Is Creation Real???

Strange! Wonder of wonders … this question sounds so bizarre simply because were it not for the Creation how would one account for the questioner’s existence? How did the person who is asking this question come about? What’s the source of his existence? So is there an argument at all? What’s there to talk? What’s there to discuss? All’s peaceful again. Based simply on the reality that there is somebody who is questioning the Creation, Creation has to be admitted as an abiding reality. However, time and again, perceptions have proven to be false. It had been believed for quite some time that the Earth was stationary and what appeared as day and night to us was caused by sun’s movement around earth. Of course, this was later disproved when the reality of earth’s revolution on its axis and around the sun was discovered. But until it had not been, this seemed to be a perfectly valid explanation of day and night.

Sometimes I imagine the following scenario. I imagine a Clothesline. And then I imagine clothes hanging from the Clothesline. Everything’s normal so far – except that I see that in the places where the clothes are hanging from, I see the clothesline itself having become those clothes – the cloth is not made up of a separate material but is of the same material as the Clothesline. So everywhere you see – you don’t see clothes made up of different kinds of materials hanging over the clothesline but a continuum of clothesline itself with the latter taking the form of clothing in various places. By itself there’s no intrinsic change anywhere in the nature of the Clothesline – it continues to be just what it is – a clothesline – but takes different kinds of shapes along the way to become the different kinds of clothes hanging over it and giving the appearance of a separate entity when in reality it’s one and the same all along. The hanging clothes can only be apparently said to be different from the clothesline on account of their having a different form alone. Essentially however these “special” clothes are not separate from the clothesline at all.

Similarly, countless examples can be given where a thing is only apparently different from that from which it draws its existence. Take the pot-space for example – how’s the space that’s confined in the pot different from the space outside the pot? Are they different? Does the pot space, bounded by the periphery of the pot, have an existence that’s distinct from that outside the periphery of the pot? Now if the pot-space were to assert “Oh! I am not the same as the one existing outside” – how would you take that assertion? How real does it sound to you? When the pot is broken – does the space inside the pot get broken or merge or become one with the infinite space outside of the pot --- which amongst these options seems true to you? To me all options are true and none of them is true. Nothing really happens to the pot-space when the pot is broken --- only the sense of limitation that the pot-space had owing to it being confined by the periphery of the pot no longer exists. Nothing else changes dramatically about the nature of the pot-space itself. It continues to be what it always had been. Similarly when the Brahman gets confined in the periphery of the body – which actually includes the body-mind-sense complex – nothing really changes from the point of view of the Brahman itself. It stays what it always was. Indeed even the body is nothing but a form of Brahman itself even as the clothes we saw on the Clothesline earlier. The body comes and goes. Its thoughts come and go. Nothing happens to the Brahman, even as nothing happens to the intrinsic nature of gold itself when it becomes a Chain. So, will this apparent appearance of the Brahman moving in and out of the confines of the body as the body goes from one birth to the other keep on repeating ad-nauseum? Is there a connection between the Brahman and the body? What do we make of this body? Reverting to the pot space example – apparently, the pot itself isn’t made of the space it’s surrounding. But then, analyzing the nature of the elements comprising the pot we had seen in a related article that we actually really don’t quite know the exact composition of the pot, except that it is an arrangement of molecules in a certain order. But then again even the composition of the molecule really could not be ascertained for sure and in the end we had realized that we cannot really fathom what exactly makes the pot except to just relate it back to the Brahman itself – the best conceptualization of which would be something similar to Space – because the Brahman is actually devoid of any particular form as such. Thus in some ways the pot –space and the pot are actually one and the same…there’s no difference whatsoever at a fundamental level at least...only on a gross level, the pot does manifest in a shape distinct from the space it contains. Otherwise it’s all one and the same even as the body is not distinct from the Brahman even if the former is perishable, not-constant and so forth. Even if an apparent “duality” exists, it is in name and form only - the essence is the one Brahman and Brahman alone.

In other words, Creation is confusing the reality of Appearances with the Reality itself.

Naam Hari ka le re!!

