Beyond time, space and causation: The Vedantic theory of evolution

Greetings everyone. This week, I am consciously (there is that word again) taking a break from the discussion into longevity that we were having, and for good reason. I love the debates that happen between science and spirituality, and am dedicating this week’s newsletter to the most fundamental of them all – the origin of existence.

In the past few newsletters, I have been discussing the scientific perspective of evolution, from the big bang theory (estimated to be 13.8 billion years ago) to the creation of the earth (4.5 billion years ago). It was hostile to life earlier, but then conditions began to improve with the rising oxygen content thanks to the rise of photosynthetic organisms, such as cyanobacteria, around 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.

Then somehow the non-living matter became living, and we started with single celled life. This life form then evolved into more and more complex life forms through processes like mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow bringing the immense diversity of life on our planet.

So everything was a series of billions of happy accidents over 13.8 billion years, and there was no God involved at all. While Charles Darwin’s theory and subsequent research in this field would be the foundational text for those who argue against the conception of God, one may be surprised to know that Darwin wasn’t strictly seen as an atheist himself. He did question traditional religious doctrines and express doubts about the Bible’s account of creation. He described himself as an agnostic later in life, which means he held the view that the existence of God or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.

Many decades later and hundreds of miles away, Swami Vivekananda made this famous remark, which curiously seems to correlate with Darwin’s viewpoint, doesn’t it?

"The Reality cannot be described, but it is known directly. It is the Existence itself, and we are that Existence. When all limitations of time, space, and causation are removed, the Reality becomes realizable as our own Self, our own Existence."

Albert Einstein, who was easily among the greatest scientists ever to live on this earth, wasn’t clearly an atheist either. He often expressed a pantheistic worldview, which sees the universe itself as divine or as embodying the qualities traditionally attributed to God. He was particularly influenced by the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, who conceived of God as synonymous with the natural laws that govern the universe.

Stephen Hawking may come across as extremely atheistic, who believed that science provides the most reliable and comprehensive framework for understanding the natural world and that supernatural explanations are unnecessary and unsupported by evidence. However, even he admitted to his fascination with the mysteries of the universe such as its origin story, black holes, nature of time, alien life and the prospect of multiverses. Of course, he trusted science ?as a powerful tool for exploring these mysteries and uncovering the fundamental truths of the cosmos.

When science and spirituality remain rigid on their viewpoint, progress is impossible, because both of them can synergise with each other. Moreover, where scientists may reject the traditional religious view of God, they are not necessarily rigid when it comes to some of the great spiritual philosophies like Vedanta, Buddhism and Taoism, where questioning practitioners have worked on the nature of reality through deep meditation and introspection as opposed to blind faith.

Erwin Schr?dinger, the Austrian physicist who made significant contributions to quantum mechanics, was deeply interested in Eastern philosophy, including Vedanta, and he found resonance between the concepts of Vedanta and the principles of quantum mechanics.

One of Schr?dinger's most famous contributions to quantum mechanics is the Schr?dinger equation, which describes how the quantum state of a physical system changes over time. Schr?dinger's interest in Vedanta, particularly the concept of non-duality (advaita) and the interconnectedness of all things, influenced his thinking about the nature of reality and the implications of quantum mechanics.

We will come to more of that some other time, but I only meant to emphasise the point that science and spirituality, when synergized can achieve far more than when they stay rooted in their dogmatic views. ?

After that long introduction, I now come to the core purpose of this blog – a slight peak into the spiritual view of creation. For this, I will refer to a particular shloka in the Bhagavad Gita’s second chapter, thanks to an amazing talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda on it that I saw this week.

?Truth, untruth and the illusion

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Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Verse 16

That which is real never goes out of existence. That which is unreal never comes into existence. Those who are truly wise understand the difference.

What is absolutely unreal, let us ask. Examples could be a square circle, a green giraffe or a a flying pig. But what is real is a more complex question than that, when it comes to the question of existence. You have to understand this from the perspective of two concepts:

Intrinsic property: A property that is inherent in an object and not borrowed.

