Scientific theories do not speculate about the power or
purpose behind
the origin of the universe. Somehow it got started. It is here and
being of a curious
mind, let's
investigate. In the interest of a viewpoint of a deeper curiosity,
this paper hypothesizes
an initiating power, and discusses a hybrid framework - conforming
with the current cosmology
paradigm, of how living objects and primordial material particles
became a part of the early universe through the force of this power.
The word "God" is being
used here in a nonspecific sense. Others have
conveyed similar meaning by using words like, "Supreme Will", "The Creator"
and "Eternal Reality" or the scientific expression "Infinite
Temperature".
Preamble
In the grand scheme of things universal, before the beginning
of the
beginning, there
was neither darkness nor light because there was no physical space,
no form of matter
and no form of energy in existence. The wheel of time had not been
born yet. It is hard
for anyone to imagine or visualize absolute nothingness, in terms of
the basic precepts
of rudimentary science, what did or did not prevail, exist or did not
exist. It is commonly
believed by many that only the spirit of God had prevailed then. But
then, if God had
prevailed, then the physical universe, as we know it today, had also
prevailed.
Subjectively, it is hard for us to separate one from the other. One
can safely assume
that God is universe, universe is God, She/He is in each and every
particle
of the universe
and that each and every particle of the universe is in Her/Him. This does
not appear to
violate our intuitive understanding of universality, endlessness or
omnipresence of
nature and God. However, the possibility does exist that God and the
universe may be
two separate entities.
Early questions
Is it even possible to reflect on the duality or the oneness of God and the universe? Did God create the human or did the human create God? Was the first human aware of God in her or him or external to her or him? Are animals aware of the spirit of God, in their own way? Are plants? Are inanimate objects?
Is God an idea of the evolved human mind or is the human the
manifestation
or end
result of an idea, a thought of God? If it is assumed that the spirit
of God had preceded
the beginning of the beginning, when was the human mind enlightened
of this fact?
Possibly, this assumption is fundamentally flawed because in our
limited
perspective of
things of a scale as large as the universe, we borrow from everyday
life and assume an
ongoing process at work that had a beginning and that has evolved to
the present
state? Or is it because we see the universe expanding in its present
form, we argue
that it must have started from a smaller size? Is there room for
spontaneity
in this case?
The answers to such questions are not easy to find.
The Big Bang
Science has set this paradox aside by assuming that there was
a physical
beginning, a
Big Bang. This is understandable because science is about determining
and measuring
physical characteristics of things. Physical nature of things dictates
a causal beginning,
the middle and the end transformation, which may become a causal
beginning
of the
next phase. Science works comfortably with forms like the circumference
of a circle and
the surface of a sphere, neither of which has a beginning nor an
end.
Physical Space
It may not be possible for us to, either objectively or
subjectively
imagine or state what
was there before Kreashun. This may be, because, according to the
prevailing
wisdom,
the thinking, enquiring man came into his own long after the physical
universe had
come into existence. Can one imagine a void concentrated into a point
without a center,
the counterpoint of a black hole in space? Can one imagine a void
bereft
of physical
space? The vacuum between two adjacent stars in space occupies physical
space.
Human body requires physical space and displaces it by being there.
In contrast,
entities like mind, consciousness and thoughts do not require physical
space for their
existence. So, where do they exist? What is their substance, their
fabric?
Without Space
Generally speaking, mind, consciousness and thoughts are
powerful entities
while the
human body is helpless without them. Is it then logical to conclude
that the human body
evolved after the physical space had come into being? It appears to
be the case. But
then, can one infer that perhaps the mind, consciousness and thoughts
were already in
existence when the physical space was born? If this is true, the
question
of ownership
springs forth. Whose mind, whose consciousness and whose thoughts were
they?
Probably, they were universal, as the prevailing wisdom goes.
