“Creation and Dissolution” (SB 3.7.37)
From one perspective, creation accounts offered in the Srimad-Bhagavatam can appear to correspond to aspects of contemporary Big Bang theory, particularly when considering that an initial form of energy undergoes transformation and condensation in order to generate matter and all subsequent varieties of form. However, Thompson notes that evolutionary thinking can also invite an analytical challenge if the potential for higher-order engineering is denied in favor of absolute chance as an ultimate cause. With that thought in mind, he notes how one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers of science, Karl Popper, considered aspects of the theory to be a form of “promissory materialism” because of its inability to offer a comprehensive explanation for all the mechanisms of biological evolution. Thompson suggests that contemporary natural philosophers may well need to explore beyond the “x, y, and z” of simplistic disciplinary boundaries, in a quest to comprehend the expansive cosmos.
TRANSCRIPT: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 7, Text 37. “Creation and Dissolution.” Alachua – July 10,1995 / (077)
[Text 37]:
Please describe how many dissolutions there are for the elements of material nature and who survives after the dissolutions to serve the Lord while He is asleep.
Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda:
In the Brahmā-saṁhitā (5.47-48) it is said that all the material manifestations with innumerable universes appear and disappear with the breathing of Mahā-Viṣṇu lying in yoga-nidrā, or mystic sleep.
yaḥ kāraṇārṇava-jale bhajati sma yoga-
nidrām ananta-jagad-aṇḍa-saroma-kūpaḥ
ādhāra-śaktim avalambya parāṁ sva-mūrtiṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya
jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ
viṣṇur mahān sa iha yasya kalā-viśeṣo
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
“Govinda, the ultimate and Supreme Personality of Godhead [Lord Kṛṣṇa], lies sleeping unlimitedly on the Causal Ocean in order to create unlimited numbers of universes during that sleep. He lies on the water by His own internal potency, and I worship that original Supreme Godhead.
“Due to His breathing, innumerable universes come into existence, and when He withdraws His breath there occurs the dissolution of all the lords of the universes. That plenary portion of the Supreme Lord is called Mahā-Viṣṇu, and He is a part of the part of Lord Kṛṣṇa. I worship Govinda, the original Lord.”
After the dissolution of the material manifestations, the Lord and His kingdom beyond the Causal Ocean do not disappear, nor do the inhabitants, the Lord’s associates. The associates of the Lord are far more numerous than the living entities who have forgotten the Lord due to material association. The impersonalist’s explanation of the word aham in the four verses of the original Bhāgavatam — aham evāsam evāgre, etc. — is refuted here. The Lord and His eternal associates remain after the dissolution. Vidura’s inquiry about such persons is a clear indication of the existence of all the paraphernalia of the Lord. This is also confirmed in the Kāśī-khaṇḍa, as quoted by both Jīva Gosvāmī and Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, who follow in the footsteps of Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī.
na cyavante hi yad-bhaktā
mahatyāṁ pralayāpadi
ato ’cyuto ’khile loke
sa ekaḥ sarva-go ’vyayaḥ
“The devotees of the Lord never annihilate their individual existences, not even after the dissolution of the entire cosmic manifestation. The Lord and the devotees who associate with Him are always eternal, in both the material and spiritual worlds.”
om ajñāna-timirāndhasya
jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena
tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
śrī-caitanya-mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale
svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam
So, the translation again:
Please describe how many dissolutions there are for the elements of material nature and who survives after the dissolutions to serve the Lord while He is asleep.
This verse deals with the dissolution of the material creation and, of course, in the purport Śrīla Prabhupāda refers to the source of the material creation. So it is explained that the material elements as we know them are created, and in due course of time they are destroyed. At the same time, the material energy itself is eternally existing. So the elements as we know them are byproducts of the eternally existing material energy.
It's explained in the Bhāgavatam that the eternally existing material energy, before the time of the creation, is in a state called prādhana. In this state, no variegated forms are manifest. Basically in the prādhana you can sort of imagine a uniform substance which has no variety and no particular form. So, at the time of the creation, Mahā-Viṣṇu glances over the material energy and through His glance, He introduces the conditioned spirit souls, who had been stored up within the body of Mahā-Viṣṇu. And He also injects the karmic programming of those conditioned souls.