Saare prayojan kis kaam ke

anek roop hai sab usi ek naam ke

sab tyaag ke pakad le us naam ko

taj ke subah aur sham ko

paar lag jaegi naiya jeevan ki

mit jaegi vyatha anavarat aavagaman ki

kaahe ka chhal kaahe ka dikhava

kaahe ka badappan kaahe ka badbolapan

kaahe ko khushiyo aur gham ke thapede

sudh budh bisaar ke naam Hari ka le re

It...

"It" exists in the space between two thoughts - if you manage to get a space between two thoughts that is...

On the conception of Reality

Why are we used to thinking in terms of finite space and time or in terms of everything having a cause behind its existence? For the Vedas tell us of a Brahman that is “uncaused” and “uncreated” and so forth. This conception is truly hard to believe and hence the struggle to keep searching for the Truth till we understand it fully. We think the Brahman too, like everything known to us, ought necessarily to have a beginning. For, we are used to seeing everything around us caused or created out of something. Anything that’s caused or created must necessarily have a beginning. And everything that exists must necessarily be caused or created otherwise there’s no way for us to fathom how its existence came about. However, if we keep following this logic – viz. that everything is caused by or created from something, then it will lead us to an infinite regress. Because it will lead us to ponder indefinitely over a series of sources each having a source that caused it. Thus, a caused b, which caused c, which caused d, which caused e, and so on till we reach the end of alphabet z caused by y. But, the question would still persist…what caused a? Are we even allowed to ask this question? And why shouldn’t we be allowed? If we can question what caused b and so on till z, why can’t we question what caused A? Pondering on these lines, an interesting situation occurs if we think that A in its own turn was caused by Z itself… thereby repeating the progression cyclically. Thus the whole creation (assuming the whole creation were just a sequence of letters) would turn out to be cyclic in nature – much like a circle – with no beginning or end. It could be true. Because that’s what the universe seems to be – a succession that gets created and destroyed.

It does seem never-ending - without a beginning or an end. It seems crazy. Our minds are not attuned to understand such a thing. How can a thing NOT have a beginning? We are used to seeing things not having an end because our own lives aren’t long enough. But with the aid of logic we know that all things created must definitely have an end. They cannot be without an end. But we are not used to seeing things without a beginning. Even logic doesn’t help us here. How can a thing not have a beginning? Look at a circle. Does it have a beginning or an end? It just appears to be a smooth structure without any edges. But when we drew the circle – we did begin from somewhere, right? We touched the paper with the pencil and started drawing from a point. Perhaps then a Point marked the beginning of the circle. So a circle can be thought of as being composed of a virtually infinite number of points all side by side and touching each other such that one after the other they keep appearing until the last point falls adjacent to the point from where it all began, only however, it’s on the other side. Thus, we come back to the starting point and close the loop. But, now we have seen that a circle is perhaps nothing more than a sequence of infinitesimally small points all arranged in a circular manner. It’s hard to distinguish one point from the other. They are so close to each other as to appear perfectly smooth and continuous. In this arrangement it’s hard to find the beginning or end.

However, it does seem to suggest a more generic principle - when what starts goes back to where it started from – the whole structure seems devoid of a definite beginning or an end. But isn’t it right to say that its creation did involve a certain beginning? The pencil did start from somewhere. So how can we say the circle doesn’t have a beginning? Sounds strange! And yet, when we look at the circle – there’s no way of telling where it starts and where it ends. Thus in a way, it does seem to have had a beginning – but that no longer seems to be true when you look at it AFTER it has been created. Thus in a way it has a beginning or does it? Hmm… sounds familiar! Uncertainty principle? Does it exist or it does not?

Similarly – Brahman does not have a beginning or an end. But the question still remains. What caused the Brahman itself? Did it appear out of nowhere? Then what caused the NOWHERE? What IS NOWHERE? Who created it? Again it goes in an infinite regress. Thus, we see that per-force we need to accept a conception of a Brahman that has no beginning or end. It seems to be an unending progression of cycles – emanating and dissolving in an infinite cycle. No one knows what causes it. No one knows what sustains it. If we now create the conception of a God as separate from this Brahman then the same question will plague us again. How did God come about? Is he uncreated, uncaused etc? Then how is He different from Brahman, which we have seen (from logic of course), is also uncaused and uncreated etc.

