If everything began with the Big Bang, why is the world so complex, why mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy? Why does the universe contain all these laws, ideas, forces, movements? Why not simply a plop, a beep, a gray slime? How many universes were there before this one arose? How many will there be in which the universe will become conscious on higher levels?
Is it not a strange idea that out of nothing, through an infinite force, a universe arises that is so complex, so beautiful, so suffused with conscious beings? And that these beings have an incredible range of emotions, experiences, imaginings, write them down and retain them in memory. All this only to convince themselves that all this exists only because matter is accompanied by an illusion of consciousness, which we try with all our might to rationalize away?
And when we grasp that this is really rather improbable, and remember ancient writings… How can it be that the monotheistic religions speak of us—human beings—as the image of the creator? Why are these ideas so small, so limited? Is it really unthinkable that we are not the crown of creation? Is it not, rather, quite probable and certain that this is not so? When I look out of the window into the world, it is quite clear that what we do is truly not perfect.
Isha Upanishad
The Isha Upanishad begins with:
īśā́ vāsyàm idám̐ sárvaṁ yát kíṁ ca jágatyāṁ jágat |
téna tyakténa bhuñjīthā mā́ gr̥ dhaḥ kásya svid dhánam |1|
1. All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man’s possession.
The Isha Upanishad bears witness to a certainty perceived by the seers and passed down for millennia. The Upanishads recall an origin of knowledge that we have buried beneath all our culture. What natural science cannot think, the moment before the Big Bang, the first cause of a causal worldview, is Brahman, pure existence. But to become conscious of itself, Brahman must unfold in an existence in space and time and consciousness. Isha enters existence. ‘All this is for habitation by the Lord’. And we should not think that the universe is there for us. ‘By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy’. We are merely part of it.
I love the Upanishads because they are so undogmatic. They address ‘merely’ the truly important questions of our existence and repeatedly warn against thinking that we have now understood them. Each verse allows an almost infinite interpretation if we penetrate it from the experience of our own consciousness. They are a path of knowledge, not a doctrine.
andháṁ támaḥ prá viśanti yé ávidyām upā́sate |
táto bhū́ya iva té támo yá u vidyā́yām̐ ratā́ḥ |9|
9. Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone.
Ignorance is relatively easy to overcome, but how do we get out of the trap of thinking we know everything?
ॐ
Thanks to Nishtha for the document with the transliteration of the Upanishad
