Understanding Our Conscious Universe So, that is roughly what the expert in Vedanta would tell us. Are you able to appreciate the significance of this message from the expert? Perhaps not, since it is really quite heavy! So, as a wrap up of this issue, let me lay it out for you. The Atma/Pure Consciousnes is the starting point of it all. Basically it can and does exist all by itself. This is a state of incredible ONENESS, that we can never comprehend with our Minds. However, we can experience it, if we prepare ourselves adequately for that. This aspect of the Atma is Eternal, beyond Time and Space, and “featureless”. By the way, the Atma is also called God; in Vedanta, this aspect of God is referred to as Niraakara Brahman [God without Form]. Featureless it might appear, but the Atma is latent with incredible and immense potentialities. This is rather like the “vacuum” of modern Quantum Mechanics; it is not “emptiness”; rather it is a state in which though nothing materially exists, there is infinite potentiality for throwing up a lot of things. Creation is something that emerges from the Atma. When Creation takes place, it is not as if the Atma in the sense described earlier ceases to exist, transforming into the Universe. Not at all; rather, it is like a mother giving birth to a baby. Before birth, there was only the mother [with the baby in the womb of course]. After birth, the mother is there plus the baby. It is the same here. Is there any purpose behind Creation, or, as Stephen Weinberg put it, is the Universe without a purpose? Well, Steve may think so, but in Vedanta, the Universe came into existence so that the potentialities latent in the Atma could play out in a manifest form in many different ways. For example, the beauty of the Atma [the Sundaram aspect for the technically minded] can be seen all over Nature. The noblest qualities like Pure Love and Compassion are best exhibited by the human form, which is why there was a long and complex evolution process, slowly preparing the way for humans to take the stage. It may be humans act out their part in a tiny planet that goes round a B-grade star called the Sun, which is but one of the billion or so stars in a galaxy called the Milky Way, which is one of the billion or so galaxies scattered across the sky! Seen that way, our solar system, our planet and ourselves may seem utterly trivial! [It is good to feel that way since that can check our egos!] Nevertheless, in this wide and huge cosmos, it is humans alone that can comprehend many things. They can understand that it is God who created the Universe [the monkey, for example, cannot do that, obviously!]; they can appreciate that the Universe exists with a purpose, i.e., as a platform where humans can show Pure Love, Selfless Sacrifice etc. And above all, it is on this “tiny and insignificant planet” that God incarnates as an Avatar, enabling us to experience Bliss! OK, all this is fine, but where is the much-promised Infinity? If that is your question, why don’t you try an answer yourself and write to us with your guesses? Perhaps we can begin the next issue, starting from there? What do you say?
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 18:05:30 +0000
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