There are no definite answers. Perhaps there will be no definite answers. The Brahman is indeed everything and there’s nothing apart from it. It is the only reality there is. Who caused the Brahman itself – no one knows, for it is the cause of everything. We who question the Brahman are nothing but Brahman. We caused everything else. We are everything else. There’s nothing apart from us. So how can we be caused because if we were caused then the question would go into an infinite regress… who caused that which caused us? And then who caused that which caused that which caused us and so on. It will lead to a logical absurdity. Thus in order to prevent that logical absurdity, we are forced to adopt the truth of the statement that Brahman is the uncaused, uncreated truth of everything that we see and do not see, feel and do not feel, hear and do not hear, see and do not see and so on. Brahman is both the intelligent and the material cause of all there is. From Brahman it all comes and into Brahman it all goes. Brahman is the only constant in the variable of the cosmos. And there is no answer to the question of who created the Brahman. I think this eternal restlessness to answer Brahman’s origin belies the limited nature of our consciousness that’s given to perceiving things as being caused or created. An uncreated, uncaused thing is simply beyond all our mortal conceptions. And hence we keep wondering where the source of it all came from.

We take the example of a pot – a pot made of clay. We know perfectly well that a Pot has nothing partaking of anything that might be known with the upadhi of a pot. What is a pot? It is after all made of clay. So, when we touch a pot, we are touching clay. Analyzing one step further – we question what is clay then? Clay as we understand is made up of a bunch of elements – Selenium etc. All these elements are present in a certain proportion and when conditions are appropriate they combine to form what is known as clay. When clay is treated appropriately and molded by an appropriately skilled person – it becomes what we know as a pot. So, continuing the inquiry further – we get to know that clay is formed from certain basic materials. If we analyze those basic materials further we get to know that these materials are actually a mass of Molecules held in a particular orientation. For example when carbon atoms combine in a certain manner – they form the shining diamond. Thus a diamond is nothing but a particular fixed orientation of the carbon atoms forming the diamond molecule. Analyzing atoms further we come to know of the electrons and the nucleus comprising of neutrons and protons. The story goes deeper from here onwards – eventually it can be shown that electrons etc behave both as a particle and as a wave and in fact they don’t appear to be anywhere near what they eventually appear as in the solid, macro form that we are used to looking at them in – viz. they are in reality far away from their appearance as a pot or the diamond we see in our daily lives. In fact, Science has proved that we cannot truly even locate the electrons completely. We can only locate them within the limits set by the uncertainty principle. In fact we also know from quantum physics that even the electrons, protons and neutrons are not the end of the road for us – meaning they are not the ULTIMATE basic particle that comprises matter. The story goes deeper than that and only recently it has been proved that given a sufficiently powered equipment that can produce a wave of a sufficiently small wavelength (which in turn means of a sufficiently large frequency because wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency which is directly proportional to energy) we can keep finding smaller and smaller constituents – almost indefinitely. Thus, we don’t even know what comprises the things that we see in our daily lives at the very basic level. We can only know approximately within the limits set by the uncertainty principle. But that’s about it. So what’s the harm in accepting what the Vedas say – that it’s all unreal? There is no reality to what we see except the reality that we accord to it from our own conception. Our own conception is but a product of ignorance. The ignorance itself arises from the interplay of what we call as Maya. But that could well be any force that misleads us into seeing things that are not real. Just like we can sometimes mistake a rope for a snake and be filled with fear. Till such time as the real nature of the rope is known – the conception of the rope being a snake seems perfectly real to us – as real as feeling the burning sensation upon accidentally touching a hot surface.

