Re: [Advaita-l] « big bang » and « big crunch »

[Sylvain]

I wrote ... pralaya (big crunch).  Instead, it could be saMhAra (big 
crunch).

Anyway, Is this cosmology treated in advaita vedAnta ?

Sylvain

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sylvain" <elisabeth-sylvain at sympatico.ca>
To: <sivasenani at yahoo.com>; "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" 
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 9:56 AM
Subject: [Advaita-l] « big bang » and « big crunch »


> Namaste
>
> According to my the very limited intellectual spiritual information, the 
> cosmologic theory of « big bang / big crunch » representing an eternal 
> prAna of material existence is very similar with pralaya (big crunch), 
> kalpa, yuga, manvantara, etc.
>
> Is this cosmology treated in advaita vedanta ?
>
> Sylvain
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Siva Senani Nori" <sivasenani at yahoo.com>
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" 
> <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 5:57 AM
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Re: Brahman, Isvara, and VishishthAdvaita
>
>
>> Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  -- Here is one problem I see with this explanation. Why introduce any 
>> Isvara
>> to explain this world? Maybe the combination of big-bang (or string 
>> theory) + evolution + some other theories is good-enough to explain why 
>> the world is the way it is.
>>
>>  Saluations!
>>
>>  Here, I speak on my own, without referring to traditional views: Who was 
>> the agent of the big bang? Let's say, some entity - to me that entity is 
>> God or god. If the big bang was a purely random event, even then, that 
>> out of the probable infinite possibilities (a small wimper, a super 
>> globule forever contracting into a black hole, or most probably nothing), 
>> that big bang actually happened is, to me, perfectly tenable as the 
>> realisation of god's will. (Qualifier: All this strictly from the 
>> relative view-point, as opposed to the Absolute view-point).
>>
>>  None of this answers 'why introduce Isvara' - many would be happy with 
>> the big bang being a random event, and not bothering about somebody's 
>> will being realised and all that. Sruti is the pramANa for Isvara's 
>> existence.
>>
>> -- Another problem is this assumption that Isvara has some special role 
>> for
>> humans in this world. For example, all the creation theories which say 
>> that men descended from Manu, when all evidence seems to point to the 
>> evolution of men from apes.
>>
>>  - I believe our tradition does not differentiate between humans and 
>> non-humans. The PaSupati is the Lord of all world. This is not to say 
>> that our ancestors somehow anticipated Darwin and his ilk and all that - 
>> just that Isvara is the master of all.
>>
>>  There are other arguments as well 'disproving the vedic religion'. For 
>> instance, performance of putrakaameshTi does not always result in birth 
>> of sons; the sacred peeThams and temples cannot escape destruction at the 
>> hands of the impure (mlechchas); in short, as is said in Telugu - 
>> mantraalaki chintakaayalu raalavu - (reciting mantras does not give the 
>> tamarind fruit: some action is required). The answer is usually not the 
>> direct experiment, the gold standard of modern science. It, rather, is an 
>> involved explanation of how the old was gold, how things were perfect in 
>> the kritayuga, and how decline from there was inevitable - kaaladharmam - 
>> how great people gradually lost the power to curse (the favourite 
>> shop-talk of many brahmins - and not how the power to realise Brahman was 
>> lost) - and how we will degenerate into total annihilation and how there 
>> would be a new creation.
>>
>>  Regards
>>  Senani
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
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