Can Man Become God?

   The Biblical statement is : "I and My Father in Heavens are One"|
   The Vedic Doctrine is : ayam Atmaa brahmn | Atma eva brahmn ||
  In the beginning I was with the Lord and now also I am in the womb of my Mother Earth. Bhu. Bhu Devi gives me birth, food, shelter and wants me to be happy and joyful. I am within the gravitational force and cannot escape unless my soul, blemished with unending desires, and action ti fulfill these sensuous desires, becomes pure enough to become a particle of Light, light enough  to escape gravity. So, I am ignorant of my true nature and suffer due to ignorance.
  Can I become God? Yes. if a plant like Tulasi or a tree like Oudumbara (fig tree), Banni or Ashvatha (banyon, peepul), or birds like falcon, swan and peacock, or even reptiles and other animals like rats, serpent and cow can rise to the level of Gods by becoming their vehicle of transport and get worshiped by us, why not we become God and be worshiped. What is so special about these plants and animals that they get the attention of people? Is it due to their good quality or any other commendable nature that they are deified and worshiped. It may seem strange to those who do  not know the secret of creation if we say that all creation are divine only, but some forget and other remember their true self. Besides, Bhagavan Shree Krishna says, "I am the Self of all". It is now clear that "Divinity rests within us and we must manifest that through meditation". Shree Krishna says, "One can reach Me by discarding what all that has been acquired as qualities. so give up everything and surrender to Me".  Constant meditation on the divine will automatically manifest the divinity within us and we too will be deified and worshiped. There are a million such manifest divine souls amidst us and we worship them!

    Why not we emulate the divine souls that are pure, unblemished, and shine in the glory of the Lord? What one has to do to attain to this divine stature is nothing but to just 'keep quite'. This is what we do once the plane takes off! We do not run here and there during the flight. We just tighten our belt, sit and close our eyes. But, we should not forget that there are certain prerequisites before getting the boarding pass. We have to make the flight booking well in advance, get clearance from customs after a very careful body-check, luggage is dropped at the check-in (not even cabin luggage in this case), and finally allowed to get in after security check, again. So also, the ashtanga yoga sutras are prescribed as preliminary exercises like yama, niyama, pratyahara and Ishvara pranidana as the first four necessary steps, followed by asana, pranayama, dhyana and finally, samadhi. This last step is what is stated as the "just keep quiet" principle in our advice above.  Remember, we are taking a space craft, not a jet flight! It is imperative that all the outer shells are discarded and only the capsule, the Atman, flies off, never to return to this death knell (mrutyu lok) where old age, sickness and death are certain!
     When the soul is pure and pristine, mind and intellect are merged in consciousness and the senses are reverted to the soul, the jiva shines in the glory of the Lord. Thus, one is deified! It is others who recognize this, not the jiva; the jiva is just unaware of its state! 
 Just surrender to the supreme Lord, rest will be done automatically by the higher self, paramatman! 

Are We Humans, As Yet?

The so called homo sapiens, the human beings found on this earth are yet to evolve into the state of fully developed humans! This is just the beginning of the stage of development of primates- monkeys becoming man! There are four more intermediate stages like the gibbon, orang utang, chimpanzee and gorilla, between the apes and the man we find walking on two legs with free hands. The problem is that the evolutionary process is a very very slow process. It has to evolve from the primary stages of gathering food and surviving with whatever manas (the Mind) and little intelligence (buddhi) that has developed, so far. The intellect ( 'buddhi'), not the perverted intelligence, has to develop and the mind is still in its adolescent stage, fickle and mischievous !  This is the reason why one can excel in any faculty, but cannot become a real human being with true love, compassion, selfless action and look for spiritual development. Even who pose as spiritual gurus have become merchants and use some tricks like yoga without ever bothering to promote the inner self to divine self!

  Thus, it is inevitable that we take some time off from our busy schedule and think about our spiritual development. All progress depends on one becoming more humane than rich and famous?  

Let's ponder over!

