DALMENY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA, November 23, 2015 /EINPresswire.com/ -- “On this fragment of the Cosmos known as Earth, there are those who seem to know what creation and existence are all about. ... Amongst the Hindus, there is that belief (expressed in the Upanishads) that, through meditation, one can realise Reality.

Although this Reality cannot be described, one can come to know it by identifying with it (ie by realising it). It follows that, as stated by J. Krishnamurti, those who know cannot tell. ... This unitary awareness, being experienced, is uniquely personal. It is non-transmissible, beyond words, beyond thought (so we are told).

In a universe whose human history, as reliably documented, is somewhat short, what else can be claimed to be known? The ancient Indians and Persians claimed that an ‘age’ of the universe takes up 8640 billion years. This is said to be a day and a night of Brahma (the universal Creator); ie one Kalpa. Brahma is believed to recreate the universe at the beginning of each Kalpa (with a bang?).

Each Kalpa has 2000 cycles, each of 12000 divine years, where each divine year is 360 years of mankind. Each of the 2000 cycles is split into 4 sub-ages, progressively moving from dark to light (morally), and then back; i.e. in a cyclical path. How can mankind ever prove this claim wrong? Significantly, mankind is now in the Dark Age of the current cycle. The evil that man does to man, and his destruction of his fragile habitat, may yet be diminished (for a time). ... ...

But those of us who believe in God as the Creator are required (according to a famous proselytiser of scientific knowledge) to say what or who made God (what or who made the Big Bang?); why God exists (why the Big Bang?); how God created the universe; what determined God’s nature; is God’s nature unique; was God’s creation inevitable; and so on ad infinitum . Why the more demanding criteria?

There are also those who can see purpose in the increasing complexity of the structure of the known universe. But they deny pre-destination. They also deny any external cause such as a Creator. We are indeed asked to believe that something can come from nothing. Through random events, this then can evolve into an increasingly complex structure. This development thereby displays an in-built purpose! (Whoa!) ... ...

‘We vivisect the nightingale to probe the secret of his note’ (as said so brutally by someone) ... ...

The Cosmos does (however) seem to beckon those of us who would hold hands freely across the oceans and vast schismatic chasms. As Hippocrates said 2500 years ago: ‘There is one common flow, one common breathing. All things are in sympathy’".

The above extracts are from Chapter 5 ‘Peering into the Void’ from ‘Hidden Footprints of Unity.’ The following extracts are from Chapter 4 ‘Which way to the Cosmos?’

“I recommend the Hindus' Upanishads as a useful guide to the Cosmos for those (whether in Australia or elsewhere) who seek their own way to the Void. I am, however, not inclined to the New Age paradigms. I believe these to have drawn upon the Hindu paradigm, with extra-strong mountain-climbing socks added, for pulling oneself up.

For those who might be interested -- and to explain my attraction. The Upanishads proclaim (according to Easwaran) that ‘There is a Reality underlying life’. ‘… this Reality is the essence of every created thing, and the same Reality is our real Self, so that each of us is one with the power that created and sustains the universe’.

That is, the Creator is both transcendent and immanent. Easwaran goes on to say that this Reality or oneness ‘ … can be realised directly, without the mediation of priests or rituals or any of the structures of organised religion, not after death but in this life, and that this is the purpose for which each of us has been born and the goal towards which evolution moves.’ ... ...

The goal of evolution may thus be said to be the realisation of One-ness. This is also the purpose of repeated human re-birth, where life between lives is a mere staging house. ... ...

The path to spiritual fulfilment is lit thus: since ‘... there is in each of us an inalienable Self that is divine’, mankind is ‘... in a compassionate universe, where nothing is other than ourselves ...’. Mankind is thus urged ‘ ... to treat the universe with reverence.’

Thus, man's innermost essence, the Self (or Atman), is not different from God, the ultimate Reality. This Reality (or Brahman) is ‘ ... the irreducible ground of existence, the essence of everything -- of the earth and sun and all creatures, of gods and human beings, of every power of life’. This equivalence of the ground of one's being (the Self) and the essence of everything (Reality) is encapsulated in the phrase ‘Thou art That.’

Thus, metaphysics and morals merge in that simple summary. Common origins bond.

It is only when the concept of a transcendent and immanent Creator is conjoined with the means of realisation of the Self, through meditation, and the related emphasis on states of consciousness, that one begins to understand why a Western philosopher like Schopenhauer was drawn to the Upanishads. In these, he saw ... ‘a habit of looking beneath the surface of life to its underlying causes ... ‘”

My third book ‘Hidden Footprints of Unity,’ which seeks the Family of Man, is available as an ebook at amazon.com and its affiliates at $US 2.99.

Raja RATNAM
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