I Am That, so'ham asmi |

    “I am That (tyat)”, says the Veda. “I am the Universe”, scientists declare! Aham brahmasmi is the Vedic doctrine. Now, the scientists have attained the state of the ancient sages and declare that the science and the Vedanta are one and the same! Today, we know more almost everything from a sub-atomic particle to the giant star, the universe, the multiverse and beyond! “I am Shiva” (Shivo’ham or so’ham asmi) is the ultimate truth! Look within and find ‘it’ out. This is explicitly stated in the AtmA bodha of Sri Shankaracharya. Aham brahmasmi is the Vedic doctrine.

    It all starts with the tiny twinkling Star. Great astronomers starting from Aryabhata to Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler and Stephen Hawking did a lot of sky watching and documented their observations. What all we know about the universe from sky watch are mere speculations, probabilities, theories and hypotheses, and postulations.

   Moreover, our knowledge is obtained from the study of ‘Light’. Scientists have presented the theories of ‘Big Bang’, ‘Black Holes’ and the General Theory of Relativity and Gravitational Theory. The most powerful telescope to get the pictures of the outer boundary of the universe is getting ready and will be operative in a few years; and, till then we have to be contented with what we have obtained from the Hubble telescope and the CERN, the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory), and Virgo Observatory, and other sources. The discovery of Gravitational waves in February 2016 has opened up a new vista and scientists are excited about it. Already, they have come out with the rate at which the universe is expanding! We have now findings from experiments in molecular biology, DNA studies, Wave theory, quantum mechanics, and particle physics. Some elementary knowledge about the neutron stars, supernova, and white stars, red stars and dwarfs and other types of stars and their structure and composition, and we know how galaxies are formed in space. We also know that all that we see as the universe, the cosmos, is just 5 per cent and the rest are Dark Matter (25 per cent) and ‘dark energy’ (70 per cent). Only four powerful forces- Gravitational Force, Electromagnetism, Atomic Energy, and some ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forces are operating this universe! How the universe is created is a matter of great interest and almost all the ancient Indian scriptures speak about it. The modern scientists do not have even a faint idea about it!  

    The recent observations of the universe through the lens of the most powerful electronic telescopes and the interpretations of the images obtained from them, reveal a lot of secrets regarding the origin of the universe. Today we know a lot more than what we learnt during the last hundred years. Twenty-first century heralds a new vision. This should be reviewed in Vedantic way!    However, there is nothing new in all these since the Agama Shastra Samhitas (almost 200!), Srividya, Lakshmi Tantra, and the Cosmogram ‘Sri Chakra’ etc have already revealed these in very clear unmistakable explicit terms. We have the Pancharatra which describe the powers vested in ‘Sudarshana’. However, there is much symbolism involved in all these. Hence, there should be no doubt regarding the various aspects of creation (srushti), existence (sthiti), development (vikasa) and sustenance (samrakshana) and dissolution (laya) and merger (vilaya) of this universe. In fact we have realized the secret of all these life in its variety and diversity as described in the forgoing paragraphs. It is also stated- “phenomenal objective transient world is a myth”!

    The universe is expanding at a very rapid rate and each star and its paraphernalia are moving farther and farther away from each other, and this includes the nature of the human mind, attitude and behaviour in its interrelations, too! No wonder, one day, everything will fall apart! Strangely enough, all these are described in the spiritual texts; the great sages like Vashishtha, Vishvamitra, Agastya, Ashtavakra, Raikva and Avadhuta knew all about these! They were the drushtaras who visualized and handed down their knowledge to us.

Sky watch and Earth watch

  When we watch the earth and ourselves from space, the picture we get is something stranger than that we get from what we get from when we watch the space from the earth. This earth watch and watch of the self by the great sages or yogi of the past has revealed the true nature of our existence. Our existence here on earth as ‘earthlings’ or living creatures dependent on food is purely a transitory one. However, it is not the living body with which we are concerned here but the energy aspect constituting the core of the substance, the Atma. The unborn, eternal, and immortal soul is what all matters here. It is this tiny invisible particle smaller than the smallest (anoraniyan) that is the core of the substance, the universe. It is the same at all the three levels- the cosmos (brahmanda), the body (pindanda) and the cell (andanda). It is that abstract absolute indefinable eternal spiritual entity which acquires mass and becomes matter at a later stage and, thus, becomes a visible entity, called Atman. It is the embodiment of knowledge. It has everything within itself to manifest as it desires! This is the true story of creation.