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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00095 Mar 2003

 
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Sri:
Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:
Dear Soundararajan,
Accept my pranams. I'm trying to answer your questions 
based on my limited knowledge and hence advanced apologies for any 
errors introduced. 


> When I ponder over this question that I am going to 
>present, I always get a very unsettling, unhappy,even a shocking or 
>a jittery feeling. The question is this: WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF GOD?? 

Many people would have undergone the same scenario as you 
do. So there is no need to feel scary or jittery about it:-)


> Well, every "thing" should have an origin, atleast according to 
>human perception. If Sriman Narayana is God, what about his origins, 
>I mean, has he always been resting on the bed of Sesha?? The 
>question thats arising in my mind is, shouldn't he have an origin, 
>or something that created him?? 

Perception(prathyaksha) and Inference(anumAna),the two 
sources of knowledge,can lead to misunderstanding(due to the 
limitations of the senses)and hence instead of gaining knowledge we 
may gain ignorance in abundance. It is only vedas/shruthi,the third 
source of knowledge,which is authentic and real knowledge. When 
solving the time-dependent cosmological problem(you have to prescribe 
the initial and boundary conditions),one assumes that the boundary 
condition of the universe is that "there is no boundary". Physicists 
debate whether our universe is like an open loop,or closed loop or a 
Mobius strip(similar to conveyor belt). So one can assume that the 
answer to "what/who is the origin of God?" is "there is no origin". 
Which came first: "seed" or the "tree"? But you can think that both 
co-exist but are not manifest simulataneously to the naked eye. In 
the very early stages(first few seconds),of the Big Bang,all the four 
fundamental forces were unmanifest(unbroken symmetry). It is because 
of this symmetry(Einstein believed that Universe loves/preserves 
symmetry)that we are not able to distinguish the forces. But as 
temperature drops with increase in time,we observe spontaneous 
symmetry breaking and slowly we observe the strong,weak, 
electromagnetic and gravity resply.,as dominant forces as universe 
expands. 

>Well, if you cite the First Law of Thermodynamics which 
>states, "Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed", and 
>somehow relate that energy to God, then I can be partially 
>convinced. Only partially because, the human intelligence (ahem!!) 
>in me will then question the origin of that energy!! 

Even in physics,according to Newton time was absolute but 
Einstein's Relativity Theory had completely changed the concept of 
time and time is only relative. We have control over space
(scientifically and theoretically speaking)but not over time in this 
universe but it is the reverse in the case of black hole where time 
is frozen. Imagine the entire universe being a black hole and there 
is "nothing"(no mass/particles/observer/light) outside of it that can 
be sucked into the black hole. I guess,the Lord talks about "absolute 
time" in BG and He must have made time frozen(to all the observers)
when He was giving upadhEsha to ARjuna. Arjuna tells the Lord that 
the former sees the Universe being crushed into a small tiny ball,all 
the mass confined to a point density, in His body and he sees himself 
and everything in Him. 

Our mind is tuned to think in terms of cause and effect. 
The human mind thinks of the material cause only but not the 
spiritual cause. There is a human mind behind every observation! Sir 
Isaac Newton named law of universal gravitaion,after his name,for the 
mere observation of the falling apple and what makes them fall but he 
neither created the universe,the gravity nor planted the apple tree. 
Why can't there be a mind(God's)behind this material cause,namely 
spiritual cause? You said you can correlate energy to God based on 
First law of thermodynamics but your mind would then question the 
origin of that energy. I see a falacy in your statement. Matter is a 
form of energy and vice versa. Suppose if I ask you the question "are 
you the matter/body?" what would be your answer? You would say that 
you are not this body,right? Probably we can talk more along these 
lines through private communucation otherwise we may bore the readers 
by bringing physics and moreover it is a ramanuja forum not a physics 
forum. 

> Can I take convunce myself by saying that since I am only "human" 
>and anything that's linked to being human, be it thoughts, 
>perception, or whatever, is subject to being imperfect?? And 
>therefore understanding those high issues is beyond the realm of my 
>limited, imperfect intelligence??

See whether you can clearly see with your naked 
eye,objects of all small sizes that are 100 ft far from you. See 
whether you can hear infrasonics whose frequency are below the 
frequency audible to human ear. These are all limitations of the 
sense organs. Mind has pre-conceived notions and that is its nature! 
It is because of this,the entire analysis goes wrong. We can not 
express God in terms of human inventions. We fail miserably because 
we are trying to restrict Him to our capacity. This is the 
fundamental flaw in our approach. 

> I was thinking about this last night when I was just about to 
>sleep, "who created God??", and trust me, I didn't have good sleep 
>at all, infact I woke up to a nightmare.

Just remember that there are problems(in science) which 
have no solutions:-) In IISc, in one course(gas dynamics) we were 
given a problem by a Prof, who is not an expert in gas dynamics. None 
of us got the solution(very strange)and hence we went to the Retd. 
Prof. who is an expert in that area and told our problem. He just 
looked at the problem and asked "who gave this problem?" and 
immediately said "this problem does not have a solution" The Prof. 
got furious about the other prof for not having verified the problem 
before giving it to the students and we all cribbed together that we 
are not learning anything from that course and then the Prof. agreed 
to give some lecture series on the subject to benefit us. We can 
consider God as one such problem:-) You being a physics guy,should 
think in terms of physics and you will no longer have nightmares but 
wonderful and mysterious feelings about God's greatness and you will 
laugh at yourself thinking "how He defies the human mind". 

Please forgive for all nonsensical writings and a lengthy post.
AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam
NC Nappinnai 






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