1.  The Universe, so far known to us ,consists of innumerable galaxies , each  one of them consisting of billions or trillions of stars- some of these having planets and satellites of their own! Some planets like the earth are supporting life due to the presence of ideal conditions such as heat. temperature, water, air,and soil. The entire universe exists in a vast undefined space of no known dimension and it is also not clear whether it is yet another matter like air and clouds. The galaxies  that contain millions, or may be even trillions, of stars are said to be mere clouds of gaseous masses of stellar dust that may condense into stars. It is said that these stars may collapse under their own weight and burst or explode (as in the case of neutron stars) bombarding the space with stellar dust particles and heavy metals like gold, platinum, mercury. These are scientific explanations given by astronomers and physicists. However, these observations are subject to constant review and restatements. We are getting new facts and figures, as and when new discoveries are made, and, hence nothing is certain about these. Moreover, all these are mere postulations, hypotheses, theories ,subject to change!

2.   The scientific version of the universe is supported by what the scientists have seen through powerful telescopes and a study of  the pictures obtained from  the electronic telescopic cameras . These are mere collages of colours of waves and splashes of  light ! The scientists have presented their observations based on these and have clearly stated that these are mere speculations and probabilities. The artistic impression is presented and this may not present the reality. The Vedantins, on the ther hand, have boldly stated that the observations are visions that are personally experienced and can never go wrong. Anybody at that heightened level of consciousness will envision or visualize the same truth! Hence, what they state is the ‘whole truth’- "evam veda", an indisputable statement, at that!  

       Thus, we have the views of both the scientists and the Vedantins for a comparative study. The interested seekers of ‘truth’ may wade through the literature available and make a practical effort to realize the truth through yoga sadhana. Thus, a perfect view of the true nature of existence and the place of man in the entire system can be understood! Once this is clear to the seeker, he/she needs no further effort, whatsoever!

3.   The ancient Indian astronomers and mathematicians like Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Bhaskara II, and many Sage-seers, spiritualists, visionaries have given detailed accounts of their experience and these are in manuscripts that await detailed study and  publication.

Soul, Self or Atman

  What is this soul (Atman) like? “Of the size of a thumb, but brilliant, like the sun, the jiva possesses both volition and egoism. It is endowed with the qualities of both Intellect (buddhi) and the soul (Atman). Therefore it is seen as another entity, inferior and small as the point of a goad.” [Yajurveda, Shvet. Upa, Part I, Ch. V, 1-8].

The following verses give the sum and substance of the Gita:

यत्र योगेश्वर क्रिष्णो यत्र पार्थो धनुर्धरः तत्रश्री विजयोर्भोतिर्ध्रुवानेतिर्मतिर्मम॥ १८-६८  

 When King Dhrutarashtra asks his Minister Sanjaya, who will win this battle, Sanjaya was so excited that he exclaimed. “Who else but the side that has a warrior like Arjuna and a Guide as Yogacharya, Shree Krishna?” Here, Arjuna is praised as a warrior of great valour. But, why Krishna is called a ‘Yogeshvara’ is quite interesting.

तस्माद् योगाययुज्यस्व योगह् कर्मसु कौशलम्॥ (२-५०) means, “Doing one’s ordained duty without attracting its consequential fruits of action (karma phala) is yoga”, says Krishna. So nishkama karma is advised. To do one’s duty without ever desiring fruits of such action is nishkama karma. This is just service to mankind, or serves people without aspiring for any personal gains through corrupt practices.

  Bhagavan says, “No person can ever sit doing nothing, or keep quiet without doing some work or the other”.  Once a person gets engaged in some action that action is bound to beget its consequences. Thus, we acquire the fruits of our bad action as sin, or good action as punya. The results of previous actions act as the seeds for further actions and thereby we tend to act again and again. This becomes an eternal bondage. All actions begin as a consequence of our desire, aspirations, dreams, and resolve to perform action to fulfill the desire. No desire will ever be fulfilled for there is vidhi, kaala, time, that plays its role in between desire and fulfillment wearing away the zest! This karma phala becomes the seed for rebirth, too.

    In fact, the details of yoga- asana, dhyana, etc. are also given here. Chapter VI is devoted to yoga with special reference to “Realization of the Self”. It is specifically stated, “One should never ignore the self, the Atman; Atman should be realized by taking recourse to yoga, transcendental meditation (atindriya dhyana), in savikalpa samadhi. To be established in one’s self, Atman is yoga. (6.6-24). One who is firmly established in his/her self is a yogin.

