Hello fellow readers!
I have been having little too much of idle time recently and have been spending a lot of time reading history, specifically starting from evolution and God and the hindu religion, digging further deeper onto how Ramayana and Mahabaratha could be put to use in our current day world!
I must say wikipedia is damn informative, the extent of information is incredible, on even closed and focussed topics which have so limited available reference resources....
Below is the marriage between a lot of information and some of my ideas..
It is really quite amazing that most of the evolutionist and naturalist scientists are believers of GOD themselves! yes, and that includes the God of natural selection himself, Darwin! Yes!
Summary of Darwin's theory from wiki:
I find it quite clear that even Darwin took career and personal life as two different aspects! hehe..
ok, back to our exploration now...
And coming to the notion of naturalist scientists, questioning everything as why, why and why futher, in science has led to so many discoveries and scientists say that even if we keep on discovering stuff and providing scientific reasons for those why's.. we would still end up in searching for a more fundamental why...
and hence if someone says that the ultimate answer for that fundamental why is the great almighty, the God, that they dont have problems in believing that!!!
And,... Christianity's Holy Bible says that the entire earth, universe, and all other stuff has been created in just 6 days which of course does not clearly support the theory of evolution that all this has evolved over billions and billions of years.
Whereas Hinduism has an entirely different perspective on this , and its seems to me that Hinduism does say that religion, GOD and evolution co exist and that they do go hand-in-hand, which ultimately is what I believe personally.
More on hinduism...
The four vedas/upanishads that form the very basis of hinduism are totally unconfirmative about the creation of universe, earth and everything else by GOD - It says he may or may not have created...quote from Rig veda below (Again source is wiki)
A para from Rig veda below:
According to the Vedas creation of the universe is shrouded in mystery.
The Nasadiya Sukta, the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of the Rig Veda questions the attribution of creation and the origins of the universe:
And about the pralayas, according to hindu creation accounts, there are three supreme GODS,
Lord Brahma the creator (mostly regarded as Demigod or deva)
Lord Vishnu the preserver
Lord Shiva the destructor!
And brahma's one day in his Life accounts to 4 lakh 30 thousand human yrs and then everything gets destroyed and the cycle (Pralayas) of creation, preservation and destruction continues again and again throughout the life of brahma, which is about 100 years! Isnt it amazing that even science says about cycles in evolution?.... equivalent to Pralayas in hinduism..
And interestingly Swami Vivekanandha explains an astonishing interpretation of the Advaita Vedantic understanding of evolution to be in harmony with Darwinian theory in his own simple way!
We already saw the hinduism's account of creation..
Ramayana and Mahabaratha, the two great Hindu epics of India were the written verses that lay the ground rules of living for the Hindus..
While Ramayana, apparently a true story, was written and eternalised so people could understand their responsibilities as an ideal man(Rama), an ideal wife(Sita), an ideal Brother(Lakshmana), an ideal servant(Hanuman) and ideal king, ideal citizen etc...
Mahabaratha was written to teach the people of all times, the four "goals of life", which are dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation)
And I remember my Mom used to ask, in times of frustration or those testing times, "If rama, sita, indran etc were all the so called Gods, they all have had their own love, lust, greed, cheat etc and they werent so perfect either. While this is true, how is it that we can consider them as perfect and righteous Gods and idealise them and try to follow them.. Why on earth!"
Well, mom, here goes the answer for your question:
Before that we all should understand they were, atleast some of them were incarnations of God, just as jesus in Christianity and Prophet Mohamad in Islam!
And for those of us, who ve always thought, if Rama was the ever so perfect man, why did he doubt sita for infidelity! Valmiki's version of Ramayana(and the true version, apparently around 400 bc When Rama was in exile, he has met Sage Valmiki in the forests and gave an original account fo his life, which led Valmiki to write the greta epic Ramayana) says that Rama knew that Sita was going to be abducted by Raavana ahead of time and that it was his Destiny(as he was an avatar of lord vishnu) to kill Raavan and prove to the world that Dharma always wins! Before Raaavan could abduct Sita, Rama got into a pact with Agni Devi that she consumes Sita and leaves only a shadow of her for Raavan to abduct. Later on when she was saved, Rama asked Sita to walk on fire so that the shadow will be consumed by Agni Devi and that tha original Sita emerge, and that she did!!!
Mom, now that your doubt is cleared, may I ask you, when we read a book or may be just watch a movie, would we follow and pick up all the good things said and done, or keep fretting about the villain and the bad elements?
And also, we all might have heard of Lord Vishnu's 10 incarnations, which he does time and agian, so he could re remind the people of that particular period(Or yug!), that they should live with integrity, honesty, rationality, mutual help etc!
