The Development of Religious Consciousness

by Swami Krishnananda

In continuation of what I said previously, we shall go into further detail of the development of religious consciousness through the process of history. Every religion and every scripture proclaims that human beings have come from God. No religion accepts the Darwinian theory of the ascent of man from lower species. We have to consider why there is such a contradiction of opinions. Who is right, and who is wrong? Are we descending, or are we ascending? What is actually happening?

The method of deducing particulars from accepted universal propositions is called the deductive method. Religions accept that there is God. They need not have to prove the existence of God. If the existence of God itself was a question of argument, there would be no religion in the world. It is an indubitable hypothesis, a proposition taken for granted, once and for all times. Various religions have their own theories of the coming down of the human being from God Almighty. To take the example of the well-known Indian religions, the Supreme Being is described as having contemplated the potentials of a future creation. In the Rig Veda there is a sukta, or a great hymn, called the Nasadiya Sukta. There was a potential, which looked like a universal darkness. This ubiquitous, all-pervading dark potential is supposed to be the concentrated will of God proposing to outline in His own mind the details of the creation yet to be.

This great declaration in the Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda may be compared with the Big Bang theory of modern physicists. There was one indescribable point, the nucleus of the would-be expanding universe. That nucleus was not in space and not in time, because space and time had not yet been created. It was a bindu, as the Tantra Sastra tells us. It is a point, but it is not a geometrical point which requires a space in order to locate itself. This is a point which is neither logically conceivable nor geometrically describable; that is why philosophers tell us in an enigmatic manner that it is a centre which is everywhere, with circumference nowhere. It is as if the centre of this circle has become the circumference itself, and the whole circle is the centre only. Geometrically, from the Euclidian point of view, we cannot imagine such a circle. How can the periphery, the circumference, also be the centre? Therefore, this centre, which is the pre-Big Bang condition, is as indescribable and enigmatic as the dark potential of the would-be creative process presented before us by the Nasadiya Sukta.

Surprising indeed is what comes out of this proposition. There was no space and time before the Big Bang took place; therefore, there was no distance of one thing from another. We have come from a distanceless point, which means to say that even now, at this moment, when we appear to be far, far away—inconceivable light years of distance from that point—we are still sitting at that point only. We will be flabbergasted to think like this. Even at this moment, we are sitting at the very same point where we were before the Big Bang took place. If we go deep into this mystery, we will realise that creation is an illusion. Otherwise, how after millions of years of the developmental process of spatial expansion and incredible distance can we still be at the same point where we started? That means creation has not taken place. Even modern physics can confirm this, to its own chagrin, though creation is not its field of enquiry.

The first verse of the Manu Smriti says that there was a darkness prevailing everywhere. The pre-Big Bang condition was darkness, we may say, because there was no sunlight at that time. Solar light manifested itself as a concentration of energy subsequent to the occurrence of the Big Bang, whereas prior to the occurrence of the Big Bang, there was an all-pervading, equally distributed energy, without any excess of concentration anywhere. When energy is equally distributed, it is all darkness. There is no light. If the heat and light of all the stars in all the solar systems everywhere become distributed throughout the cosmos, there will be no light.

Hence, there is a point in saying that before creation it was darkness, but it was darkness due to the excess of light. It was not really darkness. The light potential was so much that it could manifest itself as millions of shining suns and galaxies. We are accustomed to perceivable light which can be visible to the eyes. If the eyes cannot catch a particular vibration which is called light waves, we say there is no light. Even if there is light, the eyes cannot catch that frequency if it is too high.

Bhagavan Sri Krishna showed the Vishvarupa several times. The splash of light was such that hundreds and thousands of suns were rising, as it were, blinding the eyes of all people, and they saw darkness everywhere. Why go so far? Gaze at the Sun with open eyes for a second. We should not do this always, of course. I am just mentioning this as an illustration. If we look at the Sun, its brilliance impinges on the retina of the eyes; then afterwards, when we look anywhere, we see only pitch dark or dark spots. We will not see the light of the Sun; we will see darkness. Even if we gaze at the Sun for some time, the force of the energy waves impinging on our eyes will be so intense that the Sun may look dark. This means that our idea of darkness and light is sensorially oriented. Even if we behold the light of God, we will consider it to be pitch darkness.