Extrinsic property: A property that is borrowed and therefore not inherently there in an object. The sun has light as an intrinsic property but the moon borrows it, for example. That becomes what we call an incidental property.

Take the example of boiling eggs. When they are being boiled, they are hot. But is heat an intrinsic property of the eggs? No, because once you turn of the flame, the eggs will start losing their heat.

When something is not intrinsic to the object, you then look at the source from which it was borrowed, which in this case is boiling water. Is heat intrinsic to water? No. It gets the heat from the pan. Is heat intrinsic to the pan? No, it got heat from fire. Is heat intrinsic to fire? Yes it is, as long as the fire burns!

So the best proof of whether something has an intrinsic or incidental property is that it will not always have that property. It comes and goes and there is a cause and effect relationship from the eggs to the fire.

Now what if we consider existence as a property for the universe. Everything, including us, is created, survives for a period and is destroyed. So it is not a property intrinsic to us.

Like we considered for the eggs, isn’t it natural to ask – if existence is not intrinsic to us, where do we borrow it from? What is that source? And since that source has existence as an intrinsic property, what would it be like? It would never go out of existence. That source in the Vedantic philosophy is Brahman, the ultimate source and substratum of all creation. It is described as the unmanifest, formless reality that transcends all distinctions and limitations. From Brahman arises the potential for creation, preservation, and dissolution of the universe.

Brahman is described as infinite being - beyond time, space, and causation. This concept is central to Advaita Vedanta, which posits the non-dual nature of ultimate reality.

Time is considered to be a relative concept that arises within the framework of the manifested universe, but Brahman, as the ultimate reality, transcends the temporal order. Similarly, Brahman is understood to be omnipresent, pervading all of creation while remaining beyond spatial confinement. It is also described as being beyond the limitations of causation. In the manifested universe, causality operates within the framework of cause and effect, but Brahman, as the ultimate reality, transcends the causal chain.

That is what the shloka implies as the eternal truth that never goes out of existence. Then there is this entire universe that seems to exist, but borrows its existence from Brahman, and this is what Vedanta defines as Maya – the illusion of existence.

We are very good at experiencing and even getting trapped in Maya. But how can you experience this permanence? You can look around you and discover that there is always a mixture of the changing and unchanging. People, things, experiences, thoughts, emotions, situations, places – all come and go in your life.

What is common to all of them is this phenomenon of existence, but borrowed from that ultimate reality of Brahman. Not just that, Vedanta says that you and I are all that ultimate Brahman, manifestations of the divine. When you do a self-enquiry through the Pancha Kosha Viveka, you will realise your true nature as a witness to the experiences of the world, your body, prana, mind and intellect. You are that Brahman that is experiencing this world, through the instruments of a human body, for a brief period of time. The body, name and form are all borrowed and therefore appearances in Brahman, like a movie on the cinema screen. Not the reality but an experience. The unchanging reality is existence or being itself.

And by that Lord Krishna is really telling Arjun that all attachments that we hold to in our life are truly meaningless. When we approach our life as the observer and the seer of truth, we can make much clearer and dispassionate decisions on how we respond to the storms of the world. The spiritual discipline of Vedanta claims that it will give you what you already have and solve the problem that was never there!

Of course, this is a very basic framework open to several interpretations and questions, but is a good place to start our introspection into our true nature. How, why, when and where did Brahman create the universe? There are many answers, but Vedanta itself would say that questions like these are pertaining to time, space and cause-effect – while Brahman, intrinsically as the infinite source of existence is beyond these parameters. And it is impossible to imagine existence without such a source, because it is not an intrinsic property for anyone or anything you see around you.

So while Vedanta won’t answer that question, you may like to explore it further or seek the best possible answer that satisfies you. How does the above knowledge help your life? That is a question for the seeker to answer.

Article written with inputs from ChatGPT