And Rama was one such avatar, And Krishna too one such avatar among others..
It also goes on to say that the last avatar of the present yug(Kalyug) is going to be Kalki after which Brahma's 4 lakh and odd years, unfortunately will come to a close and the current world, universe, etc ends its current cycle or pralaya! Oh no!...
So being a Hindu and an informed individual, why not just take Ramayana and Mahabaratha and the other stories in history, just the way they were meant to be taken and live as a better human?
Forget all the greed, love, lust etc, even if its a Moral story, when have we just taken the moral without a story, I, for one, at least would nt even just touch an entirely preaching book!
Getting back to evolution ...
Richard Dawkins in his 2005 book 'The God Delusion' argues that the failure to prove the absence of something does not confirm its presence. He also goes on to say that atheists can be highly intelligent, moral and can lead a peaceful life with great clarity!
Fine Mr.Dawkins, theists too can be highly intelligent, totally rational, morally obligated, completely loyal, and have faith in the almighty! If thats what is your opinion and you can live with that, well then I can live with mine and we all can!!
Its so amazing to live with the knowledge of all the basic facts behind our faith and belief and sure it makes me an even firm believer!!
For all those who did read this article completely, all kudos to your patience, congrats :) I hope you enjoyed reading!!
Meet you again,
Prabha
I have been having little too much of idle time recently and have been spending a lot of time reading history, specifically starting from evolution and God and the hindu religion, digging further deeper onto how Ramayana and Mahabaratha could be put to use in our current day world!
I must say wikipedia is damn informative, the extent of information is incredible, on even closed and focussed topics which have so limited available reference resources....
Below is the marriage between a lot of information and some of my ideas..
It is really quite amazing that most of the evolutionist and naturalist scientists are believers of GOD themselves! yes, and that includes the God of natural selection himself, Darwin! Yes!
Summary of Darwin's theory from wiki:
Darwin's theory of evolution is based on key facts and the inferences drawn from them, which biologist Ernst Mayr summarised as follows:[3]
- Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce the population would grow (fact).
- Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size (fact).
- Resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time (fact).
- A struggle for survival ensues (inference).
- Individuals in a population vary significantly from one another (fact).
- Much of this variation is inheritable (fact).
- Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their inheritable traits to future generations, which produces the process of natural selection (inference).
- This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species (inference).
I find it quite clear that even Darwin took career and personal life as two different aspects! hehe..
ok, back to our exploration now...
And coming to the notion of naturalist scientists, questioning everything as why, why and why futher, in science has led to so many discoveries and scientists say that even if we keep on discovering stuff and providing scientific reasons for those why's.. we would still end up in searching for a more fundamental why...
and hence if someone says that the ultimate answer for that fundamental why is the great almighty, the God, that they dont have problems in believing that!!!
And,... Christianity's Holy Bible says that the entire earth, universe, and all other stuff has been created in just 6 days which of course does not clearly support the theory of evolution that all this has evolved over billions and billions of years.
Whereas Hinduism has an entirely different perspective on this , and its seems to me that Hinduism does say that religion, GOD and evolution co exist and that they do go hand-in-hand, which ultimately is what I believe personally.
More on hinduism...
The four vedas/upanishads that form the very basis of hinduism are totally unconfirmative about the creation of universe, earth and everything else by GOD - It says he may or may not have created...quote from Rig veda below (Again source is wiki)
A para from Rig veda below:
According to the Vedas creation of the universe is shrouded in mystery.
The Nasadiya Sukta, the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of the Rig Veda questions the attribution of creation and the origins of the universe:
Then was not non-existence nor existence: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where?.... Who knows then whence it first came into being? He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not. -(Rig Veda 10.129.1-7)[4]A Hindu creation account is recorded in the Upanishads, according to which the universe and the Earth, along with humans and other creatures undergo repeated cycles (pralayas) of creation and destruction. A variety of myths exist regarding the specifics of the process, but in general the Hindu view of the cosmos is as eternal and cyclic.
And about the pralayas, according to hindu creation accounts, there are three supreme GODS,
Lord Brahma the creator (mostly regarded as Demigod or deva)
Lord Vishnu the preserver
Lord Shiva the destructor!
And brahma's one day in his Life accounts to 4 lakh 30 thousand human yrs and then everything gets destroyed and the cycle (Pralayas) of creation, preservation and destruction continues again and again throughout the life of brahma, which is about 100 years! Isnt it amazing that even science says about cycles in evolution?.... equivalent to Pralayas in hinduism..
And interestingly Swami Vivekanandha explains an astonishing interpretation of the Advaita Vedantic understanding of evolution to be in harmony with Darwinian theory in his own simple way!
