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Re:questions
>Pradip Gangopadhyay (pradip@lism.usc.edu) wrote:
>: Hindu philosophy asserts that God has become this universe. So since God
>: has no beginning and no end , the universe has no beginning and no end.
>: However, sometimes the universe is manifest and sometimes latent. So you
>: are right. There is no creation. God, however, periodically projects the
>: universe and then takes it back.
>Dear Pradipbabu:
>It is true that God created the universe, but it is not correct to say
>that God is the universe, that is, in theory, if one could know the
>universe in its entirety, one would know God. In the Gita, God has dealt
>with this subject in detail. God said that the universe is but one
>fraction (ekamsha, SBG) of Him. God transcends the universe. That
>means, if one could know (by both jnana and vijnana as in 9.1 in SBG) the
>universe, one would know only the ekamsha of God. The universe does have
>a beginning and also an end, both in space and in time. By our yardstick
>of measurement, the universe seems like infinite in space and also in
>time, but it is not for God. He clearly said that at certain times, He
>creates and at certain other times, He dissolves the universe, and as He
>does these, He returns everything disintegrated to their elements to
>Mahadbrahma (SBG ch 14), that is prakriti (not nature) and again
>reimpregnates prakriti to recreate the universe.
>As He has said, He is present in His unexpressed form (avyaktamurti) in
>the world and also in vyktamurti as the many Purushas. He also said (for
>example, in SBG ch.9) that He is not one of the objects of the world, but
>His omnipresence (as Purushas) is there in everything of the world.
>With best regards,
>Dhruba.
Namaskar Dhrubababu:
Thank you for your interesting reponse.
You are right that only a fraction of God has become this universe.
This is mentioned not only in the Gita but also in the Upanishads. The
invocations at the beginning of some of the Upanishads say "This is Full and
That is Full" meaning that although God has become the universe His
transcendence remains unimpaired. In my response I did not want to go into
such a subtle point as I felt that the questioner does not know even the
basics of Hindu philosophy.
I deliberately said that "there is no creation" according to Hindu
philosophy. As you know modern scientific theory of Big Bang suggests that
the the universe is created out of nothing which is called the Vacuum state.
I find this idea that everything came out of nothing as highly unsatisfactory.
I agree that God periodically projects the universe and takes it back or as
you said that God creates and dissolves the universe. This idea of creation
is, however, different from the modern scientific idea of creation from
nothing. The Hindu idea seems to me to be closer to the idea of projection.
The Upanishads give the analogy of a spider projecting a web. Here the spider
stands for Brahman and the web for the universe. Periodically a small fraction
of the formless Brahman manifests in space and time and periodically becomes
unmanifest. This is not creation as it is commonly understood in popular
parlance.
With best regards
Pradip
