is the most intelligent or can we say the standard for perfection in intelligence.

So God being the eternal, most intelligent, omnipotent being that he is, he is the supreme goodness, the absolute truth & thus everything positive in us is present in him to the nth degree. But for such a being, who is self-sufficient in himself, who is always in a state of equilibrium, of constant peace, what was the cause for him to create? Could it be love?
Now love could be a very positive thing if it is selfless in nature & when it is present in him it also has to be to the nth degree. The thing about love is, for us humans, we need to share this love & also need to get love in return. That is an inherent flaw in us. But he is flawless & as such he does not need us to love him. Maybe, he in his benevolence, to give us his infinite love, became the many us. He created us in his image (isn’t that what the bible said), but not our body, our soul. As our scriptures say, soul is formless, it is pure, it cannot be created or destroyed & that is so much like the concept of a perfect god. However, it is this body that we have at birth that is gross (I mean in spiritual terms) when compared to the soul & the manifestation of ego as ‘I’ in our consciousness that prevents from realizing our true self. It is like a mirror that is covered with dirt. It is only when you willfully clean the muck on its surface, the mirror becomes clean & you can see the true reflection of the self.

So maybe that is the point of creation, love. Divine love. The infinite love that the Supreme Being has for the many parts of him, us.
But then is it really? There is another school of thought that says that there is actually no creation & it is all a cosmic dream that we are all part of & interconnected. I mean how do we know what is real. For e.g. when you are sleeping & having a vivid dream, at that point it is very real isn’t it? We get up crying out if it is a bad dream, we laugh out loud if it a funny dream & then you wakeup. And you realise that it was just a dream. So what if death is that wakeup from the cosmic dream. And you sleep again & start on a new dream that is life.

You know what, after all this, I think I am back where I started. This is why having the right spiritual guide or teacher is so very important. Because he has already traveled that path & with correct directions, he makes your journey that much faster. Therefore the Sanskrit shlok – Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. Guru Saakshat Parabrahma, Tasmai Shree Guravae Namah. Because he lights up the path of knowledge in your pursuit of the Absolute Truth & helps you in realizing the god within you & thus become a divine being yourself, he is God or his equivalent. Teachers’ today like to quote this shlok without understanding its true meaning. Therefore, when the subject is flawed & so is the teacher, why expect a perfect student?

Postulating a Theory on Evolution

Some of you already know about my struggle with religion in my quest to find the truth. I had rebelled against the faith I was born into because I felt at that time that there were many shortcomings in the practice of this religion. Life definitely has come full circle for me when now I realize that the shortcomings were actually in me, due to my restricted knowledge & lack of understanding. So this time around I came with my eyes fully open.

The funny thing about truth is there is no 2 ways about it. For something to be totally true, every aspect of it has to be true & in conformity to what you can perceive. Hence, my statement earlier as to why this is so important to me to work this one out.

The Hindu scriptures clearly states that every soul goes through a cycle of 84 lakh birth-death cycles to finally attain the human form. Starting from microscopic creatures, to plant life (Oh yes! Many of you did not know it, did you? Our scriptures clearly say that plants fall under the living category & we all go through that phase to reach here. There was a time, where the ancients used only dead wood or collected wood fallen down from the trees and cut those trees that are already dying. And every time a tree was cut, there was a ritual wherein the woodcutter asks for permission & begs forgiveness for his act ), to birds, animals & then finally man. And having come here, the time is to be actually invested to get out of the whole cycle which is termed as ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Attaining Salvation’. However, we spend most of our time in frivolous pastimes wasting this opportunity & then start again somewhere in the cycle based on our deeds. Now, for this to be true, there has to be an explanation for what we are seeing in nature. This got me thinking as to how using this framework, one can explain how certain species become extinct, never to come back. For eg. - you have the Dodo bird that has been extinct for a long time now. Not a single bird is left thus giving rise to the phrase ‘As dead as a Dodo’.

While I tried to reason this out for a long time, only recently have I come up with a plausible answer (that is if any of this is plausible at all – you know there is a school of thought that says that actually there is no creation & that we are all part of a cosmic dream. Remember the movie – The Matrix). Well it goes something like this -

Man is a very selfish creature. In his unending quest to quench his greed, he has been looting & destroying the wealth of nature as if the world is his fiefdom & everything in it is just to please his every whim & fancy. Every society of man has been progressively growing more & more evil in its outlook to fellow human beings as well as other inhabitants of this planet. In such a scenario, it is only obvious that we will have to start from the lowest order again. And in our materialistic quest we have destroyed innumerable plant & animal species. Now with every death, the soul progresses. So would these plant & animal life. Hence, while in one hand we have an increase in human population around the world, there has been also an explosion in the many germs & microscopic lifeform which forms the lowest order in the migratory cycle of the soul.