Without Beginning
Let us assume that before the beginning of the beginning, when there was no universe, "The Creator" had prevailed because "The Creator" is omnipresent and has neither a beginning nor an end and has absolute authority over everything, including the pre-universe nothingness. "The Creator" became pregnant with a "Will" to create and did so through "Thoughts". The "let there be space", "let there be energy/light" and "let there be matter" scenarios came into full force and the universe started to unfold out of the absolute nothingness, expanding in every direction in space. Presumably, space was not curved yet as massive galaxies had not formed. This nonscientific or philosophical argument is the equivalent of the "A dot of pure energy about the size of a proton" that preceded the scientific Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. The rest is history. Hydrogen clouds rolled everywhere, congealing into stars like our sun, the super-hot nuclear furnaces that they became, consuming hydrogen and producing heat, light and helium. The assumption is that mass and the force of gravitational pull came into being simultaneously, or did they? Some stars became superheated far beyond their own heat and exploded and the other ninety (90) natural elements of chemistry came into being. These elements populated the newer condensing, congealing celestial bodies. Galaxies were launched in every direction. In one called The Milky Way, a specific solar system spawned a planet called Earth about 4 billion years ago, on which discernable intelligent life evolved about 100,000 years ago and that's us today. The sequence of events seems to suggest that physical matter got created first. Intelligent life followed later through evolution or by a once-ever accident or coincidence.
New Possibilities
This sequence of events may be
questionable.
There is an equal chance that "The
Creator's" first thought was "let there be life." The human mind, who
is investigating the
sequence of creation after the fact, is capable of carrying only one
thought at a given
time. Perhaps when "The Creator" became saturated with "Will", multiple
"Thoughts"
came to Her or Him simultaneously and got expressed simultaneously.
Or maybe there
were only three "Thoughts": "let there be
life",
"let there be the planet earth to support
it"
and "let there be an endlessly dynamic
universe"
all around, in that order. A specific
direction was set. Life, planet earth and
the
universe came into being simultaneously,
conceptually, at first. This may be explained by a simple analogy.
If conceptual life was
the first in the universal plan, then the place to house the real life
and the physical
processes to address its physical attributes became merely a response
to serve the
needs of life. And, given the superconscious attributes of the universal spirit,
"The
Creator", perhaps, had the preferred thought of "life" first, and then
followed it with the
thought of the venue - planet earth, and then with the thought of
matter
and energy, the
last as a frame work for environment in which life could take hold,
thrive and evolve physically. The other way around seems implausible, for, the spirit of
God, in Her/His
graciousness, did imbue life with Her/His three principal virtues of
consciousness, mind
and thought - attributes of intelligence and merit, making the human
in Her/His own
image.
Why "Thoughts"? Because a thought precedes a mental or physical act in life imbued with consciousness, mind and thoughts. The power of a thought is the impelling force behind an act to bring it about. Physical attributes come into play, subsequently, as the necessary steps are taken in the performance of the series of actions to complete the act. So, a thought is the substratum of an act, any act. If the thought, in the first place, didn't arise, one wouldn't be impelled to move to act.
What was the sequence of events in this grand manifestation of Kreashun?
Before any physical space or matter got expressed in it, the
nothingness of
the pre-universe
became impregnated with the force of
creativity
consciousness. From consciousness
came the pools of roots of conceptual life, which later got expressed
into the countless
life forms on planet earth. They were evolving there in nonmanifest
forms from time
zero. Do we know today, if anywhere, new species of life forms are
coming into
existence? However, we do know that many species are becoming extinct
through
natural causes and some misguided human preoccupation with the practice
of
pragmatic science. Perhaps, the age of the universe may be guessed
from this
regression. Physical space then came into being to accommodate the
coming varied
embodiments of consciousness. Energy and material elements followed
thereafter to
supply the building blocks for the physical shells of life.
The Sequence
The actual manifestation of the visible life forms didn't commence until the appropriate material conditions were reached. That meant, first the Milky Way galaxy had to find its place in the firmament, then the very specific solar system had to form and cool down. Right conditions on the unique planet earth, as to its position in the solar system, geography, water, temperature and the composition of the atmosphere, etc. were a priori. This was all set into motion with a strong sense of direction at time zero of Kreashun. The ends justified the long, arduous and superabundant means!
Of course, it took billions of years of transforming
primordial gases and
forms of energy into
the right material conditions to first express life and then to support it.
Just look at the complexity of the structure
of even the
simplest life form with its intertwined mesh of physical, emotional
and metaphysical
wholesomeness. A gentle stretch of the imagination leads one to even
argue that the
physical aspect and the life aspect of Kreashun were in progress
simultaneously,
the
former in the visible plane and the latter in the invisible plane,
and that the forces in the
invisible plane were driving the forces behind the visible plane.
