LAWET

I am a lawyer, I had a background of science. I am writing this article to let this world know that science, spirituality walk together to complete and compliment each other. Following your faith by properly following your holy book, conducting research on it does not make you back dated. Only thing we should not do that is competition and lowering or disrespecting other’s faith, belief, religion. There can not be competition in the matter of faith. When you are following your faith, when you have become a pure devotee you will see God in every living being. Then you will love everyone. It will become impossible for you to hate somebody.

I am following vedic hymns from my childhood-thanks to my grandfather, parents and my high school. For this reason I was searching for various books on Vedas. In this journey of search, I have found excellent articles on Vedas written by some foreign scholars that motivated me to write something on Vedas which we Indians are missing badly. Vedas told us that the whole universe neither have beginning nor have any end. There never was time when there was no creation. Swami Vivekananda envisaged that universe is created from Chaos which is prevalent in the beginning and order is generated out of chaos, though the word ‘chaos’ was not defined or interpreted in any manner by him. I was reading a Bengali book “Bhagwan Vishnu and Salgram Shila’ by Ashok Roy and found many interesting facts. If you search ‘Nasadiya Sukta’ [Rig Veda, 10th Mandal, 129 sukta] which is known as Hymn of Creation you can find several interesting facts. Nasadiya Sukta says:-

“Then even nothingness was not, nor existence,
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

Then there was neither death nor immortality
Nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.

At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.

In the beginning desire descended on it.
That was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is kin to that which is not.

And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.

But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?

Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows – or maybe even he does not know.”

There are so many verses which I have found very interesting. Only one of them is mentioned here. I do not believe in living in the past or never have faith on glory hunting. Only thing that amazed me that is in the Vedic period people with minimum infrastructure conducted research. No barrier could stop them from finding the truth. We can motivate ourselves for indulging more on finding or seeking the truth which will ensure India’s strong leadership on every field of science. For this I belief we should always open the door for seeking the truth- be it from old religious text or from todays findings. In this world nothing is worthless. To conclude I want to quote-“From heaps of ashes you may find rare gem”, “Where there is a ruin, there is a chance to find the treasures”. Vedas are not ruin or heap of ashes. So for the welfare of the people if we can take help, inspiration, motivation from any holy book that should be welcomed. Science searches for the betterment of this world and when welfare is primary, all other things are secondary. Only thing that is left to speak that is-“Let noble thoughts coming from everywhere in this world”.

References:-

1)Swami Vivekananda’s History of Universal Religion and Its Potential for Global Reconciliation: Compiled and edited from the works of and on Swami Vivekananda. N.p.: Cook Communication, 2020.

2)Creation of Universe God or Big Bang. N.p.: Notion Press, 2017.

3)Mahony, William K.. The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination. United States: State University of New York Press, 1998.

4)https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/vishnu/nasadiya.pdf

5) ‘Interface Between Creation Hymns of Rigveda and Modern Cosmology: A Multiverse Dialogue’ an online seminar organized by Maharshi Dayananda University, Rohtak