This is a small comparison between the modern physical theory of the Big Bang and the indescribable, incredible consequences that follow from this wonderful discovery where the subsequent spatial expansion has not in any way contradicted the abolition of this distance which was prior to the Big Bang, making out thereby that we have never been born at all. We are still in the same place that we were before the Big Bang took place—which means that we are immortal. Neither were we born, nor can we die, because that centre cannot be born. The expanded universe is an illusory, indescribable, enigmatic phenomena which no human being can conceive. No human being can conceive it, because human beings are involved in the very process of this incredible manifestation.

Scriptures in India also have this doctrine. Brahman the Absolute condensed Itself into the point of a universal will of potentiality to outline the process of the would-be creative universe. Brahman becomes Ishvara; Ishvara becomes Hiranyagarbha; Hiranyagarbha becomes Virat. This is what the Vedanta doctrine tells us.

How this great Virat manifests Himself is described in the Puranas, especially in the Third Skanda of the Srimad Bhagavata, which describes how Brahma created the world. This universal concrete manifestation known as the Virat divides itself, as it were, into a threefold appearance called adhyatma, adhibhuta, and adhidaiva—the universe of perception, the subjective perceiving centres, and the connecting link of divinity operating between the subjective side and the objective side. That is to say, if we are to see something outside, the outsideness of the thing that is to be perceived precludes our knowledge of there being such a thing at all. A thing that is totally outside us cannot be known by us. Therefore, on the one hand, in order to know anything, that thing must be outside us. Secondly, it should not be entirely outside us; there should be a connecting link. This connecting link is the Virat Himself, which links up the subjective side and the objective side.

According to the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana, Brahma concentrated himself in the form of creation. Brahma first created his sons, called the Kumaras: Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, Sanatkumara, and Sanatsujata. All mythology, all Puranas, and all scriptures describe processes of creation which we cannot fully understand. Brahma is supposed to have told the Kumaras, “Help me in further creation.” These Kumaras were brahmanisthas; they were united with the Supreme Being. They told Brahma, “We are not going to help you in creation. We are absorbed in the mighty Supreme Being.”

The Bhagavata Purana tells us that the Creator, Brahma, got annoyed. “My own sons are disobeying me.” His anger manifested itself as a dark spot between his eyebrows, but he could not cast that anger upon them because they were mighty children, centred in the Universal Absolute, so he held it. When we are raging with anger towards somebody who is stronger than us, we are unable to manifest it. It is like getting angry with an elephant. What is the use of being angry with it? We have to hold it in. But it cannot be held in; it has to come out. So Brahma released that anger outwardly, and a being sped out from it and roared. That roaring individual is called Rudra, who shouted, “Why did you bring me here? Give me work!” He was speaking like that because he was born of anger.

Brahma said, “Please create.” Then Rudra created demons, bhutas, demigods—all creatures which Brahma did not expect. So Brahma said, “Enough of this creation.” “Then give me a duty to perform!” Rudra spoke very violently because he was born of anger. Naturally, anything that is born of anger will behave in that manner.

Brahma said, “Please go to Kailash mountain and do meditation there. That is your duty now. Do not create anything.” Siva went, and even now he is meditating there. That chapter was over, but the creative process was not complete. Brahma failed with the Kumaras, and he also failed with Rudra. He then created nine Prajapatis—Daksha and others. Nine people, beginning with Pulastya and Vasishtha, and ending with Narada, were created. These nine Prajapatis, as they are called, are the progenitors of humanity. But they created celestials. Human beings were not created.

Then Brahma created the first man, just as we have it in the Bible that God created Adam, the first man, and Eve, the first woman. Just as Adam and Eve were practically inseparable from the stuff out of which they were made, so is the story in the Srimad Bhagavata. A being was created as a diminished, concentrated form of Brahma himself. He was Manu, the progenitor of humanity. He was the first man, we may say, and his consort was Shatarupa. Manu and Shatarupa correspond to Adam and Eve, and through them came the entire creation of human beings. This is one description found in the Puranas and the epics of India, making note thereby that we have come from the higher levels of reality, and we have not come from animals, plants, and trees.

God is implanted in the heart of man. The human being is supposed to be the last creation. The first creation, of course, was Sanatkumara, etc; then came Rudra, then the Prajapatis, then all the gods in heaven—the angels, Indra, and others—then Manu and Shatarupa. Last was the human being. In the history of creation, human beings came last, not first.

Then, what about the Darwinian theory? Is it acceptable or not? He says something quite opposite. There is also a point in that theory. The scripture does not really contradict it, if it is properly understood.