 विशयावेदा निस्त्रैगुन्योभवार्जुना। २-४५ (Read as traiguNya not Traigunya and gunya ans guNya)

Who is Bhagavan Shree Krishna?

   Etymologically, the term 'Bhagavan' means, 'one who is seated within' and 'Shree' means, rich and resourceful, and 'Krishna' means, 'That which is immutable, unchanging, and never reducesordiminishes'! 

   There are many  avatars of Vishnu and one is Shre  Krishna. The Gita exemplifies this. The 'One' eulogized in the Gita is nirakara parabrahman. He is unborn, eternal and immutable. The other characters depicted in the Mahabharata as a King of Vrushni Clan, or the brother of Kunti Devi, the imaginary Mother Divine of the Pandavas and Karna born to her Mantra utterances is different and the one depicted in the epic Bhagavata that describes the prowess of the Child Krishna are  all different. One should not mistake the ancient history, epics and mythology and the Gods depicted in the Veda and other scriptures. Only an enlightened person can know all these with the help of an enlightened Guru.  

  Then, “Who is Shree Krishna, we are talking about here?" "Is He God, the Parabrahmn, Narayana, Vishnu or Vasudeva?" These questions are answered in the Taittiriya aranyaka Upanishad [10-1-6]. Here, in Bhagavad-Gita, Shree Krishna is addressed as Bhagavan, Achyuta, Vasudeva, Govinda, Janardhana, Keshava, Madhava, Purushottama, Yogeshvara, and many other names. Actually, all these names have their special context in the Shrimad Bhagavata and Mahabharata Puranas. In Vishnu sahasranamam [Bishma sthavara Raja in Anushasana parva / Shanti parva, Mahabharata], there are a thousand names of the Lord in which Bishma praised the lord before leaving his carnal body. Each one of these names has a hundred connotations! How can you call a name-less Supreme Spirit, the causeless cause of evolution of the Universe? Since there is no name or form and all functions are done by Him, call Him by His divine inherent quality / Moola svarupa- the “sat-chit-ananda”. But it is interesting here to know the exact nature of His relationship with Arjuna.

    Generally, the Vedic rituals include yajnya, yaga, homa, Havana, etc. to propitiate the Gods. It is with sankalpa or desire that the devotees perform these actions. So, Shree Krishna says, any action karma done with desire /sankalpa carries with it the fruits of action. So the desire is t the root of the tree of fruits of action that allows the tree grows; the more the fertile ground of desire, more the gregarious growth and plenty are the fruits bitter and sweet. The tree, its growth bearing fruits and the multitude of seeds and further sprouts and growth go on incessantly and life becomes an eternal bondage. This profuse growth is due to the ignorance, avidya. It leads to bondage. It is the desire that is the cause. This desire is due to lack of knowledge of the self.  Hence, it is necessary to cut this tree of ignorance and prevent further spread of its seeds from fruits of action. In order to cut this tree knowledge as a sharp axe becomes necessary. This knowledge is a secret called Brahm Vidya. Shree Krishna reveals this secret to us through Arjuna. It brings out the immortality of the Soul that can be attained by renunciation of fruits of action. In fact, Shree Krishna asks Arjuna to become a yogi. The Lord says,

मन्मनाभव मद्भक्तो मद्याजे मां नमस्कुरु।मामेवैश्यसि युक्त्वैवमात्मानं मत्परायणः॥(९. ३४)

Fix thy mind on Me; be devoted to Me; sacrifice unto Me; bow down to Me; having thus united thy whole self with Me, taking Me as the Supreme Goal, thou shalt verily come unto Me.

 Therefore, practice ‘dharana’ / contemplation and dhyana. Contemplate on ‘Me’ and ‘Me alone’; focus all your attention on Me”; chant my name day and night 24/7 all the year round. I will redeem you from all this ignorance, avidya, dualities, repeated births and bondage”, says Shree Krishna. Meditation is the key to emancipation. Thus, the secret of becoming Yogi is the central theme of the Bhagavad-Gita. Control your senses. Withdraw them from their outward going tendency and turn them within to focus on the Self. For this yoga, one has to adopt the Yoga Sutra.

