I have always been fascinated by many of the stories from Hindu mythology and also the Hindu beliefs. I believe in science and also believer of god/supernatural. So, when I hear about the traditions, customs or beliefs, I neither want to ignore it nor I want to accept it blindly. So, I try to see if we could tag a scientific explanation/reasoning for it.
One such thing that I have been thinking about lately is the belief in "Rebirth", "Reincarnation", "Cycle of Life and Death", etc.
According to Bhagavad gita (ancient text of Hindu Religion),
"Just as the self advances through childhood, youth and old age in its physical body, so it advances to another body after death. The wise person is not confused by this change called death. Just as the body casts off worn out clothes and puts on new ones, so the infinite, immortal self casts off worn out bodies and enters into new ones."
The "immortal self" referred to here is the soul.
And according to modern science (1st law of Thermodynamics), "Energy can neither be created, nor be destroyed. It can only change forms."
So, does it mean that "Soul" is a form of energy that never dies (in other words...is not destroyed) and that it transforms/transports itself from one living being to another (i.e., Reincarnation)?
Let me know what you think.
What was your earlier energy form? Why can't you remember that? Is there any explanation for this Geetha or modern Science?
ReplyDelete@S Ananthalakshmi
ReplyDeleteThanks for posing this interesting question.
When you say "what was our earlier energy form", I guess you mean previous life and why we don't remember that.
I had also thought on the same lines earlier. I did some digging to find some explanation.
In Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna compares the journey of succession of lives (life-death-life cycle) to the changing of clothing. He says your true self—your “soul”—is eternal, but it goes through temporary bodies, one after another.
So it’s not that you “become a different person” when you change from one body to the next, any more than you become somebody else when you change your clothes or when you grow from a child to an adult. You’re always the same you, but you watch your body and mind transform from those of a child to those of a youth and then those of an old man or woman.
Similarly, Krishna says, death is but a transformation from one body to the next.
Still, death is like nothing else under the sun. It’s the biggest jolt there is. And when we get to the other side, we forget all about what we were doing in the life before, just as a person who falls asleep forgets what he was doing during the day and then wakes up and forgets about his dreams.
The brain and the memory associated with it belongs to the body, so during this transformation/transmigration most of the time the memory associated with the old physical form is lost.
But there are some exceptions to this...where some people claim to remember their past lives, like only very rarely we are able to remember our dreams when we wake up. I would like to refer you to this URL in this regard http://btg.krishna.com/main.php?id=208
When you talk in terms of energy....when energy is transformed from eg., heat to electricity...the electric energy has its own properties, not the properties of heat energy. Similar to how we don't remember our past lives.
This is how I see it.
That is an interesting explanation. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks. That is an interesting explanation.
ReplyDeletethe explanation cannot be given by anyone. you have to realize it. no explanation will satisfy you.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous Visitor,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I agree with you. Yes, it probably cannot be explained unless one realizes or experiences it.
I am not sure, whether you are inclined towards science or spirituality. But, I am inclined towards both...b'cos I believe science & spirituality are just one and the same. It is just that the scientfic community explains everything in its own language...but long after it was already been told by the various relgions & vedic texts.
I think that whatever the modern day Scientists, Theoritical Physicists & Astrophysicists discover, theorize & explain are just a rediscoveries or explanations in modern scientific terms of what was written in ancient religious texts and the spiritual beliefs that people had. After trying to explain about the universe, its origin and the evolution of life in earth, through various theories including the big bang theory, theory of general relativity, theory of special relativity, theory of evolution, etc, now they are tyring to come up a new Universal Theory/the Theory of Everything, which can explain everything about the Universe and the life in the Universe. I don't know how far are we from that discovery.
But, I believe with every discovery that the scientific community makes, it brings science & spirituality closer to each other. The moment the scientific community is able to come up with that "Theory of Everything"...that is the moment science & spiritually will finally merge. It may or may not happen. But, if it happens.... in my opinion this "Theory of Everything" will be the Ultimate Knowledge and that's nothing but the "Enlightenment" that spiritual people talk about. And probably that's the "Englightment" that Buddha got under the Bodhi tree. Even if someone from the scientific community is able to discover/understand the "Theory of Everything", I think he/she alone will be realize it but it cannot be explained with words or visually for others to comprehend.
So, as you said it cannot be explained unless one realized it or experiences it.
Your thoughts are just state of your mind. Just like accepting God and Science as one or different entities. May be You haven't reached that state of mind.
ReplyDeleteBuddha's enlightenment is Lust is the root cause of all suffering. Detachment is the remedy.
Many scientific laws may be disproved or enhanced. Hindu philosophy believes everything is cyclical which fits a lot of things in our life time. Yuga philosophy cannot be verified by us. Likewise Universe Big Bang and the reverse could be cyclical. New discoveries in science can only pose new questions.