[5:29]
And His glance also introduces the element of time, or kāla. So, this is material time characterized by past, present, and future. So it's explained that in the spiritual world, material time is not manifest. Material time involves three aspects, basically – creation, maintenance, and annihilation – so the very idea that you have past, present, and future. The future is always coming into being, so that's a process of creation. Things are being maintained for some time, and then they're annihilated. So they go into the past and are lost from the point of view of those who are continuing in the present. So that's the process of annihilation. So, one of the questions that Uddhava is asking Maitreya is to describe how many annihilations there are.
One of the annihilations is the annihilation that is continually occurring due to the effect of material time. So when Mahā-Viṣṇu introduces material time into the material energy, the material energy begins to undergo different interactions, and as a result of this the different elements are created. So, in the first step, well, actually the first step it is described is that the prādhana becomes known as mahat-tattva. Within the mahat-tattva the false ego becomes activated, and within the element of false ego, the three modes of material nature begin to interact. Then it is described that from the mode of goodness, the element of mind is generated – this is material mind as opposed to spiritual mind – and from the mode of passion, material intelligence and the senses are generated. And from the mode of ignorance, the gross material elements are generated.
It's described that from false ego in ignorance, there's first the manifestation of sound vibration, śabda. From this sound vibration, the element of ether or space is manifested. And ether is the accommodating room for other gross material manifestations. So, ether is basically empty space. We think of space as empty, but actually, according to the Vedic understanding, space is a plenum, that is, it's full of this material substance called ether, or ākāśa. So there's a further transformation of ether, the principle of touch is introduced. This is called the sparśa tan-mātra. So, as soon as you have touch, you have the possibility of objects that can push one another or interact with one another. So, from touch, the element of air becomes manifest. And then there's a further transformation and visual form is manifested from the element of air. And then light and fire, all forms of radiant energy, become manifest. So, then there's a further transformation and you have the sense object of taste and the sense of taste.
[9:50]
These senses, by the way, are apparently being linked in from the creation coming down from the false ego in the mode of passion, and it's described that the senses are produced from false ego in passion. We see that each gross material element links up with a sense. So you have ether being linked with hearing, then air is linked with sense of touch. Light and radiant energy, fire, are linked up with the sense of sight. Then water corresponding to the taste tan-mātra is linked up with the sense of taste. And then finally there's a further transformation producing aroma or smell. And from this, the element of earth is generated, and this is connected with the sense of smell. So, this is the description.
These elements are not the elements that we directly experience in this world. It is described that we do not have direct experience of the pure elements. They are to be found, for example, in the shells of the universe. But, within the section of the universe where everyone is living, the elements are mixed in different proportions. And there are descriptions in Vedic literature of the proportions in these mixtures. So basically ether is not pure ether. It is a mixture of ether and also air, fire, water and earth. But it's predominantly ether. So that element is called ether. And the same is true of the other elements. So, this is the process of creation. And this takes place under the influence of the time element.
There is also a process of dissolution which reverses the process of creation. So, just as in the process of creation, you have the production of ether, air, fire, water, and earth. In the process of dissolution, you have earth being absorbed into water, water into fire, fire into air, air into ether. And then ether into false ego in ignorance and so on. So, everything reverses step by step. You have the retraction of these elements, one into the other. So, this process takes place at the time of the final annihilation of the universe.
There are different kinds of annihilations. The universe is annihilated after the complete lifetime of Brahmā. So let's see, what is that? It comes to some 31 trillion years or something of that nature. One can calculate that from the figures given in the Bhāgavatam. So, at the time of the annihilation of the universe, all of the different material elements are retracted one into the other, and one is left again with prādhana. The conditioned spirit souls are withdrawn once again into the body of Mahā-Viṣṇu. And at the time of the creation of further universes, those conditioned spirit souls are again injected into the matrix of the material energy.
Of course, here the question is given: Who survives after the dissolutions? So, of course the conditioned spirit souls survive in the sense that they exist as spirits souls, but they do not continue to have any active life after the dissolution of the universe. They're stored in a state of, you could say, suspended animation within the body of Mahā-Viṣṇu. However, beyond the material creation, there's the eternally existing spiritual world and there are unlimited liberated living entities in the spiritual world whose lives are not interrupted by these material dissolutions. So, they have eternal existence in the spiritual world.