If one examines the fundamental characteristics of each of the three sequential arenas of Kreashun postulated here, basically, the evolutionary processes are found to be similar. They are found to be iterative, in decreasing density of the medium of expression, and in increasing subtlety of the end. At the level of the universe, the medium of expression is matter and energy. At the level of planet earth, the medium of expression is life forms, and, at the level of life, the medium of expression is consciousness. For example, the proliferation, transformation and penetration of space by the energy-mass continuum of the universe is no different than the very first prototype living cell whose proliferation and differentiation led to the countless life forms in the plant, animal and human domains of planet earth. It is also no different than the stem cell proliferation, migration and differentiation of neurogenesis and at other sites in the body.
For this reason - this may sound absurd at face value - we
have to build a theoretical model to identify and
define the
counterparts to the biological brain, the
biological
heart and the biological DNA in the
domain of the planet earth and in the domain of the physical universe.
This will set the
scientific investigation of the origin of the cosmos on the right
course and increase
the chances of
the outcome of its studies and experiments. Discoveries made in one
domain will
augment the understanding of structures in the others. For example,
if the foundation of
human consciousness is discovered to reside in the inner workings of
the tubules of the
neurons in the brain, then this knowledge will contribute to its
counterparts
in planet
earth systems and cosmology at large.
Recent Discoveries
NASA has previously reported the first wave of results from the WMAP sweeps of the background microwave radiation in the sky. The results are a tribute to the ingenuity and acuity of the investigating scientific mind. If you look at the graphic associated with the page "Age of the Universe with New Accuracy" in band Big Bang at time zero, it doesn't speak to the first appearance of particles or undifferentiated matter leading to elements Deuterium and Helium appearing at the 100 second time band, after the Inflationary period.
First possibility
is that massive pools of neutrons inflated the black space spontaneously all over, making an unpolarized featureless beginning of the universe. The coded verses in the Vedic hymns suggest that Kreashun could not have proceeded until "the female energy" came upon the scene, which may be interpreted to mean that the negative energy, namely free electrons proliferated next. This was the beginning of duality, in that, equal number of neutrons converted to protons to balance the electrons, releasing more free electrons and the first episode of radiation. Thus the first set of nuclei were made. (This is tentamount to the reverse of the fusion process in the stars, where, presumably, protons convert to neutrons). Now the building blocks of the first Hydrogen atom are there and Deuterium and Helium can follow as the local temperature rose in the massive gravitational buildups.Here the "Eternal Reality" is symbolized by the scientific "infinite temperature at time zero" of Cosmology's Big Bang (indicated in NASA's graphic, referred to above).
Second possibility
In this scenario, the Inflationary period consisted of five filtering-down invisibly quick stages of transformation. Black physical space and infinite temperature created winds of radiation, leading to fires and light, leading to liquid mass which congealed into an undifferentiated, quivering, frosted glass-like primordial mass(presumably pre-quarks and pre-Leptons). This was the prelude to the permanent coupling of mass to gravitation. Processes of the first possibility noted above then sprung out of this undifferentiated mass in visible form.
I am not trained to express these alternative possibilities in the language of the relativity theory. However, I do perceive them during my daily meditation session after the 3rd or 4th hour, a practice I have followed for the last twenty years. It is the second possibility that frequently visits me during meditation sessions. Blobs of the undifferentiated matter are perceived in the black ambience of the protouniverse and at times my open palms are figuratively filled with them and I can feel their resistence.
Lately, during meditation sessions where I have deeply
concentrated on the enigma of
the origin of the universe, I have perceived the present shape of the
universe, which
came to me in a 10 millisecond flash. The graphic "Shape of the
Universe" is the best I can do to
record it. Unlike science, spiritual insights appear suddenly in a
flash only once and
cannot be reproduced! They may appear again.
Clusters of galaxies are strung along the
curvilinear surface of the evolving shape. The dark "base" and lines
are some kind of an invisible precursor material that has not been
resolved into physical matter.It may be providing countervailing
forces. The "base" is in the shape of a convex lens and it is turning
and dragging the whole universe with a twisting torque. Perhaps, the effect of the centrifugal force
is causing the outer reaches of the universe to be appearing to be receding further out.
Yadihasti tadanyatra yannehasti natatkvachit - Vishvasara Tantra
" What is here is elsewhere, what is not here is nowhere"
Furthermore, there is a good possibility that what is presently theorized to be exotic black energy and the mysterious black matter in galaxies may in fact be remnants of the unresolved, unexpressed undifferentiated mass from the first stage of Kreashun.
Ravi Sadana
Retired, Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Residing in California
January, 2005