Ich erinnere mich, dass ich seit meiner Kindheit immer ins Kaminfeuer gestarrt habe. Viele tun das, denke ich. Feuer hat etwas Faszinierendes. In den Veden ist Agni der Gott des Feuers, eines der 5 Elemente neben Wasser, Luft, Erde und Äther. Bei den Griechen gibt es diese Elemente ebenfalls. Ich habe das sehr lange nicht verstanden und fand das ‚unwissenschaftlich‘. Ich dachte die Elemente von der Physik und Chemie her, und da macht das nur begrenzt Sinn.
Mythology
Within mythology and spiritual knowledge, however, this is actually perfectly plausible. In the Upanishads, different levels of consciousness are distinguished. The general, eternal consciousness, i.e. consciousness in itself, formless, all-encompassing, indeterminate - the Brahman. Then there are the individual forces, energy, will, love, knowledge etc.. These are conceived as forms of being, as gods, as a heaven of gods. Atman, the individual self, emerges from them. It dwells within us.
That sounds very strange, old, glorified, unscientific... but it is actually phenomenal, undeniable. We have a will, we love and hate, we know and let ourselves be deceived.... We cannot explain this scientifically. We try to do so using functional models (e.g. Darwinism) or reductionist models (neuroscience) or systematic observation (social sciences). However, these models ultimately attempt to reduce what defines us to a material, systemic or structural level. Our assumption is that once we have explained it away, we have solved the 'problem'. What kind of strange idea is that?
But there is actually no dispute about the existence of these phenomena. Only instead of visualizing them as computer models, the Rishi, the seers of the Vedas, gave them the names of gods. They saw their existence and accepted and named them.
Visualization
So perhaps we should stay with the pictures of the Rishi for a moment.
Pure existence expresses itself in order to recognize itself - through an act of creation. In science, we call this the Big Bang. In cosmology, we are making good progress in describing the formation of matter, galaxies, planets, etc., and there is certainly a lot more to come. The computer animations are inspiring, the space images based on complicated algorithms are breathtaking. The narratives about quarks and electrons, gravitational forces, strings, space-time and the curvature of time are fascinating and actually incomprehensible to non-physicists. We accept the interim results of scientific discussions as truths that are popularized on YouTube channels. Einstein, Hawking and others are our Rishi. The experts have understood something that we cannot comprehend or verify. Only the peers, the scientific colleagues or the Rishi community can really judge whether this is nonsense or real knowledge.
4000 years ago, images were gods. However, these mental images of deities are much closer to our experience than the abstract technical images. They describe our living world more precisely, their insight is deeper because it draws on experience. The Vedas accept consciousness. They understand that consciousness in isolation makes no sense in a human existence. This is the core problem in the monotheistic traditions. How can the immortality of the soul be explained?
In the Vedas, every consciousness is part of one. It's actually not that complicated, just incredibly difficult to understand, because it presupposes that we don't take ourselves so seriously, that we see ourselves as part of a whole and act as such. Immortality lies in the insight of not seeing ourselves as the center. The path to this is meditation.
Experience
For me, it is important to stay at the level of experience. That doesn't limit science, on the contrary, it gives it new material. I was interested in fire, energy, the sun and the power that moves everything. The energy that destroys and at the same time transforms and moves everything. An energy that is fed by sacrifice, because wood, for example, burns in a fire, generates energy and leaves ashes behind. The ashes are smeared on the forehead in temples in India, over the third eye, the seat of knowledge.
When I sit in front of a fire, I see this energy, I feel it in my face, on my forehead. A wood fire is so bright that it doesn't blind me, but it casts a spell over me. It is danger and a sign, energy, power and destruction. I see in fire the elemental force of the universe, the image of the sun, the symbol of purity and clarity.
Om Namah Shivaya
