Creative Ideas

“Lord Brahma was perplexed about his creation, the lotus and the world, even though he tried to understand them for one millennium, which is beyond calculation in the solar years of human beings. No one, therefore, can know the mystery of the creation and cosmic manifestation simply by mental speculation. The human being is so limited in his capacity that without the help of the Supreme he can hardly understand the mystery of the will of the Lord in terms of creation, continuance and destruction.” (SB 3.8.17)

Look up at the night sky, full of stars and planets. The sheer enormity, complexity and intricacy of creation compels one to question where it all came from. At present, the prevailing cosmological explanation of the universe is the Big Bang Theory. In the beginning, some say, all matter in the universe was concentrated into a single point at an extremely high temperature, after which it exploded with tremendous force. From an expanding superheated cloud of subatomic particles, atoms gradually formed, then stars, galaxies, planets, and finally life and consciousness. All of this, we are told, occurred approximately 13.8 billion years ago.

The theory raises many doubts and questions. Where did all the matter come from in the first place? Indeed, what is matter? What caused the Big Bang? How did the Bang actually take place and do we have the mathematical formulas and experiments to describe and simulate it? How did such order and design come from the Bang? How could a random chaotic occurrence cause species, ecosystems and a fully functional and self-maintaining cosmos? Why is there a seeming purpose in the world?

The topic of creation repeatedly comes up in the pages of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Interestingly, when we compare the Vedic account with the modern scientific explanation we do find compatible elements. The ‘initial state’ that both accounts describe, and the concept of the universe expanding from a single point, bear a notable resemblance. Srimad-Bhagavatam explains how the injection of time causes material nature to be agitated, further triggering the transformation of various material elements. The Big Bang theory, like the Vedic account, talks of the evolution of elements from space (sky), gas (air), light and heat (fire), water, and eventually soil (earth). In some versions of the Big Bang, there is also a concept of the ‘Big Crunch,’ where universes eventually contract. This could also be likened to the withdrawal of the entire material manifestation into the Universal Body described in Srimad-Bhagavatam. Even the idea of parallel universes that scientists have posited is in line with the Vedic version.

The theory of modern science, however, clearly has its limitations. Srila Prabhupada once commented: “Explosion, yes. So they are seeing that explosion and the chunk, but they cannot explain how the chunk became exploded... Material energy itself cannot explode. The explosion theory is there... Not theory, fact. But the total material energy, mahat-tattva, when it is glanced over by Maha Vishnu, then it becomes agitated, and the modes of material nature begin to act. So then these activities are executed by Maha Vishnu.” Thus, the Vedic account gives a clear cause for the entire creation, whereas mechanistic empiricism is limited as an approach to understanding the ‘origins questions,’ and as such tends to fall back on the metaphysical concept of stochasticity, or chance.