Creation of the universe as in the Upnishads & modern Physics

The aim of creation is to give a chance to all the souls to become human beings and then to realize God Who is absolute Bliss. They can realize God by doing absolute good actions and surrendering to Him. Souls are unlimited in number and are in an infinitesimal ‘life’ form, having a subtle mind of their own. When they receive human body during the creation they do good or bad actions according to the discrimination of their own mind. The record of these actions, called the sanskars or the karmas, are stored in a section of the mind. The consequences of these karmas have to be fructified otherwise there would be no meaning of classifying them as good or bad, and they do fructify. Thus, these collective karmas are like a subtle semi-dormant ‘force’ which reside in the mind of every soul and become the cause of its next incarnation; and the force of the collective karmas of all the unlimited souls works as one of the causal forces to create and maintain the universe.

The duration of the existence of the universe is countless but not unlimited. It goes on perpetually in a cyclic motion, like the creation state, and then no-creation state. In the no-creation state (called maha pralaya) the creative energies and the forces remain in an absolutely subtle and dormant state, and in the creation state they evolve in the form of the universe as we see it today. There was no beginning of this ‘cycle of creation and maha pralaya.’ It is eternal.

God inspires the power maya (the cosmic power in its absolute subtle form) which evolves itself into the form of the universe and the souls begin to reside in the universe in living form. Thus there are three entities involved in the creation of the universe. They are: God, all the souls, and the lifeless maya. God is almighty and absolute-life-knowledge-Bliss. He is omnipresent in His Divine personal form and has uncountable absolute virtues. Just like, He is all-Gracious, all-beautiful, all-loving, all-charming, all-knowing, all-kind and all-forgiving to whoever takes refuge in Him. Maya (the cosmic power) is a lifeless miraculous energy or power. It has three characteristics or qualities called sattvagun, tamogun and rajogun (pious, evil and selfish; pretty, ugly and normal; and positive, negative and neutral) that appear in every part of its creation. Souls, in the universe, are unlimited and are infinitesimal.

Maya is lifeless, so it is also mindless. Life and mind complement each other. A living being cannot be without a mind and the mind aspect can never exist on its own. So both stay together, never alone or separately. Here ‘life’ means the living aspect of a being, like a toad has life not a pebble although they may look alike.

There are two forces that keep the universe running continuously. They are ‘time’ (called the kal) and ‘karm’ (the accumulative force of the accumulated karmas of all the unlimited souls, as described above).

Time (kal) factor is not just the elapsed period that we count according to the calendar. Time (kal) is an eternal energy like maya which is a strong force that starts the manifestation of the mayic attributes (which gradually become the universe), and then it keeps the universe moving forward until maha pralaya. The time, that we calculate as the age of something or the passing period of an ongoing event, is the calculation of the aging process of something, or it is a point of determining the past, present or future. It is like a parameter that gives you an understanding of the period that elapsed or it helps you keep the record of an event of past, present or future. But the ‘force of time’ that pushes the universe to move forward is an ‘eternal energy’ that exists side by side with maya.

All the three: souls along with their karmas, maya, and kal (time), stay in God in an absolutely subtle form and in an absolutely dormant state during maha pralaya. They are activated by the will of God. After certain subtle phases of evolution the first thing that comes into being is the endless empty space.

There are seven phases of extremely subtle manifestations of maya that had already happened before the ‘space’ came into being. (1) Space was the eighth subtle manifestation which was, in fact, the first gross manifestation of the energy of maya. (2) In the endless space, unlimited number of pockets of various sizes were created. They became the base of uncountable sub-universes. Within that unimaginably enormous and endless-like looking space, the ninth phase of maya (called vayu) was evolved which created a circular movement in the space itself, as if the entire space was in a circular motion from its central point. (3) Then, all over in that space, subparticles evenly emerged. This was the tenth phase of mayic manifestation (agni). (4) Then the subparticles and the particles annihilated to form hydrogen atoms. This was the eleventh phase of mayic manifestation (apah). (5) Then gravity began to predominate and the basic structure of uncountable galaxies and their clusters (as scientists know) were gradually formed. This was the twelfth phase. The ‘already existing motion’ in the space now made it look like the galaxies were moving away from each other. The speed of this motion of the space varied in different areas of this visible universe but with a perfectly controlled synchronization. (The topic of creation is further detailed in “The Divine Vision of Radha Krishn.”)

The supreme God Who controls the creation and the functioning of the entire universe is called Maha Vishnu. When the galaxies begin to assume their normal shape, at that point Maha Vishnu creates a great number of Divinely celestial spaces in the galaxies and He enters into those spaces. He then produces one Brahma in each section who controls the creation of the sun and its planetary system. Thus, in every planetary system there is one Brahma who is called the creator. Prior to the creation of the earth planet, Brahma extends the celestial space and creates celestial abodes of gods and goddesses. One planetary system with its celestial abodes is called one brahmand. In this way there are a great number of brahmandas in one galaxy. Celestial abodes are invisible as they are in a different space (dimension).

Now we know that the formation of a planetary system is not a coincidental creation of nature as the cosmologists believe, it is a controlled formation. Souls are already in the universe in their subtle form, a certain (uncountable) number of souls are transferred to each planetary system run by its own Brahma, and then, gradually Brahma produces those souls on the earth planet in their material bodies.

After the formation of the earth planet, the ozone layer was formed, oceans began to exist, and the first form of life appeared on the earth planet. The Upnishad says that first the vegetation appeared.

How? The soil itself contains the subtle form of the seeds of all kinds of vegetation, like, grass, plants, shrubs, flowers and trees of all kinds. Brahma transfers the souls into those seeds and the first vegetation grows. Afterwards it creates its own seeds. The bodies of insects etc. are produced as a general procedure of the nature and Brahma transfers the souls into them. We know that sometimes in the rainy weather a lot of flying insects are formed in the open space.

Later on, small creatures like fish and birds and then big creatures like tigers and elephants etc. are produced. At this time, Brahma produces the souls along with their body.

One thing must be noted here, that souls are eternal and they must have been living in some form prior to this creation before pralaya. Thus, it would be highly unjust if the soul of some human being is by mistake transferred into a worm’s body or a worm’s soul is transferred into the body of a human being. But you don’t have to worry, because Brahma is Graced with the Divine intelligence so he never makes such mistakes.

He produces all the souls exactly according to their previous status: grass becomes a grass, frog becomes a frog, lion becomes a lion, human becomes a human, and so on. So, Brahma produces the first pair of all the creatures big and small on the earth planet. Afterwards they multiply themselves.

One should not think that how did the animals just appear on the earth planet, or that there may be some kind of evolution process involved in that. The impracticality of the theory of evolution has already been discussed. The most significant thing is this, that when a Divine personality Brahma who is so powerful, that he creates the whole brahmand, maintains the entire planetary system, and remembers the identity of each and every living being of the earth planet from each and every bacteria to an elephant and all the human beings as well, then there is no reason that he can’t create the bodies of the animals. So he does, and thus, the first creation of the animal world was done by Brahma.