[Advaita-l] Is the idea of 'anAditva' logical?

[nishanth]

om shri satgurubhyo namah

Salutations,

i am compelled to send the images of the following popular book covers.
they represent a light introduction to congruent topics within Cosmology,
Vedanta, Science, and Indian Philosophy (SEE BELLOW):





[image: Inline images 5]
[image: Inline images 1]
[image: Inline images 3]
[image: Inline images 4]

[image: Inline images 2]






On 2 July 2012 09:27, Anand Hudli <anandhudli at hotmail.com> wrote:

> There is a place where modern science and Hinduism meet and this place is
> Cosmology. The Hindu concept of Time is the extension of the observation
> that everything in Nature has a cyclic character. There is a cycle of night
> and day, the months repeat after every year, the seasons repeat in cycles,
> and so on. Even the names of the years are drawn from a cycle of 60 year
> names. Many, many years form a Yuga. To be precise, there are four Yugas of
> varying duration. The Kali Yuga is 432,000 years long. To be more specific,
> the duration of Kali Yuga is 360,000 years, but a Yuga sandhyA of 36,000
> years precedes and follows it. This adds up to 432,000 years. Since we are
> only about 5000 years into Kaliyuga, technically, we are still in the
> YugasandhyA. Another explanation is that the duration of Kaliyuga is 1000
> years of the devas with a preceding yugasandhyA of 100 years and a
> succeeding yugasandhyA of another 100 years, where each year of the devas
> is 360 human years.  The dvApara Yuga is twice 432,000 years, the tretA
> Yuga is thrice 432,000 years, and the Satya or kRta Yuga is four times
> 432,000 years. Each set of satya, tretA, dvApara, and kali Yugas in
> succession is called a Mahayuga. So the duration of a Mahayuga is 4,320,000
> years. When a Mahayuga ends, the next Mahayuga follows. 71 such Mahayugas
> make a Manvantara. However, note that preceding and succeeding each
> Manvantara, there is a twilight period whose duration is four times 432,000
> years. And 14 such Manvantaras and 15 Manvantara twilights make a single
> day of Brahma, also called a Kalpa. At the end of each Kalpa, a night of
> equal duration follows. This is followed by a day of equal duration and so
> on. Brahma creates the universe afresh at the beginning of every day and
> the universe gets dissolved at the end of his day. 360 such days (and
> nights) of Brahma give rise to one year and 100 such years is his life
> span. What happens next? The present Brahma is replaced by a new one and
> the process continues. So we see that due to the cyclic nature of Time, as
> opposed to a linear nature, there is no point at which the process begins
> or ends! When is the Universe created? It is created at the beginning of
> every day of Brahma. When does it end? At the end of Brahma's day. We can
> say the Universe is created an infinite number of times and destroyed an
> infinite number of times. Or, we can also say the Universe is anAdi and
> ananta. However, from VedAnta, we know that one needs to realize that this
> seemingly anAdi and ananta Universe is mAyA.
>
> Some of the above points are so commonly known that they find a place in
> the daily pUjA sankalpa. It is said that 50 years of the present Brahma's
> life span have elapsed and it is the first day of his 51st year.  For
> example, we say, "dvitIya parardhe" to indicate that it is the second half
> of Brahma's life, "shveta varAha kalpe", to indicate the name of the
> present kalpa. Further, we say, "vaivasvata manvantare", to indicate that
> six manvantaras, beginning with that of svAyaMbhuva, have passed and we are
> now in the seventh manvantara, vaivasvata, "ashTAvimshatitame kaliyuge" to
> mean that we are in the 28th mahAyuga, and in the kaliyuga of that 28th
> mahAyuga. This is followed by more specific information such as samvatsara
> (year), uttarAyaNe (or dakShiNAyane) to indicate that the sun is in his
> Northern (Southern) course, the R^itu (season), mAsa (month), pakSha
> (bright or dark fortnight), tithi (lunar day), vAsara (weekday), nakshatra,
> Yoga, karaNa, and other information, including the specification of the
> place.
>
> Where does this fit into Cosmology? There is an interesting theory called
> the Pulsating Universe or Oscillating Universe theory that corresponds to
> the Hindu concept as outlined above. According to this theory, as opposed
> to the Big Bang Theory, the universe is alternately expanding and
> contracting. The following links contain simple explanations of the three
> theories of creation:
>
> http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/02144/basics/univevol.htm
>
> http://www.thebigger.com/physics/universe/explain-the-various-theories-of-the-origin-of-universe/
>
> An interesting video featuring the explanation of some of the above
> concepts by the famous Astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996) may be found here:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugyrzr5Ds8o
>
> In this video, Prof. Sagan explains how the Hindu concept of Time and large
> time scales makes sense to modern cosmology.  Here is a quote from the
> video:
>
> "Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to
> the idea that the cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite
> number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time
> scales correspond, no doubt, by accident, to those of modern scientific
> cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and
> night of Brahma 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the earth
> or the sun and about half of the time since the big bang. And there are
> much longer time scales still."
>
> I had the good fortune of attending one of Prof. Sagan's lectures on
> Cosmology in the 1990s in the US. It was simply fascinating.
>
> I found this quote in the Wikipedia article.
>
> On atheism, Sagan commented in 1981: "An atheist is someone who is certain
> that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the
> existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be
> relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have
> to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that
> no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain
> of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a
> subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little
> confidence indeed"<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#cite_note-USCatholic-45>
>
> Anand
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