[14:41]
So there are a number of other types of dissolutions that occur within the material world. In addition to the final dissolution, there is the dissolution that occurs at the end of one kalpa, or day of Brahmā. It's described that at the end of the day of Brahmā, the planetary systems are annihilated up to… I believe it's Maharloka. This is an annihilation which involves fire and then water. So that occurs at the end of every kalpa. The length of time given for a kalpa is 4,320,000 years. So on a shorter time scale, there are dissolutions that occur at the end of the reign of a Manu. So there are 14 Manus during one kalpa. And what is it? The time period for each Manu is… I think it's about 307 million years, roughly speaking. You can calculate that since it would be basically one 14th of the 4,320,000-year figure. So, at the end of a manvantara period typically there is an annihilation.
This is one of the points where there's a… different statements are made by some of the ācāryas. Some of them said that there's an annihilation after every manvantara period, and others have said that after some manvantara periods, there's an annihilation. One example that we have of that is the annihilation that occurred after the period of Cakṣuṣā Manu manvantara. This is the occasion for the Matsya avatāra.
At that time there was a great flood, which completely flooded the middle planetary system of Bhū-maṇḍala. So, the story there sounds very much like the story of Noah and the Ark in the Bible. But you have the... Well, the basic story is that a great king, who later became Vaivasvata Manu, discovered this fish, very tiny fish, which interestingly enough, spoke to him and said: Please protect me from being eaten up by these larger fish.
The king – this was Śrāddhadeva – the king put the fish in a small container to protect it. So the fish then expanded very quickly and said: I'm too large for this container. So the king then put the fish in a larger container, the fish again expanded. Then he put the fish in some pond; it again expanded. So he put it in a lake. So the fish kept expanding and saying: The place where you've put me is too small. So finally, the king placed the fish in the ocean and asked who He was, because he determined that this was not an ordinary fish. So this particular fish was an expansion of Lord Viṣṇu, and Lord Viṣṇu informed the king that there was going to be an annihilation. So, a boat was provided and the king and some sages rode out the annihilation on this boat.
And it's described that the fish incarnation of Viṣṇu, known as Matsya, was used to tow the boat through the waters of devastation. And it's interesting to consider, by the way, the scale of size that's involved in this story because it's described that the Matsya avatāra finally grew to 1 million yojanas in length, which would correspond to about 8 million miles. So, you can see then that the ocean that he was swimming in was not the ocean of this small earth globe because the distance around the equator would be about 25,000 miles. He was swimming in a much larger ocean. So, this was a cosmic annihilation of the entire Bhū-maṇḍala planetary system. So, this is an example of an annihilation occurring after a manvantara period.
[19:43]
The process of creation of the material elements and also their annihilation, interestingly enough, has some analogies to some of the... Well there's some parallels between that and some of the speculations of the modern physicists, which is somewhat interesting. Nowadays the physicists will say that matter, of course began… well, with what they call the Big Bang. They have a rather curious theory. But they will say that initially when matter first appeared, starting with a mathematical singularity in the beginning of time, there was one force within nature. But as the universe expanded and cooled off, a sort of process of condensation occurred. The technical term for this is symmetry breaking.
But it's similar to what happens, for example, when water freezes. Water is uniform. There's no particular preferred direction within water. But if you cool off water, you'll see ice crystals forming on the surface. And you'll see that the ice crystals have an alignment in particular directions. So one patch of ice will have a grain to it that's lined up in one direction, and another patch will have a different grain lined up in a different direction. And these patches grow and then fuse together to form a slab of ice. So, the scientists are saying that a similar thing happens when the universe expands. And the result is that different domains are produced in which the forces of nature differentiate into a series of different forces. This is their idea.
It's basically a concept in which you have an original form of energy and you have different transformations of that energy that produced the final forms of matter that we observe today. So, at least on that level, there's an analogy between the scientific ideas and the idea of the creation. Because in the creation of the elements, you have successive transformations starting with an initial element.