In the Aitareya Upanishad, we have an answer to this question. The Supreme Being created space and time first. The vibrations set up in space and time condensed themselves into the potentials of the would-be five gross elements called space—akasha or sky, we may call it—then air, fire, water, and earth. These gross elements did not come out suddenly from the vibrations of space-time. Intermediary forces, called tanmatras in Sanskrit, known as the potentials of sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa, and gandha—hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling—were there. They were potential electrical forces, as it were, if at all we can make that comparison, which concentrated themselves, hardened themselves into the physical elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Up to this level, we may say it is God’s creation. Says Swami Vidyaranya in his Panchadasi, “From the original conception of Ishvara, down to this lowest level of creation in the form of the earth plane, we should consider it as God’s creation.” Earth, water, fire, air, ether, etc., have not yet been created.

Now, the answer comes as to why Darwin said what he did. There is also some truth in what he said. Here, we have to revert to the Taittiriya Upanishad. From that Universal Atman, space emanated. Space gave birth to air; air gave birth to heat and fire; fire gave birth to water; water gave birth to earth. Earth produced vegetables, plants, herbs—edibles of the organic kingdom. These, when consumed by individuals, became the substance of their bodies. Our physical body is the outcome of the food we eat. Foodstuff, including the water that we drink and anything that we take inside, becomes the stuff of this body. Consciousness gets merged in this body consciousness. The Supreme Consciousness, which descended gradually through space, air, etc., until it condensed itself into earth consciousness, became body consciousness when it was individualised. Individualised earth consciousness is the same as isolated individual consciousness. We have a fraction of earth consciousness, elemental consciousness.

“We rise out of the elements, and perish into them when we die,” says Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. This is a very great subject, which is discussed in the Brahma Sutras. We have arisen out of the elements. Now comes Darwin. From the lowest potential of physical elements, there emerged the potential of individualised life. It is not the cosmic life which the scriptures speak of; that is over with the manifestation of the earth. A complete oblivion of the universality of consciousness took place when God’s creation ended with the earth element. With these principles of the five gross elements, the fourteen levels of creation manifested themselves: bhurloka, bhuvarloka, svarloka, maharloka, janarloka, tapoloka, and satyaloka. Fourteen levels of creation are described in the Puranas, one above the other in their subtlety and degree of manifestation of reality.

But there was no individualisation at that time. When this cosmic creation, ending with earth consciousness, diversified itself into little individuals, it became inanimate matter and organic matter such as plants, trees, shrubs, herbs. By gradual evolution, life expanded itself into the capacity to perceive, understand, and react to external conditions. The peculiarity of individual life is the capacity to react to conditions prevailing outside. We succeed in living because we are able to properly react to the external conditions of nature, and thus maintain a harmony between our individual existence and the existence of nature outside. If there is no coordination between nature’s activity and individual activity, the individual will perish. Right from the lowest creatures like crustaceans, fungi, etc., this instinct of survival continues. But what kind of survival? It is not survival as universal potential, but as isolated individuality.

The Aitareya Upanishad tells us that a catastrophe took place. Creation is a great joy when we consider that it is a systematic descent from the Almighty down to the earth level; but it is a terrible hell, actually, that broke when there was a further upside-down activity that took place after the earth level was created. The individuals are not merely vertical fractions of the Universal Existence, but topsy-turvy individuals. When we were isolated from the Cosmic Substance, we did not stand on our feet; we stood on our heads, with legs up. This is the reason why we perceive everything as topsy-turvy. The world that is prior to us, and has caused us, from which we have developed our individualities, looks like an object outside us, subsequent to our perceptional process. We feel that we are the determining factor of the perceiving process, and we decide the fate of the consequences of perception of an externalised world.

That the world is considered as external explains the tragedy that has taken place. We are external to the universe, to the created world. It is the world that considers us as objects of its own universal perception. It was prior; we were posterior. The world should be considered as the subject and the individual creatures should be considered as the objects, but the reverse process has taken place. We, in our isolated egotism of confirmed individuality, regard ourselves as the observers of nature, and the seers, controllers, and deciders of the fate of everything. Such is the height of egoism that has arisen in every little individual.

Every insect, every creature, wishes to maintain its individuality in the very condition in which it is. A frog would like to continue only as a frog; the desire to become an elephant will not arise in its mind. There is so much attachment to the particular form that consciousness enters into by tremendous pressure of self-assertion, which is called ego. Every tree has an ego of its own. One tree will not become another tree. They will eat each other with their anger and hunger.