[Advaita-l] The riddle of evolution

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

Shrinivasji - PraNAms

Interesting thoughts.

I want to separate the Anatomical evolution vs Spiritual Evolution. 

Anatomical evolution is biological and one can have evolution from microcosm to human beings. I have no problem in accepting Darwins theory, with whatever problems it has. 

Spiritual evolution of Jiiva (the life-force) does not necessarily follow the anatomical evolution as per Vedanta. We have re-birth of one life - needed as in Vamadeva and three birth needed as in the case of Jadabharata..The soul can go backwords in the anotomical evolution or take a detour in order to exhaust the karmas that cannot be exhausted otherwise. Even jnaani takes birth if there are lingering vaasanaas that need to be exhausted - Discussed elaborately in Panchadashi by Shree Vidyaranya in Ch. 9 

Krishna says -
 bahuunaam janmanaamante jnaanavaam maam prapadyate|
vaasudeva sarvamiti sa mahaatmaa sudurlabhaH||

Hari Om!
Sadananda



--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 4/10/16, Shrinivas Gadkari via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] The riddle of evolution
 To: "Advaita-l List" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
 Date: Sunday, April 10, 2016, 2:39 AM
 
 Namaste,
 
 Important typo correction:
 
 read adhidaiva instead of
 adidaiva.
 
 macrocosm is
 where the gods dwell.
 adhiSThAna of a tattva
 in realm of gods = adhi-daiva
 adhiSThAna of
 a tattva in microcosm/ body (AtmA) = adhi-Atma
 
 Regards,
 Shrinivas Gadkari
 
 ----------------------------------------
 
 Quite some time ago (in 2002)
 I had posted an essay summarizing 
 my views
 on creation and evolution. The following message has a 
 copy of the original essay. 
 http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2009-October/022703.html
 
 
 With more than a
 decade of continued contemplation, I feel the 
 question about why it took so long for humans
 to evolve 
 or why evolution was such a
 stretched out process is not 
 well answered.
 (In fact today I do not agree with many of 
 the details in this essay. May revisit this at
 some other 
 time.) 
 
 In this post will only focus on this question:
 
 What was the primary purpose of evolution
 of species from 
 the view point advocated in
 the essay? 
 
 Proposed
 answer: The primary problem the ancient perfected 
 masters of yoga (the sAdhyA-s) were trying to
 solve during 
 creation of life on Earth is:
 how to establish a universal 
 mechanism
 wherein the balance between the different tattvas 
 would be automatically maintained, and
 imbalances corrected. 
 Their solution was to
 create and firmly establish a 
 correspondence/ link/ correlation/ dependency
 between the 
 manifestation of each tattva at
 the level of macrocosm and 
 microcosm. That
 is, establish a correspondence between 
 adidaiva (macrocosm) and adhyatma (microcosm)
 aspects of 
 every tattva. And for this
 purpose specific species were 
 created, and
 the ancient yogis (the gods) incarnated in these 
 bodies. The bodies of these species were
 specialized to 
 experience some specific
 tattvas in an amplified manner and 
 thus
 enable incarnating yogis to rapidly establish the 
 adhyatma-adidaiva correspondence for these
 specific tattvas. 
 Once the correspondence
 was established, the purpose of creation 
 of
 the specific species was achieved. Then new species with 
 bolides tailored for amplified experience of
 some other tattvas 
 were brought into
 existence. "the gods"/ yogis then incarnated 
 in these new bodies for their next assignment.
 The species 
 whose purpose of creation had
 been served were slowly phased out. 
 In this
 manner species after species was brought into existence 
 and then phased out.Finally when the desired
 level of correspondence 
 between adhyatma
 and adidaiva for all the important tattvas had 
 been established the time was considered ripe
 for fully competent, 
 "universal
 puruSa" to manifest. This is the process of
 "waking up" 
 of the "virATa
 puruSa" described in Chapter 3.26 of Bhagavatam, 
 and in, my opinion, puruSa sUkta. 
 
 With the "waking up"
 of virATa puruSa, the universal mechanism for 
 correcting imbalances in tattvas for fully
 activated. In this 
 process the incarnating
 yogis/ "gods" themselves attained 
 greatness ("mahimA") and came closer
 to the ancient perfected 
 masters of yoga
 ("sAdhyA-s"). 
 
 Now refer to the last mantra of puruSa sUka:
 
 yajnena yajnam ayjanta devaH, tAni dharmANI
 prathamAni Asana 
 te ha nAkam mahimAna
 sacanta yatra pUrve sAdhyA santi devAH 
 
 1. yajnena : efforts of ancient yogis
 incarnating in bodies of different 
 species
 to establish the adidaiva adyAtma correspondence 
 
 2. yajnam : viraTA puruSa 
 
 3. prathama Asana of dharmA :
 universal mechanism for correcting 
 imbalances in tattvas 
 
 
 Hari Om. 
 
 Regards, 
 Shrinivas Gadkari 
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