Actually, another feature of the Big Bang theory is that initially there's no variegated form. The result of the condensation process is that the one force, undifferentiated – the undifferentiated oneness that you start with – breaks down into a series of differentiated forces; and then further condensation occurs and you have the formation of atoms and then galaxies and so on and so forth. At least this is their idea. So, you do in this sense have a parallel between that and the Vedic concept because in the Vedic concept, the prādhana also is in a state of oneness. There's no variety there, but you then have varieties of elements being manifest. And once the elements have been created, then further variety is manifest by the agency of Mahā-Viṣṇu, and very complicated material forms are generated within the material universe.
Of course, the difference between the scientific model and the Vedic model, there are many differences, but one very important difference is that in the scientific model, the entire process occurs without any intelligent control. Whereas according to the Vedic model, everything is occurring under the intelligent control of Mahā-Viṣṇu.
Now, this is a very important difference. The model given by the scientists runs into severe difficulties when it comes to explaining the origin of very complex structures such as the bodies of living organisms. They will invoke some idea of evolution according to which material atoms just bumping into one another form compounds which react chemically and eventually create living cells. This is quite a problem, though, because there's a tremendous gap between chemicals that will form under natural circumstances through ordinary chemical reactions and the formation of a complete living cell.
[24:55]
This gap has not been filled, although the scientists typically will just wave their hands and say: Well, some evolutionary process will bridge this gap and we'll figure out someday how it works. This of course, is the procedure known as “promissory materialism.” There is a philosopher named Karl Popper who utilized that particular term. Śrīla Prabhupāda has referred to the same thing as the post-dated check. You're given a post-dated check in this particular area of explaining the creation.
By the way, there are some other parallels between this process of creation and physics that are somewhat interesting. In the Vedic conception, it is explained that gross matter is generated from ether. So some kind of transformation occurs in ether to produce the gross material elements. But, in physics there's a theory called geometrodynamics, which purports to explain how matter can be produced from space. The way to understand that is to imagine a two dimensional model in which space is a kind of flexible sheet, like a sheet of rubber. So you can imagine, let's see, the way to do it is you cut two holes in the sheet of rubber, let's say, and then you draw up one of them to form a tube, bend that over and connect the tube to the other hole. So basically you've added a handle, by bending and reconnecting the rubber sheet. And in their theory, the two places where this handle links up with the sheet correspond to a particle and an antiparticle. So in this way you can produce particles just by bending this sheet and stitching it, cutting it and stitching it, in different ways. So the sheet corresponds to space.
According to this theory then matter is made up of space. So that's at least analogous to the idea that ether can give rise to the gross elements. Of course, it's a very rough analogy. So, those are a few observations about the dissolutions of the material elements. Are there any questions? Yeah.
Question: [unclear]
Answer: The other way around.
Q: [unclear]
A: Well, this of course is material sound vibration; and it is the precursor of the gross material elements. So, I don't think that what is referred to here is transcendental sound.
Q: [unclear]
A: Yes, you can see that sound, in this sense, is considered to be the subtlest aspect of the gross elements.
Q: [unclear]
A: Well you see, you have some other things that are also being produced. There's also mind and intelligence. So it turns out that mind is being produced from false ego in the mode of goodness, which may seem strange because the mind can create problems for a person if the mind is not controlled. But that's the situation. Of course the gross elements I suppose fit in nicely with the idea of ignorance since they’re gross and inert. Yeah.
Q: Dissolution and reversal of the elements that you were describing: do we have any experience of that in this level or is it, like the creation, that is just pure elements and you have no perception of them?
[29:55]
A: No, I don't believe we have any direct experience of the dissolution of the elements. At least, I don't know any description in the Vedic literature indicating that that dissolution occurs during the course of maintenance of the universal manifestation. Of course, you'll find many cases in which a great soul who is leaving his body will speak of merging the different elements, one into the other. However, that seems to be, as far as I can understand, an expression of his indifference to those elements or his withdrawal of attachment from them. That is, you merge the earth into the total reservoir earth and so on and so forth. It doesn't mean that the earth in his body is actually annihilated or anything like that.