The Origin of Life

   As regards the origin of life on the earth, it is not yet clear whether there has been a gradual or a simultaneous creation of all the multifarious forms of creatures ranging from insects and germs to giant whales,elephants and the human species. Who created these is another mystery. However, there are hundreds of scriptures that unmistakably state how living beings are created. Even science vouchsafe these statements indirectly or directly. All living beings are just compounds of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and a few other simple blocks that created the earth as well as the Stars including the Sun! The cells and tissues that are mere chemical bonds of energy create all forrms of living beings. Initially, everything is 'fire' (agnim). The Rk Veda mantra is agnimeelay purohitam, yajnyasya devam ritvijam hotaram ratna dhatamam | This suffices to say that Energy is at the base of all that exists. In a way, it is nothing but hydro carbons and carbohydrates!  

    The first image from a distant of the biological life forms that emerged in a jar devoid of living substances altogether. We know that the basic spiral of DNA has all of the basic aspects of Fibonacci or golden mean. That’s everywhere in nature, in the shapes of Nautilus shells, plants and even our own bodies. This suggests that the Phi Ratio is the fundamental characteristic of the wave, and that DNA is emerging from the Phi-Field of creation that is flowing through all of space and time.

Nervous system: The role of protein in forming a protective cover to the cell containing gene and chromosome without which they would fall apart is an important stage in evolution. As the organism or jiva gets aged this protective cover also becomes weak and unable to reproduce, thereby causing decay and death. There are also stages when the organisms had to adapt to changing environment and resources available such as Sulphur and iron by mutation. This mutation has led to higher organisms, such as hominids. The giant apes mutated to begin a new lineage, roughly about 4 million years ago!. The early four stages to humans are marked by macaques, orang-utans, gorilla, chimpanzee (4 to 5 m. y) and other higher mammals, primates, developed in the course of evolution due to mutation. The last specie spread rapidly everywhere as the Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis and the Homo sapiens and coexisted. It is now human history and, the earliest fossil remains of this are dated 130 000 years.

The Vedic statements in this regard is very clear. It states, “There are in his body nerves (nadis) called hita, which are fine as a hair divided into a thousand parts and are filled with white, blue, brown, green and red fluids. They are the seat of the subtle body, which is the storehouse of impressions. Now, when he feels as if he were being killed or overpowered, or being chased by an elephant, or falling into a pit, in short, when he fancies at that time, thorough ignorance, whatever frightful thing he has experienced in the waking state, that is the dream state. So also, when he thinks he is a god, as it were, or a king, as it were, or thinks: This universe is myself and I am all that is his highest state. That indeed is his form-free from desires, free from evils, free from fear. As a man fully embraced by his beloved wife knows nothing that is without, nothing that is within, so does this infinite being (the self), when fully embraced by the Supreme Self, know nothing that is without, nothing that is within. That indeed is his form, in which all his desires are fulfilled, in which all desires become the self and which is free from desires and devoid of grief. In this state a father is no more a father, a mother is no more a mother, the worlds are no more the worlds, the gods are no more the gods, the Vedas are no more the Vedas. In this state a thief is no more a thief, the killer of a noble brahmin is no more a killer, a chandala is no more a chandala, a paulkasa is no more a paulkasa, a monk is no more a monk, an ascetic is no more an ascetic. This form of his is untouched by good deeds and untouched by evil deeds, for he is then beyond all the woes of his heart. [Yajur Veda, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV, III-Investigation of the Three States, 20-22]

Did God Create the Universe?

   The Veda asserts that there was neither existence (sada), nor  Non-existence (asada) at the beginning-less beginning! [See nasadiya Sukta Rk Veda] Then what was there? The scientists say, "The universe is filled with dark 'Energy' (76%) and dark Matter (26%) and the remaining is the galaxies and stars. Hydrogen is the light gaseous element that has created the stars like the Sun and the fission and fusion produces the elements like Helium, Carbon, Oxygen, Gold, Platinum, Silver, Iron, Magnesium, Silicon, Aluminum, Magnesium, etc. the fundamental bricks of the universe. The clash and explosion of the neutron stars produce the gravitational waves, the electromagnetic waves, release of atomic energy, and the like. Now the question is that of energy becoming matter and vice versa. Who is the radical force behind all these physical and chemical actions and reactions? When did and how did Hydrogen manifest and how Water,earth and the living beings are created? Id there God or any supernatural powers that create these things or just they happen on their own?  What is Time and Space Continuum and when did they manifest and from where? The answer is not yet clear. 

