The supreme being – From nothing became…

Some modern-day cosmologists postulate that the universe in the past was finite, because the age of the universe is finite to the point of singularity. It cannot be extended backwards beyond the point of the initial state. In a previous blog, I had suggested that the point of singularity extends backward as well as forward… Backward into a spiritual realm and forward into the material realm. But I suggested that both were subsequent to the point of singularity

The conceptual challenge for most today, however, is what came before the point of singularity – the initial state. Religion for most part argues that only created things have a creator. And that God always existed. Because if God had a creator, then who created the creator of God? – which would result in an infinite regression.

Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), the renowned Christian philosopher, espoused five arguments for the existence of God. First, that there had to be a prime mover, to engender motion, that had not been acted upon or moved. Second, that every efficient cause, for instance, a father begetting a child, must have a prior efficient cause, and there cannot be a regressing chain of efficient causes. Third, that God is a necessary being not a possible being. God, is one being that is not capable of not existing. And again, there cannot be a regressive chain of necessary beings. Fourth, that there are degrees of perfection, and that there must be one supremely perfect being. And fifth, that there are some beings that are not intelligent enough to have direction, so there must be some guiding hand to direct them.

Gottifred Leibniz (1646-1716), German philosopher, mathematician and scientist, implied the case for the first cause by stating that things seem to cause one another because God ordained a pre-established harmony about everything in the Universe.

In contrast, Jainism, a religion that originated in India from Mahavira, who lived around the sixth century BC, believes that the universe has no beginning and no end, it has always been and will always be. Jainism preaches that souls are a unique substance in the universe, and manifest as different living forms in the cycle of birth and re-birth and the cycle goes on for eternity. The ultimate objective for each soul is to annihilate the karmic cycle and bring to conclusion the requirement for reincarnation through good actions, and achieve Nirvana or eternal bliss.

While Jainism teaches we can all become gods in an eternal cycle, there must be something that pre-existed that eternal cycle and, what indeed, is the substance of the pre-existed something.

In a discourse in the Chandogya Upanisad (the Upanisads are Hindu metaphysical treatises written by various thinkers beginning from the sixth century BC), between three philosophers discussing Udgitha, identified with the ultimate space, one of the three asks: “To what the world goes back?”

“To space,” replies another. “Verily, all things here arise out of space. They disappear back into space, for space alone is greater than these; space is the final goal.”

In the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, it is stated: “Verily, in the beginning, this world was Brahma…Brahma is ether…the ether primeval.”

Again in the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, the female philosopher, Gargi asks the sage Yajnavalkya: “That which is above heaven and below earth, which is the same through past, present and future, in what is that woven?” To which Yajnavalkya responds that it is woven in space. Then Gargi asks that in what is space woven? Yajnavalkya replies: “The sages call it Akshara, the Imperishable. It is neither big nor small, neither long nor short, neither hot nor cold, neither bright nor dark, neither air nor space. It is without eyes, ears, tongue, without movement, without limitation, without inside or outside. It consumes nothing, and nothing consumes it.”

There is also a reference in the Chandogya Upanisad that concludes that Brahma is void.

Some ancient Buddist texts also espouse that the truly Absolute and the truly Free must be nothingness. The Void.

In Hermeticism, the source of everything is in nothing. The Corpus Hermetica, ascribed to Greek compilators around the second and third centuries BC, but previously attributed to the Egyptian God Thoth, around 3000 BC, states that “Atum is the primal mind/ He is hidden/ yet obvious everywhere…/He is bodiless/ yet embodied in everything…/He is the unity of all things.

He is the root and source of all/ Everything has a source/ except the source itself/ which springs from nothing./”

I perceive it as the initial state was a state of nothingness. Everything arose from the initial state of nothingness, the primeval void…When the void became aware of itself, and became all knowledge and consciousness…thought up idea and gave it form. It must have been an inordinately long process…an eternity in itself…for the primal being to transit to self-realisation and become a perfect being.

The supreme being, perhaps, wants all his creatures to go through that lengthy process of self-attainment, through the crises of material and egoistic pursuits, to let go and become nothing. And achieve self-realisation and become perfect. That perfection achieves the final union with the divine source.

In a discourse in the Chandogya Upanisad (the Upanisads are Hindu metaphysical treatises written by various thinkers beginning from the sixth century BC), between three philosophers discussing Udgitha, identified with the ultimate space, one of the three asks: “To what the world goes back?”

“To space,” replies another. “Verily, all things here arise out of space. They disappear back into space, for space alone is greater than these; space is the final goal.”

In the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, it is stated: “Verily, in the beginning, this world was Brahma…Brahma is ether…the ether primeval.”

Again in the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, the female philosopher, Gargi asks the sage Yajnavalkya: “That which is above heaven and below earth, which is the same through past, present and future, in what is that woven?” To which Yajnavalkya responds that it is woven in space. Then Gargi asks that in what is space woven? Yajnavalkya replies: “The sages call it Akshara, the Imperishable. It is neither big nor small, neither long nor short, neither hot nor cold, neither bright nor dark, neither air nor space. It is without eyes, ears, tongue, without movement, without limitation, without inside or outside. It consumes nothing, and nothing consumes it.”

There is also a reference in the Chandogya Upanisad that concludes that Brahma is void.

Some ancient Buddist texts also espouse that the truly Absolute and the truly Free must be nothingness. The Void.

In Hermeticism, the source of everything is in nothing. The Corpus Hermetics, ascribed to Greek compilators around the second and third centuries BC, but previously attributed to the Egyptian God Thoth, around 3000 BC, states that “Atum is the primal mind/ He is hidden/ yet obvious everywhere…/He is bodiless/ yet embodied in everything…/He is the unity of all things.

He is the root and source of all/ Everything has a source/ except the source itself/ which springs from nothing./”

I perceive it as the initial state was a state of nothingness. Everything arose from the initial state of nothingness, the primeval void…When the void became aware of itself, and became all knowledge and consciousness…thought up idea and gave it form. It must have been an inadvertently long process…an eternity in itself…for the primal being to transit to self-realisation and become a perfect being.

The supreme being, perhaps, wants all his creatures to go through that lengthy process of self-attainment, through the crises of material and egoistic pursuits, to let go and become nothing. And achieve self-realisation and become perfect. That perfection achieves the final union with the divine source