I mean, there are different manifestations of the spiritual world within the material world. So Śvetadvīpa would be one for sure. Vṛindāvana is another example, and of course Navadvipa-dhāma and so on. So when the material elements are annihilated these transcendental domains remain as they are. But there's no problem there because although they're in the same place, they're also different.
Q: [unclear]
A: Yeah. This refers again to the point I've made from time to time concerning higher dimensions. I don't think you can define the coordinates of all of these things using just x, y, and z, that is 3-dimensional coordinates. But you have to have higher kinds of coordinates in order to explain these things. Yeah.
Q: [unclear]
A: What was that? I didn't hear that.
Q: [unclear]
A: The argument is that the existence of irregularity implies that things were not created by intelligence, because if things were created by intelligence, then everything would be regular and very artistically arranged and so forth. Well, so then the point that can be made is that there is a lot of regularity in the universe, and one has to explain that. An intelligent creator can allow for irregularity, and he can also introduce regularity. But an unintelligent process may be able to produce irregularity, but how is it going to produce the regular features that are there? So, there are many regular features that can be pointed to.
This corresponds to what's called the argument from design, which is… scientists are fond of saying that they won't even think about that nowadays. But, actually they've introduced the argument from design through the back door, so to speak, through something that is called the anthropic principle. Many scientists have observed that there are regular features in the universe that seem necessary in order for life as we know it to exist. And these features didn't have to be that way. But if they weren't that way, then we couldn't exist. So one way to look at it is to say: Well, there must be some intelligence that arranged these very important regular features of the universe. But they have another explanation.
[34:59]
Their explanation is that: Well, if those features weren't there and we couldn't exist, so therefore the fact that we exist is the proof that those features must be there. That's all. And they call this the anthropic principle. So if that's a satisfying explanation then you can accept that. Well actually, there are two forms of the anthropic principle: the weak form and the strong form. The one I just gave is the strong form. Then the weak form of the anthropic principle says that many universes are continually forming in some kind of quantum foam and things are happening by chance when they form.
In those universes in which by chance you get the appropriate features to allow for life, then you can have life. And there will be observers in those universes who inevitably will observe that those features are present. And in other universes in which, by chance, those features didn't occur, there'll be no life. So, those universes will never be observed. So, the fact that we observe these regular features is not surprising. They have to be there. So in this way they explain the regularity. But another way to explain it is to say: Well, there's an intelligent designer who built in those regularities. Yeah.
Q: Someone asked me, which I couldn't answer so well, about how is it that from goodness comes mind and from passion comes intelligence. Do you have any insight into those? Because we think of goodness as higher yet we think of intelligence as higher than mind, let's say.
A: Well, the only thing that I can think of, and it is just, you know, speculation that tends to help things fit together, is that the mode of passion corresponds to activity and intelligence is active in the sense that intelligence involves making decisions and so on. You can see, also, the senses are produced from false ego and passion, and the senses correspond to activity also, especially the working senses. So one can at least observe that much. So any other questions? Yeah?
Q: One other question regarding the properties of the elements. So, like earth has the property of smell, but we experience those things like gasses that have a smell. So is that they have some relationship with earth? Or is it that when they get in their nose they react with what's there, and then that produces some solid that smells? How does that work?
A: Well, I would presume that the gasses that smell are partly made of earth. I would suppose because they do have the property of smell. Besides, you may be able to condense a gas and produce a solid from it. For example, if you take carbon dioxide, that's a gas; if you can split away the oxygen from that by some chemical process, you'll get carbon, which is a solid black substance and that surely must be earth. So you're getting earth out of that gas. And it is explained that the elements are mixed, the elements that we experience. So okay. One more question.
Q: [unclear]
A: Well, that brings us to the whole subject of cosmology. I won't try and go into that, but I'll mention that there's an intermediate stage in the Jyotiṣa Śāstras. In, for example, the Sūrya-siddhānta, the eclipse of the sun by the moon is explained in the same way that the scientists explain it. But Rahu is also there. Briefly, Rahu is defined to be the ascending node of the moon and when there's an eclipse, you have the sun and the moon and the ascending node lined up. So Rahu is also present there, but it's a long story, so I'm not going to go into that now. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.