 One view is that "God did not create the Universe" and the 'Big Bang' was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book. In The Grand Design (co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow), Hawking says a new series of theories made a Creator of the Universe redundant according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason that there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist,"  

   We have made tremendous progress in cosmology in the last hundred years. The General Theory of Relativity and the discovery of the expansion of the universe shattered the old picture of an ever-existing and everlasting universe. Instead, general relativity predicted that the universe, and time itself, would begin in the big bang. It also predicted that time would come to an end in black holes. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background and observations of black holes support these conclusions. This is a profound change in our picture of the universe and of reality itself. Thus, general relativity on its own cannot answer the central question in cosmology: Why is the universe the way it is? However, if general relativity is combined with quantum theory it may be possible to predict how the universe would start. It would initially expand at an ever-increasing rate.

   Einstein's General Theory of Relativity unified time and space as space-time, but time was still different from space and was like a corridor, which either had a beginning and end, or went on forever. However, when one combines General Relativity with Quantum Theory, Jim Hartle realized that time can behave like another direction in space under extreme conditions. This means one can get rid of the problem of time having a beginning, in a similar way in which we got rid of the edge of the world.  If one believed that the universe had a beginning, the obvious question was what happened before the beginning? What was God doing before He made the world? Was He preparing Hell for people who asked such questions? The problem of whether or not the universe had a beginning was a great concern to the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. He felt there were logical contradictions, or antimonies, either way. If the universe had a beginning, why did it wait an infinite time before it began? He called that the thesis. On the other hand, if the universe had existed for ever, why did it take an infinite time to reach the present stage? He called that the antithesis. Both these thesis and the antithesis depended on Kant's assumption, along with almost everyone else, that time was Absolute. That is to say, it went from the infinite past to the infinite future, independently of any universe, that might or might not exist, in this background. This is just an image, a picture, in the mind of scientists today.

But, the Vedic doctrines were clear as to the nature of the creation, its sustenance and dissolution. The Veda and Agama Shastra invoke a Deva Narayana in the form of embodiment of pure Consciousness on the screen of which this entire universe moves as if a movie film! The universe is His ‘Will’, chittavrutti, mentation, images created in His own form! It is said, “God created man and man created God”. The sculptors cut the images in the sandal wood, marble, shalagrama stone, or mould in liquid metals of gold, silver, copper or five alloy metals (pancha loha). All these are images carved out of imagination! There is no doubt as to what the universe is and who the God is! But, in science, everything is a hypothesis, theory, postulation, and a probability, at the most. Even the visuals of images of stars and galaxies, the distances calculated  in mind-bogging ‘Light Years’ make no sense to ordinary people.

   The Sun is more massive and intrinsically brighter than 95% of stars in our galaxy. The red dwarf stars — M-class stars — which are no more than 40% the mass of our Sun, make up 3 out of every 4 stars that are out there. What’s more than that, our Sun exists in isolation; it is not gravitationally bound to any other stars. But that is not necessarily how stars exist in the galaxy, either. The universe is a vast infinite space which includes the earth and all the heavenly bodies in the sky. The sky contains the Sun, Planets (their moons), Stars, Galaxies, Comets, Asteroids and Satellites. [See Figs.] The earth is formed out of the gaseous 

matter (Helium) that was emitted by the solar flares and gradually cooled and condensed to the present gross physical state-Water 78 % sial and Sima crust 21%. There is enormous heat within the earth and molten material along with gas is emitted through vents, cracks, fissures and volcanoes even today. The interior of the earth is a hard Nickel and Iron (NiFe) core subject to fluctuations. Magmatic material constitutes the outer core of the earth. The inner core and outer core are separated by a shell that prevents any passage of seismic waves!