"There seems to be a great difference between modern science and all religions at this point. Every religion has the idea that the universe comes out of intelligence. The theory of God, taking it in its psychological significance, apart from all ideas of personality, is that intelligence is first in the order of creation, and that out of intelligence comes what we call gross matter. Modern philosophers say that intelligence is the last to come. They say that unintelligent things slowly evolve into animals, and from animals into men. They claim that instead of everything coming out of intelligence, intelligence itself is the last to come. Both the religious and the scientific statements, though seeming directly opposed to each other are true. Take an infinite series, A—B—A—B —A—B. etc. The question is — which is first, A or B? If you take the series as A—B. you will say that A is first, but if you take it as B—A, you will say that B is first. It depends upon the way we look at it. Intelligence undergoes modification and becomes the gross matter, this again merges into intelligence, and thus the process goes on. The Sankhyas, and other religionists, put intelligence first, and the series becomes intelligence, then matter. The scientific man puts his finger on matter, and says matter, then intelligence. They both indicate the same chain. Indian philosophy, however, goes beyond both intelligence and matter, and finds a Purusha, or Self, which is beyond intelligence, of which intelligence is but the borrowed light."And now getting to more of hinduism in depth:
We already saw the hinduism's account of creation..
Ramayana and Mahabaratha, the two great Hindu epics of India were the written verses that lay the ground rules of living for the Hindus..
While Ramayana, apparently a true story, was written and eternalised so people could understand their responsibilities as an ideal man(Rama), an ideal wife(Sita), an ideal Brother(Lakshmana), an ideal servant(Hanuman) and ideal king, ideal citizen etc...
Mahabaratha was written to teach the people of all times, the four "goals of life", which are dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation)
And I remember my Mom used to ask, in times of frustration or those testing times, "If rama, sita, indran etc were all the so called Gods, they all have had their own love, lust, greed, cheat etc and they werent so perfect either. While this is true, how is it that we can consider them as perfect and righteous Gods and idealise them and try to follow them.. Why on earth!"
Well, mom, here goes the answer for your question:
Before that we all should understand they were, atleast some of them were incarnations of God, just as jesus in Christianity and Prophet Mohamad in Islam!
And for those of us, who ve always thought, if Rama was the ever so perfect man, why did he doubt sita for infidelity! Valmiki's version of Ramayana(and the true version, apparently around 400 bc When Rama was in exile, he has met Sage Valmiki in the forests and gave an original account fo his life, which led Valmiki to write the greta epic Ramayana) says that Rama knew that Sita was going to be abducted by Raavana ahead of time and that it was his Destiny(as he was an avatar of lord vishnu) to kill Raavan and prove to the world that Dharma always wins! Before Raaavan could abduct Sita, Rama got into a pact with Agni Devi that she consumes Sita and leaves only a shadow of her for Raavan to abduct. Later on when she was saved, Rama asked Sita to walk on fire so that the shadow will be consumed by Agni Devi and that tha original Sita emerge, and that she did!!!
Mom, now that your doubt is cleared, may I ask you, when we read a book or may be just watch a movie, would we follow and pick up all the good things said and done, or keep fretting about the villain and the bad elements?
And also, we all might have heard of Lord Vishnu's 10 incarnations, which he does time and agian, so he could re remind the people of that particular period(Or yug!), that they should live with integrity, honesty, rationality, mutual help etc!
And Rama was one such avatar, And Krishna too one such avatar among others..
It also goes on to say that the last avatar of the present yug(Kalyug) is going to be Kalki after which Brahma's 4 lakh and odd years, unfortunately will come to a close and the current world, universe, etc ends its current cycle or pralaya! Oh no!...
So being a Hindu and an informed individual, why not just take Ramayana and Mahabaratha and the other stories in history, just the way they were meant to be taken and live as a better human?
Forget all the greed, love, lust etc, even if its a Moral story, when have we just taken the moral without a story, I, for one, at least would nt even just touch an entirely preaching book!
Getting back to evolution ...
Richard Dawkins in his 2005 book 'The God Delusion' argues that the failure to prove the absence of something does not confirm its presence. He also goes on to say that atheists can be highly intelligent, moral and can lead a peaceful life with great clarity!
Fine Mr.Dawkins, theists too can be highly intelligent, totally rational, morally obligated, completely loyal, and have faith in the almighty! If thats what is your opinion and you can live with that, well then I can live with mine and we all can!!
Its so amazing to live with the knowledge of all the basic facts behind our faith and belief and sure it makes me an even firm believer!!
For all those who did read this article completely, all kudos to your patience, congrats :) I hope you enjoyed reading!!
Meet you again,
Prabha
