|
Critical Podium Dewanand
Religion
Man Developed from Cosmic Consciousness Brahman, Not an Evolution
of Apes, Part I, by professor Dr. R. Brahmachari
Sacrificer professor Dr. R. Brahmachari
Sacrifice code wfor0457
Sacrifice date May 10, 2008
It is observed that the eminent Hindus have started thingking seriously
the Western interpretation of Evaluation of Man. But they seem to be least
interested to know the Vedic conception of Evolution of Man. Recently
the Western conception that humans evolved in Africa has become an widely
debated topic. I therefore like to circulate my two part article,
"Man Developed from Cosmic Consciousness-not an evalution of Apes'
among the readers and hope that you will cooperate.
Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari,
May 10, 2008
******************************
Man Developed from
Cosmic Consciousness Brahman,
Not an Evolution of Apes-Part I
Dr. R. Brahmachari*
Where from man has come? According to the Western scholars, man has evolved
from a special type of monkey. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher said,
"man is a social animal". So, it is quite natural for the Western
scholars that, following the Greek tradition, they would discover animals
to be forefathers of the humankind. Scientists, who believe in Darwin's
Theory of Evolution, are convinced that man has ascended from apes, most
probably from chimpanzees that they consider closest to human beings.
According to their conviction men and chimpanzees had a common ancestor
and at a certain stage evolution they got separated from each other. These
scientists are trying hard to ascertain the date when man and chimpanzee
began to split as separate species by examining the fossils and skeletal
remains of man like apes.
Previously these scientists were convinced that, nearly 1 million years
ago, primates started to walk on two legs and after several processes
of evolution ultimately, about 100,000 years ago, turned into human beings.
This view has gained so much publicity that any other alternative to it
is instantly rejected by the modern scientific community. So, it only
remains to pin point the date when those primates or hominids started
to become man.
According to a recent press release (Times of India-27.02.2007), man appeared
on earth nearly 4.1 million years ago. Even a couple of years ago, the
most accurate estimates were nearly 2.8 to 3.0 million years. Recently
Mr. Asger Hobolth, a researcher of North Carolina State University, has
claimed that the separation began nearly 4.1 million years ago, much earlier
than previous estimates. Mr. Hobolth came to the above conclusion after
studying the DNA of man, chimpanzee and gorilla.
In the present context, it should be pointed that by examining the
images of the Ramsetu (or Adam's Bridge that connects India and Sri
Lanka), taken with the help of remote sensing technology from the Gemini-XI
and Gemini-XII satellites, the scientists of America's National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) has come to two revolutionary conclusions-
firstly, it is a man-made structure and secondly, it is 1.75 million
years old. Or in other words, they have accepted that there were intelligent
humans on earth as early as 1.75 million years ago. It is needless to
say that these conclusions have served a jolt to the Darwin's view of
evolution of man.
Hindu tradition, on the contrary, says that man lived on earth much
earlier than all the above mentioned estimates. It also discards the
view that man has ascended from apes. According to the Hindu system
of time reckoning, 4.32 million years make one Mahayuga and thousand
Mahayugas, or 4.32 billion years make one Kalpa. One Kalpa is the day
of Creator Brahmaa and the following Kalpa is his night. During the
day of Brahmaa, the formless unmanifest Brahman assumes form and the
Universe with its contingent beings manifests itself. In short, the
cosmic consciousness Brahman, which was so far beyond the perception
of our senses, becomes perceptible. The period is therefore called Sristi
or Creation. During the night of Brahmaa, the entire Universe returns
to the subtle and non-perceptible state again and the period is therefore
called Pralaya or dissolution. So the Bhagavadgita says,
For a thousand ages lasts
One day of (creator) Brahmaa,
And for a thousand ages one such night;
This knowing, men will know (what is meant by) day and night. (8,17)
At the day's dawning all things manifest
Spring forth from the Unmanifest;
And at nightfall they dissolve again
In (that same mystery) surnamed 'Unmanifest'.(8, 18)
Yea, this whole host of beings
Comes ever anew to be; at the fall of night
It dissolves away all helpless;
At dawn of day it rises up (again).(8, 19)
Furthermore, the Hindu system of time reckoning divides a Kalpa of 4.32
billion years into 14 Manvantaras and hence one Manvantara becomes 308448000
years or 308.448 million years. Hindu tradition also says that we are
now passing through the Svetavaraha Kalpa and after the beginning of
this Svetavaraha Kalpa, six Manvantaras have gone and the seventh Vaivasvata
Manvantara is in currency. The name of the first Manvantara, after the
beginning of the Svetavaraha Kalpa, is called the Svayambhuva Manvantara
and our Bhagavat Purana says that Maharaja Uttanapada, the father Bhaktaraj
Dhruva, used to rule the earth in the said Svayambhuva Manvantara. A
simple calculation leads us to the conclusion that, the reign of Maharaja
Uttanapata occurred 1971221106 years or nearly 1.97122 billion years
ago.
So, one is convinced that the Hindu concept of origin of the Universe,
origin of life and, most importantly, the origin of man differs drastically
from the conclusions of the present Darwinian scientists. And hence
it becomes necessary to delve into these matters a bit. Lord Krishna
in Bhagavadgita says,
In the world of living things a (minute) part of Me,
Eternal (still), becomes a living (self),
Drawing to itself the five senses and the mind
Which have their roots in Nature.
When (this) sovereign (self) takes on a body
And when he rises up therefrom,
He takes them (with him), moving on,
As the wind (wafts) scents away from their proper home.
