Belief and Meanings

- Written by Subhash Kak

Although biologically all humans are alike, in different cultures we do see certain things
differently. These differences are sometimes the result of political philosophy, religion
and tradition, but they are as likely to be due to buried beliefs (unstated or
unacknowledged by members of the community) that mould attitudes and behavior.
I am speaking here of beliefs such as: is the world large or small, are we just our bodies
or body and mind, is the world a web of life or are humans privileged, should the world
be measured by emptiness or by fullness or by something else, should we reckon time by
the Sun or the Moon?

Consider the idea of emptiness and the sign for zero. It is believed that its full power was
understood around 50 B.C. - 50 A.D., because soon after that the shunyata theory of
Nagarjuna became prominent. Zero helped represent numbers in unprecedented
economy, and Nagarjuna reasoned that the idea of nothingness simplified many
philosophical arguments as well. A philosophy was born which eventually became the
lens through which millions of people saw their world.

Another abstract idea is that of the year. There exist two reckonings: the solar with its
365 days, and the lunar with its 354 days. In the solar year, one looks for the recurring
seasons, while in the lunar year one counts twelve cycles of the new Moon. The ancients
represented the solar year as 360 civil gods (one for each day) and five more important
gods to make the total of 365. In lunar counting, the most significant thing is the fact of
the increasing and the decreasing phases, viewed as opposition between two opposing
principles.

The founding of Islam is tied up with a deliberate choice of the 354-day lunar year over
the 365-day solar year. We see this in the Islamic flag, which appropriately shows the
Moon. This choice was commemorated by the destruction of the 360 idols (representing,
no doubt, the 360 days of the civil year) in the colonnade at Mecca.

This colonnade originally consisted of 360 pillars and opening into the courtyard were
nineteen gates, representing the cycle of eclipses. Because of the choice of the calendar,
the Islamic year is faster by eleven days compared to the standard year.

Most people in the ancient world considered all religions to be basically similar. The
Greeks tell us that only the names of the deities vary from place to place. When they
came to India, they considered Krishna and Shiva to be the same as their own Herakles
and Dionysos. Herakles, like Krishna, was a dark God who had killed the Hydra
(compare the Kaliya) and wedded many nymphs (gopis). Dionysos and Shiva both
represent paradox and mystery, showing the way to a transcendent unity with the ultimate
reality.
In truth there are differences between the Greek and Indian religions. One such difference
is based on their different ideas regarding the size of the universe a notion, which is
abstract as far as ordinary imagination is concerned.

The Greeks thought that the sky was about a thousand earth diameters above the Earth,
and in the sky resided the gods. These ideas were at the basis of medieval thought about
the universe. Dante (1265-1321) viewed the universe to be centered in Jerusalem. Around
the plants was a crystalline sphere beyond which lived the angels and God.

Even Copernicus (died in 1543), who proposed the theory that the Sun was at the center
of the solar system, assumed that the universe was only about 8 million miles wide. The
idea of an infinite universe in the Western tradition had to wait the coming of Newton.
Once this came to be widely accepted, the nature of the European civilization was
transformed.

Although, the earliest Indian ideas related to the size of the planetary system are similar
to the Greek model, one major point of difference is that the Indians assumed the
universe to be infinite. They believed that beyond the planetary system existed other
worlds. The German scholar Hertha von Dechend has shown that mythology often
mirrors ideas about planets and stars, so it is not surprising that Indian mythology came to
have infinitely rich layers.

We see the paradox of beginnings in an infinitely old and large world expressed through
many paradoxical tales based on word play. For example, Brahma, the Creator, is shown
to emerge from the lotus in Vishnu's navel. Brahma is born of Vishnu and Vishnu is born
of Brahma. The same between Vishnu and Shiva.

The Brahmavaivarta Purana has a charming story about infinite worlds and infinite time
through the frame story of an arrogant Indra. A young boy in his court starts laughing at a
train of ants. He is pressed to explain the cause of his mirth. The boy says, "The ants that
I see, each one following the one ahead, have every one been Indras in their worlds in the
past. Now, due to their deeds they have gradually fallen to the state of the ants."

The idea of infinite time with cyclic ages brings up the concomitant idea of heroic
persons who usher in new periods. If the times progressively become worse, to be
followed eventually by a new golden age, it must be due to the efforts of a Superperson.
This takes one to the idea of the Avatara, and the notion that anyone can find divinity
within.

Now consider a short-lived universe. Such a thing will unfold according to its plan at the
time of creation. There can only be one such plan and so it may have just one redeemer.
The actual disorder in the world may be explained by the presence of evil or Satan. The
purpose of good and proper life, then, is to uproot this evil.
The Old Testament instruction to destroy images may be visualized in the context of a
relatively small universe. In this universe, the Creator, looking from outside the spheres
of the planets, will not brook any challenge to his capacity to create things.

Metaphors are used to represent abstract thought. These metaphors provide illumination
but some people can be imprisoned by them.

Consider the story of the 16,000 wives of Krishna. Here Krishna represents the divine
soul and the 16,000 wives are the cognitive centers in the human's mind that pine to be
one with the divinity within. This straightforward idea is often taken literally and
Vaishnavas are criticized by their opponents for worshiping a God who has so many
wives.

The imagery used in Indian astronomy has likewise led careless people astray. The
'planets' Rahu and Ketu are the ascending and descending nodes of the Moon. The act of
occlusion is seen as 'swallowing' by Rahu of the Moon or the Sun. The Jyotisha books
explain clearly the process behind the eclipse.

Our present age has its own buried beliefs. Those who believe that we are nothing but our
bodies (and our minds emerge from the random activity of the brain) are the materialists.
In their minds it is entirely proper to slaughter a million (mostly healthy) sheep to
eradicate a treatable disease, because the vaccine makes the animals lose weight and the
value of the livestock goes down.

An old philosophical question is what is primary: mind or body? Those who consider
mind to be primary take death to be submersion in the Cosmic Mind -- unless one comes
back to Earth in another body; while those who consider the body to be the real thing
bury it -- they may even leave food by the dead body to help it in its journey, as the
Egyptians did. The end of the world in this view is a sojourn in a paradise where the body
is resurrected and one has access to various sensual pleasures.

And then there are others who say that these dichotomies are simplistic and that there is a
mystery related to our life that cannot be expressed in any simple formula.

© Subhash Kak., all rights reserved.