in the modern times when science has
made so much progress one can
disregard Hindu cosmology as just an
interesting story to listen to with no
apparent scientific consequence but in
this video I want to challenge that
let's see if Hindu cosmology really is
of no scientific consequence in this age
of big bang theory
human beings are curious creatures and
we are always interested in
understanding our place in this universe
we are very interested in questions such
as how this universe was created and
what is the future of this universe and
therefore all of the great civilizations
in the past have had their own theories
about how universe came into existence
and what the future of this universe is
going to be and this is called as the
cosmological theory of these
civilizations. In the modern times we
believe in a universe which is more than
93 billion light years in diameter and
contains billions of galaxies with each
galaxy containing billions of stars and
sun being just one of them. We have the
big bang theory to describe the origin
of the universe where we estimate that
the universe came into existence 13.77
billion years ago after a big bang event.
We believe this theory because it is
consistent with our observations of the
expanding universe which when run back
in time will lead us to infinitesimally
small point containing everything
that is present in the universe now.
Keep in mind that Big Bang is a theory
which is consistent with our current
scientific observation this does not
mean that it is an absolute truth, there
are still many open mysteries associated
with this theory. As an example we know
that not only are the galaxies moving
far and far from each other but also
that this movement is accelerating over
time and we have no direct explanation
for it. Dark energy and dark matter
have been included in the theory to deal
with these inconsistencies. These are
rational assumptions that the scientists
have put forward to explain things that
they do not completely understand. So as
you can see there are speculations in
our current theory as well and therefore
we should respect all the cosmological
theories that have come before Big Bang
Theory because in the past we did not
have all the scientific equipment that
the current scientists have to really
know what is going on in the universe so
our ancestors were just coming up with
theories based on the limited knowledge
that they had about the universe. Now
traditionally these cosmological
theories were presented in the form of
stories and Hindus are no exceptions to
that. The only exception is that
in Hinduism there are multiple theories
of the creation of this universe as
opposed to other cultures where there is
just one theory, as an example
Christianity just has one Genesis theory
so Hinduism has multiple theories or
multiple stories on the creation of this
universe and this is an indication that
Hindus are open to changing
their theories based on new evidence.
This is the reason why we have
absolutely no issue with the theory of
evolution while other religions have not
been so receptive of it. In the modern
times being confident about our own
theory of how this universe was created
we generally disregard all the previous
mythical stories on the creation of this
universe as superstition and I think
that's a big mistake. The reason for why
this happens, why we disregard all these
stories is because we do not understand
them correctly. You see if you look at
them on surface value of course those
stories do not make any sense
but if you go deeper and you try to
understand the significance of all the
different characters in the stories,
then these stories start to make sense.
Let us look at the most popular creation
myth of the Hindus which mentions that
initially there was nothing the world
was in an unmanifested form underneath
the ocean and Vishnu was sleeping on the Shesh Naag. Vishnu then dreamt of
creating this universe and a lotus
sprouted out of his navel. When it
blossom Brahma came out of it who then
created this universe. If you are
thinking that there is a real Vishnu in
human form sleeping on a serpent and a
Brahma with four heads then you have
missed the point in this story. Vishnu
signifies the consciousness of this
universe while the ocean signifies the
unmanifested universe
Shesh Naag  represents that which will be
left out when there is no space time and
matter and in which the universal
consciousness will rest when the world
is in its unmanifested form. Brahma is
the process through which the universe
came into existence from its
unmanifested form. If we look at this
story that way then the whole story
becomes logical and scientific.
Scientists say before the Big Bang there
was no space-time or matter there was
just singularity where the entire
unmanifested Universe
existed this is very similar to the
Hindu creation myth saying in the
beginning there was nothing and the
world was beneath the ocean in an
unmanifested form, the only difference is
that instead of singularity we have an
ocean here. Big Bang Theory then says
something happened and singularity
manifested into this universe. Hindu
myths described this something as the
universal consciousness desiring to
manifest the world, again not much
difference from the Big Bang. In the
Hindu myth Brahma comes out from the
Lotus which is sprouting from Vishnu's
navel, who then creates the world, this is
similar to the laws of this universe
coming into existence in the Big Bang
Theory and this world is created. Just
a sidenote
Lotus signifies birth in both Hindu and
Buddhist traditions and therefore it is
mentioned in the story as a metaphor for
describing the birth of the universe. As
you can see the bare bones of the story
we hear today about creation of the
universe and what was told by the
ancients remains the same, it is just
that in the modern times since we have
better understanding of the laws of
nature we have more details on the
process itself. The underlying philosophy
remains the same.
Considering the openness of Hinduism to
easily include new information into
their own tradition it is pretty clear
that we have absolutely no issue in
terms of including big bang theory into
our tradition it blends pretty well with
our own theory there is only one issue
with Big Bang Theory it is incomplete it
it tells you how the universe came into
existence but it doesn't tell you what
was there before the Big Bang
and it also doesn't tell you what is
going to happen in future what is going
to happen to the universe and future we
don't know because we do not have enough
scientific information to really
conclude on anything and what was there
before the Big Bang again we do not have
an answer because we are not capable of
really knowing what was there before the
universe came into existence through Big
Bang and so over here we have to mostly
use logic. This is where the concept of
cyclical universe in Hindu cosmology
becomes quite relevant. Now let me
introduce you to three logical concepts
to arrive at the cyclical universe
theory of the Hindus. 1 Whatever has a
beginning has an end. 2. Any material
thing cannot
stay in it's one form forever it can
only change from one form to the other
3. For a thing to exist forever it
has to go through cyclical changes. If
you agree with me on these three
assumptions then let us consider how it
applies to the universe. We believe that
the universe has a beginning at the Big
Bang therefore it must have an end also.
The universe is changing all the time it
is right now expanding however this
expansion cannot go on forever as this
expansion also has a beginning
so this expansion of the universe is
just a change of the universe from one
form to the other. The process of
creation and expansion of the universe
must be part of another process which must be
eternal because if it was not eternal
then what was before that and what will
be after that when the process ends. Now
this process can be eternal only if it
is cyclical therefore the creation and
destruction of this universe must also
be cyclical. As you can see the Hindu
concept of cyclical universe makes a lot
of sense and it is quite logical if I
were to just use my own speculation and
logic
to really believe in what is going to
happen to the future of this universe
then I would agree with the
Hindu concept. Of course if the
experimental evidence comes later
showing that this is not the case then
absolutely there is no problem we can
accept that also into our tradition
 