Ear, eye, touch, taste and smell,
He returns to due account,
So too the mind; (With these) he moves
Aamong the things of sense.(XV,7-9)
In the verse (XV,7), the Blessed Lord says that a fragment of His eternal
Self becomes living being and with the help of the five senses and mind,
born of the Nature (Prakriti), attract him (to take rebirth). To get
into the inner meaning of these verses, one has to have a preliminary
idea about the fundamentals of Hindu theology. A Hindu believes that
the subtle body, called Atma or Self, is his real identity, not this
mortal body. This Atma, entering into the material body with five senses,
arising out of the Prakriti, makes him to move eternal cycles of birth
and rebirth. This cycle of birth and rebirth continues until it attains
Moksha through the realization of the Cosmic Self or Brahman. The mundane
physical body undergoes changes and ultimately perishes, but the Atma
or Self is unchangeable, imperishable and eternal.
According to the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy, Prakriti or Mulaprakriti
is the raw material of the physical body and three attributes, sattva,
rajas and tamas are the constituents of the Prakriti. This Prakriti
is inert while the Purusha or Atma is conscious. So, Atma provides the
consciousness of the contingent beings arising out of the inert Prakriti.
So the conscious Purusha of Samkhya is identical with the Brahman or
the Self of Vedanta. That is the why, the Blessed Lord has described
Himself as the conscious Purusha and the nature with the contingent
beings as the Prakriti in Bhagavad-Gita. And Paramatman or God Almighty
make the living beings, arising out of the inert Prakriti, to undergo
infinite cycles of birth and rebirth. To explain this, the Blessed Lord
in Bhagavat-Gita, says,
As a man casts off his worn-out clothes
And takes on other new ones (in their place),
So does the embodied soul cast off his worn-out
Bodies and enters others new.(II,22)
To explain the same, the Blessed Lord says in the verse (XV,8), that as
the wind carry fragrance of a flower from one place to the other, Atman
or God Almighty carries the soul, along with the five senses and the mind,
from one body to the other. And resting the five senses and the mind in
the new body, Paramatman with the help of vision, smell, touch, ear and
mind, continue to enjoy the creation (XV,9).
So, according to the Hindu theology, the origin of the material body is
not important. Hindu scriptures do not say that, now there are men roaming
on the earth and once upon a time they were non-existent. On the contrary,
it says that man and the entirety of the contingent beings are continuing
there march of birth and rebirth from the infinite past and this march
will continue in infinite future. This procession from birth and rebirth
continues through one kalpa to the next kalpa, and goes on repeating through
eternal time. During the day of Brahmaa, or in the beginning of every
kalpa, contingent beings teeming with life springs forth automatically
as it took place in past kalpas.
So far, the scientists of the Darwinian school used to pooh-pooh all these
conclusions of our history as written in our 18 Puranas and turn everything
down declaring them myths. But very recently an American researcher has
conclusively proved that the narrations of our Puranas are true. Shri
Michael Cremo, who is a devotee of Lord Krishna and a member of the International
Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), being inspired by the descriptions
of the Bhagvat Purana, started investigating these matters and unearthed
a deep conspiracy of the Western scientists. In fact archaeologists had
discovered fossilized human remains of much older date and many of them
were more than a billion year old. But the scientists intentionally suppressed
all these discoveries as they could not be explained by the Darwin's Theory
of Evolution. Michael Cremo has compiled all these discoveries in his
book his Forbidden Archaeology. Later on he wrote another book Devolution
of Man. In this later work, he conclusively proved that, man lived on
the earth nearly 2 billion years ago. He also discarded the notion of
the Darwin's Theory that man is an ascended ape. Or rather, he believes
that the ancestors of today's man were angels and hence man is a fallen
angel, not an ascended ape.
It should not escape one's notice that the discrepancy between the narration
of the Bhagvat Purana and the conclusion of Michael Cermo are very close.
While the Bhagvat Purana tells that man existed 1.97 billion years ago
and Dr. Cremo's estimate is 2 billion years. And hence the difference
between these two conclusions is 0.03 billion (or the error is only 1.5
per cent). So in the introduction of his later work, Michael Cremo writes,
"My book Forbidden Archaeology, co-authored with Richard L. Thompson,
documents archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity, consistent
with the Puranas, the historical writings of ancient India. The evidence
places a human presence so far back in time as to call into question the
Darwinian account of human beings".
During the Vietnam War, the young Cremo became dissatisfied with life
and started travelling and reading various texts and during his wild travels,
he happened to be got in touch with the Vedas and it was the Vedic philosophy
that changed his life. In 1984, he began to study the correlation between
modern science and the narration in ancient Hindu texts and in mid-1990s,
he wrote his first book, Forbidden Archaeology. In October, last year,
Dr. Cremo came to Calcutta to initiate a campaign for his books and delivered
a lecture at the Anthropology Department of the University of Calcutta.
While speaking about his work, Dr. Cremo said, "I had no idea that
there was so much evidence. That's one of the reasons it took me a long
time to write the book". He also said, "Humans did not evolve
up from matter; instead we have devolved, or came down, from the realm
of pure consciousness spirit". But the book received bitter criticism
from the scientific community in the West. So, Dr. Cremo said, "The
book had to face a storm scathing criticism from the scientific community".
He is now working hard for his third book. "The extra evidence I
have gathered is sufficient for a third book. It will take another two
years to finish the book", said Dr Cremo told the audience.
*********
*Professor,
Department of Applied Physics,
University of Calcutta,
Edited:October 8, 2007.
***
Critical Podium Dewanand
Religion
All rights reserved.
|
|