So, when we aren’t even sure of what the pot is made up of – how can we define what it is? We just saw we don’t completely know what the pot is – except that its form and appearance both seem real to us – except that it does seem to hold water in it and except that we can pour an equally unknown substance – water for example – into an equally unknown glass by an equally unknown hand employing the faculties of an equally unknown mind etc. This is as complex as it can get. The entire interplay of things can be proved to be but a myth. Behind it all, the only unchanging reality is the reality of THAT which perceives it all as happening. That which perceives it all is the Brahman. Rest all is maya or mithya or unreal. Whatever name you give it, the fact is you don’t know what it really is despite the fact that it appears to you to be the only reality there is. What grief!!!

Some more Ramblings...

If it's all but a sham ... why does it feel so repulsive..or may be the sense of repulsion too is but a flicker of a wavering mind's imagination.

Oh...the vagaries of an unsettled mind. Today - I find some solace in reading those good things stated in the Vedanta texts. But, whimsicality of the mind returns at the first available opportunity, swiftly, decisively and like a hurricane that takes everything in its wake. It's not easy.

I feel repulsed by the quantity of sham that's being promoted in the name of religion. When I look at Science and most notably Physics in its efforts to get a sense of this creation (if so it may be called) - that too seems compulsively vague. Einstein - while having contributed so conclusively to the advent of Modern Physics and Quantum Science - never quite liked the idea of God's playing dice for it's so difficult to imagine what we see around us without attributing an all knowing Cause behind it.

Thus the quest continues. Time and Space have been proved to be but a speck of imagination. Our Vedas and Vedanta have said this all too often that the whole creation is but a speck of imagination. That seems to echo the view of Science as well. But like it has been said by Ramana Maharshi - and so beautifully true it all seems to be - that the human mind is given to flights of fancies; it is just not content accepting that there's no rocket science around all this creation business - it's only in our imagination. That it is the Brahman that under the spell of maya has become this world - and that in the process the Brahman itself has not changed - even as the Gold chain does not require a change in the intrinsic nature of Gold itself. The fact that indeed this whole creation is but a creation of our Egos. To attest this fact the instance of deep sleep is cited. When we are in deep sleep, we remember, feel, know, desire, hate, love nothing. We just remain suspended as it were. Words can't describe that state accurately enough. We just lose everything. We lose our individuality. While all is lost, the self is not. Because when we wake up we do remember that we enjoyed a good sleep. So there was someone who was there all the time during which none of the other business of this world was apparent to us. That something was nothing but our True Self - that was there almost as a witness to the phenomenon of sleep. When we wake up, so does our ego and it brings the world back in business. Then we become ourselves - father, child, husband, brother and so forth. We become the many things that we simultaneously are during our tenure on earth. All this had for a moment gone into hinding when we were deeply asleep. The sages say that that's our real nature. All else is ego's creation. The mind which is but ego's creation keeps flitting from one subject to the other and never lets one stay peacefully. They say that whatever moves fast stays young. In an experiment, two clocks which were set to the same time and absolutely identical in every way were used - one was sent in a rocket to space and the other was kept on earth. After the journey in space, the clock that went in the rocket showed a smaller amount of time elapsed than the one on earth. That happened of course due to the Relativistic Effect of travel at speeds bordering the speed of light. But it affirms the theory that the faster a thing moves, the slower it ages. So is it with the mind. It is famed to move even faster than light. Well, it's speed is actually incalculable. No wonder while the body ages, the mind never does and stays as active as it always was even at the very end of our lives (medical objections to mental insanity can be made but that can be shown to be exceptions arising due to uncontrollable external factors - that still does not undermine the argument about the nature of the mind itself).

In the end - after all the debates, discussions, philosophizing, criticizing, scrutinizing - the mind, ephemeral, given to tantrums and flighty as is its wont - comes back to its wayward ways and says - it all doesn't add up.

Hasn't added up for me yet... Like I said in a small post made earlier... I am still lost on the Truth... decisively...

One Truth - Countless Versions

Still lost on the Truth...

I wish someday I would know the Truth as decisively as the sense of loss i feel today...

Reflections...

You seek what you are

Why care about the grind

The chaos outside is but a reflection

of an unsettled mind

The inexplicable lure of heaven and earth

and all the mayhem you find yourself in

Wherefore the quest to achieve them

when everything you want to be is within