Eternity Has No Beginning
BY: GOKULA DASA
Mar 18, CALIFORNIA (SUN) — An issue as yet not addressed in the jiva tattva debate.
If something isn't eternal now, it is argued below that it won't ever be. If something ever ‘becomes' eternal, it's because it always was, in some form. Analogously, Srila Prabhupada often wrote, "God doesn't ever become God (referring to Mayavadis), He is always God" (giving the example of baby Krishna). According to sastra (below), the same can be said for what is eternal.
This means that it has no beginning. This applies in a surprising way to whatever we choose to believe about death, whether we are atheists, Christians, Muslims or even ‘big bang' theorists. It may even apply to Vaisnavas who believe that we can start an eternal relationship with Krishna for the first time when we die.
Sastra says that whatever begins ends. The death state, whatever it will be, has a beginning point when we die. Therefore, that death state will also end. This is consistent with transmigration of the soul, and is also more consistent with regaining (not starting for the first time) our eternal Krishna consciousness upon passing over, as the individual case may be. This (more Vedic) concept of time is not a proof in the Jiva Tattva debate one way or the other. But the ‘fallvadis' account of our whereabouts before coming to this world of beginnings and endings is more directly consistent with this sastric concept of eternity, with no beginning as well as no ending. It is also more consistent with what Srila Prabhupada says in perhaps his most often written phrase, "Back Home, Back to Godhead," which is taken here to mean that we must return."
Another way of putting this overlooked point about eternity is that eternity is infinity of time. And infinity can't have a starting point. That would make it finite.
An example of eternal things having no beginning is provided by Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kuruksetra when He says to Arjuna, "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings, or in the future shall any of us cease to be" (Bhagavad-gita As It Is, 2.12). This beginning-less nature of the eternal involves what the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam also say are "existent," or "real," and that things with beginnings and endings, are illusory. In Bhagavad-gita, 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." "Of the existent there is no cessation" is taken here to mean that there is no time when the ‘existent' is not. (Hence, the ‘existent' can't have a beginning. Elsewise it would not have existed before that….)
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 beginning. The above as well as many other verses in the sastra show that beginnings and endings can only exist relative to each other, and that whatever begins, ends.
This overlooked point about eternity, no beginning, even affects ‘big bang' theorists about the eventual collapse or dissipation of 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.)
This writer has also been repeatedly subject to this subtle but pervasive flaw in our thinking about time. It can be understood as the result of modern western conditioning on our thinking about time as linear, a continuous, unchanging, straight line. It results in a "cognitive fallacy," a blind spot in our thinking.
It is known to many westerners nowadays that ancient cultures viewed time differently, as being cyclical, like changing seasons. It involved great cycles repeating (even though they never repeat exactly same way twice) such as in the Vedas with the four Yuga ages, the Kalpas or days of Brahma, and many other cycles within cycles. This view of time existed throughout ancient Asia and the rest of the ancient Old World. There were 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."
This view of time was universal, along with periodic great floods or other great changes between time-cycles. (The last cycle change or change of ages occurred at the same time in history in every culture, variously called ‘the fall of man' in western religions, or as the Vedas call it, the change from Dvarpara-yuga to Kali-yuga, when the Devas stopped interacting with man, and as anthropologists refer to it, the change of so-called ‘mythic time' to ‘real time history.')
A similar example of another "cognitive fallacy," or a 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. This kind of thinking never cropped up in the ancient cultures with their cyclic perception of time. With an unconscious assumption of time as being unchanging, continuous and linear, many people now allow themselves to think that things like unlimited unguided evolution can happen even though we never actually see it happen. Such weak logic – time equals progress – is precluded by ancient cyclic concepts of time.
This paper is addressing another similar form of cognitive blind spot, or incomplete thinking associated with our modern linear concept of time – the thinking that an eternity can have a starting point. It is respectfully suggested here that even Vaisnavas can be somewhat influenced by modern western thinking in some way (definitely including myself at times). An eternal relationship with Krishna can't have a starting point in finite time. It would be a contradiction. Sastra and nyaya (logic on Vedic topics) indicate that you can't separate past from future, one part being finite with the other part infinite.