The fact that entire species have become extinct forever, such that it will never appear again makes me think about one more important aspect about life on this planet. I think that we are very close to the time for the universe to end. The ‘Pralaya’ that the scriptures talk about. We may have only a few hundred years or a few thousand maybe left at the most. A few hundred or thousand years on a cosmic scale is nothing against the backdrop of a universe that is billions of years old. It is as small as a micro second in comparison. And then creation will happen all over again. It is an unending cycle & only the creator knows how many times this universe has been created & destroyed, only to be created again. For that is ordained.

Rebirth - A Theorem & its Corollary

Hi,

This is something, a thought that has been going on in my mind for a very long time & I decided to give it shape or rather put it in words & mail across to get reactions to the same.

I am sure most of you remember high school geometry where we had Theorems & Corollary’s of the Theorems. For those who don’t, I will give you a small example just to refresh your memories. For example, we have the Pythagoras Theorem which states that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. There was also a corollary based on the proof of the theorem that the remaining to sides of this triangle form a right-angle & that it lies opposite to the hypotenuse.

Keeping with this principle, I propose a theorem stating that – Rebirth is a fact & not fiction & a corollary to this theorem saying that – Brain is not the only seat of memory.

Now for the corollary to be proved as true, first it has to be proved that rebirth if a fact.

Theorem - Rebirth is a fact & not fiction.

Traditional science pooh-poohs the whole idea of rebirth as old world nonsense and believes only what can be proved scientifically. Fortunately, science has evolved and modern science, especially the parapsychology branch, has been trying to find answers to questions that weren’t even considered serious enough to warrant a search for an answer, let alone find one.

However, for establishing the concept of Rebirth as fact here, proof is necessary. Now the question that would most definitely rise in your mind is how in heaven’s name will I ever prove it? Well the answer to that is, I won’t. That is, somebody else has already gone to great lengths to document cases across the globe. Probably the best known collection of scientific data that appears to provide scientific proof that reincarnation is real is the life's work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. Dr. Stevenson has devoted the last forty years to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children from all over the world. He has over 3000 cases in his files. Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation. (For those who are still skeptical, please visit this link http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm . This would go a long way in allaying your fears where a ‘western’ scientist has provided scientific & documentary evidence of rebirth).

Hence, due to lack of time & first hand knowledge and considering the authenticity & detailing of Dr. Stevenson’s work, I hereby surmise & submit as proof that rebirth is a fact & not fiction.

Now for the corollary.

Corollary to the Rebirth Theorem – Brain is not the only seat of memory.

What re-birth really means is having memory of an earlier life. Now everyone knows the story of Gautam Buddha wherein on attaining Nirvana, he remembered all his past lives. Here, we are dealing with lesser mortals & even rarer incidents of remembering our past lives.

Now, if the brain were the only seat of memory as is generally believed, then it is impossible for people to have any remembrance of a past life. For on death, every part of your body including your brain is destroyed & on birth, a new brain is created from scratch. So how is that any person can any memory of his/her past life.

Here I would like to enter into the unscientific grounds & propose that maybe it is recorded in the soul of an individual. If the scriptures are to be believed, the soul is a small particle that is situated in the heart region of individual. So, is it possible for something as miniscule as that to record so much in detail. Well let’s take modern day pen drives for example. Not only are they getting smaller in size with each passing day, they are also improving on the memory side. As it is today, we have pen drives that have around 40GB as memory. And that is a lot of memory. So imagine the kind of technology God can create. For him, this is no big deal.

So, taking the computer memory parallel further, if we equate the soul to a pen drive, the human body to a computer & the hard drive as the brain, then, we can say that certain data, if not all, can be saved into this pen drive/soul & password protected such that you cannot access these files without the proper password when plugged-in to another computer/body. However, for whatever reasons, some of us tend to remember this ‘password’ & can access these files. And thus, we have memories of a previous life or evidence of rebirth.

As to why this happens & why only a select few are fortunate enough (are they really?) to remember is something that I have no answer for. But for now, thus it is proved that for rebirth to be a fact, brain cannot be the only seat of memory.

I rest my case. Any takers?