Bhakti-nyaya
BY: GOKULA DAS
Mar 09, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — Some devotional logic showing a problem in thinking that an eternity can have a beginning.
This essay points out a logical problem for anyone who thinks that an eternal destiny can have a starting point in finite time, such as when we die. This effects atheists regarding death, western religions regarding heaven and hell, ‘big bang' theorists, and also Vaisnavas who believe that an eternal relationship with Krishna can have a starting point in finite time. It involves a subtle but pervasive flaw in modern western thinking that this writer is also repeatedly subject to.
Our modern western thinking that an eternity can have a beginning is flawed. A concept of eternity without this blind spot is provided in Bhagavad-gita As It Is, chapter 2, text 16: "Nasato vidyate bhavo, nabhavo vidyate satah: Of the nonexistent there is no endurance and of the existent there is no cessation." Here, "of the existent there is no cessation" is taken to mean that there is no time when the ‘existent' does not exist. Hence, the ‘existent' can't have a beginning because that would mean it didn't exist before that.
Also, in Srimad Bhagavatam canto 12, chapter 4, text 28: "adi antavad avastu yat: Anything thing that has a beginning and an end is unreal. " And in the following verse: "syac cec cit-sama atma vat: to be accepted as factually existing, something must possess the same quality as pure spirit – eternal unchanging existence." Again, no beginnings.
These and many other verses in the sastra show that you cannot begin an eternity any more than you can end one. It suggests that beginnings and endings can only exist relative to each other. Whatever begins, ends. This in turn would mean that if a relationship with Krishna has a beginning point, whether when we die or at any other time, it will also end. Therefore, a relationship with Krishna forever must have always existed in some sense related to how it will always be (albeit, it transforms, "ever fresh"). This implies what Srila Prabhupada has said or written in several times and places, that we are always with Krishna, but that by our own free will, we have made individual choices that have put us into a currently (relatively) sleeping state, dreaming that we are elsewhere in this material world. It is also consistent with what he says in perhaps his most often written single phrase, "Back Home, Back to Godhead." Taken in its most simple and direct meaning, he says that we must return."
Another way of putting this underlying point about things that are eternal is that eternity is infinity of time. And infinity can't have a starting point. That would make it finite. This applies to whatever we choose to believe about death, regardless of our religion or philosophy, Christian, Moslem or scientific atheist. The death state, whatever it will be, has a beginning point when we die. Therefore, that death state will also end.
Before proceeding, the point to be argued here does not attempt to achieve the standard of proof required in criminal law – poof beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because any Vaisnava who knows his or her sastra will certainly be able to find sastric verses that at least suggest or imply the opposite of what is argued here. Rather, this case is attempted on the standard of proof required in civil law – where the preponderance of the evidence decides the case. Moreover, this is mainly just a brief attempt to present an overlooked logical problem on this and related issues. Therefore in this paper, an emphasis is placed on nyaya (logic on Vedic topics) instead of the citing of a substantial numbers of verses, in order to focus on this overlooked logical issue. It is left to the reader to determine if the weight of sastric evidence also supports this case or not, as it is claimed here up front. And again, this case is about an issue affecting many people and philosophies besides the issue of debate touched on above (regarding the nature of a relationship with Krishna). Admittedly the logical issue addressed here may not be a problem after all, but it hasn't yet been addressed.
This overlooked point about eternity, no beginning, is understandable as a conditioning effect on our thinking by modern western culture. Modern western culture conditions our thinking to view time as linear, just a continuous, unchanging, strait line. Whereas, it is known to many people nowadays that ancient cultures viewed time as cyclical, like changing seasons, where great cycles of time repeat (even though they never repeat exactly same way twice). This is seen in the Vedas with the four Yuga ages, the Kalpas or days of Brahma, and many other cycles within cycles. There were also very similar concepts of time throughout ancient Asia, such as the Bon Po religion of ancient Tibet, the Buddhists of Tibet who came after them, and the Yakut and all other ancient shamanic cultures from Tibet north all the way up through Siberia. There were also very similar cyclic concepts of time in the ancient indigenous cultures of the West, such as in the worldviews of the Hopi, Aztec, Toltec, Maya and Inca, all who have their four (some have five) "Great Suns" or "World Changes."
Another example of a "cognitive fallacy," a flaw or frailty in thought, resulting from the modern linear view of time is the notion that time by itself, unguided, can equal progress, such as in evolution. With our current unconscious assumption of time as being unchanging, continuous and linear, we can also allow ourselves to think that that things like unlimited unguided evolution can happen. This type of thinking doesn't naturally occur in ancient cultures with cyclic, seasonal concepts of time. Additionally, this weak thinking, ‘time equals progress, even if unguided,' multiplies into related forms of blind-spot thinking, for instance, that something simple can become something complex by a random process, given enough time – again, evolution. Such weak logic – time equals progress – is precluded by ancient cyclic concepts of time. As Richard L. Thompson, PhD, (Sadaputa dasa) often said, "We never actually see something simple becoming something complex by a random process." We don't ever see it, but in modern times many people just automatically think it.
This paper is addressing another similar form of flawed, or more like, incomplete thinking, associated with our modern, non-cyclic, linear concept of time – the thinking that an eternity can have a beginning. It is respectfully suggested here that even Vaisnavas who are influenced by modern western thinking (and who isn't in some way nowadays) can be subject to this cognitive blind spot with regard to time and eternity. Some Vaisnavas feel that an eternal relationship with Krishna can be started for the first time when one dies. But having a beginning would put such an eternal destiny in terms of finite time, which is a contradiction. Sastra and nyaya (logic on Vedic topics) indicate that you can't separate past from future, one part of time being finite with the other part infinite.
This overlooked point (no beginning) about eternity also applies to cosmology and the universe. Even if we accept the ‘big bang' theory, it can't have happened just once. If you agree with Carl Sagan and Einstein that the creation of the universe is cyclic and continuous (even if by continuous ‘big bangs' and then collapsing implosions), at least you are consistent with Vedic scripture in that sense (it could be seen as roughly similar to the breathing of Maha Vishnu). Howsoever, if you believe that the Big Bang has only happened once and that the universe will eventually come to an end forever, it would mean that the eventual collapse or dissipation of the universe would be the beginning of an eternity, which is thus a contradiction of terms. It would be the beginning of a forever- unchanging state of ‘no more universe,' a finite beginning of an infinite time. (Hence in this context, the continued breathing of Maha Vishnu.)
Finally, the role of transformation: whether we are talking about our individual birth and death, the beginning and ending of the universe, or our relationship with Krishna, we do know undeniably that we exist now. And we must now also consider that at our death, we cannot begin an eternity of never existing again, or any other never-changing state. It must be the case that what exists now – us, and the rest of existence – which is always transforming – always was and always will be. This suggests, consistently with sastra, that ‘eternal transformation' is what is. Transformation undeniably takes place here in the material world in the beginnings and endings of things, and it is also ongoing in the spiritual world, such as in our individual relationship with Krishna (though not always for the better, as in our case here in the material world). Some Vaisnava authorities say that even the denizens of Goloka Vrindavan and the Vaikuntha planets are also always transforming in their "ever fresh" relationship with Krishna. It may transform, but it always exists.
