• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

How did it all begin?

Parsifal

Member
I'm working on a story about the origin of the universe from a spiritual perspective, and would be interested in hearing other people's ideas about it. I've looked through the threads on similar subjects, and found many comments that were informative. So now I'd like to pose the question directly: how did it all begin?​

My own approach to the creation narratives of the various religious traditions is that the outer forms have underlying spiritual or symbolic value. There's the hero with a thousand faces, and the God with a thousand masks. So if one person believes that the cosmos began when Yahweh said, "Let there be light," and another that it happened when a lotus sprouted from the navel of Narayana, what deeper truth might possibly lay behind both beliefs?​

narayana.jpg

god.jpg
 

Straw Dog

Well-Known Member
I'm working on a story about the origin of the universe from a spiritual perspective, and would be interested in hearing other people's ideas about it. I've looked through the threads on similar subjects, and found many comments that were informative. So now I'd like to pose the question directly: how did it all begin?​

My own approach to the creation narratives of the various religious traditions is that the outer forms have underlying spiritual or symbolic value. There's the hero with a thousand faces, and the God with a thousand masks. So if one person believes that the cosmos began when Yahweh said, "Let there be light," and another that it happened when a lotus sprouted from the navel of Narayana, what deeper truth might possibly lay behind both beliefs?​

narayana.jpg

god.jpg

I don't know. My current impression that I cannot shake is that the foundational ground of being simply emanates all existence as infinite potentials that expand and unfold into new universes. Some universes evolve to the point of producing life forms and a few life forms become vaguely aware of the singularity in which everything originally spawned from. The most advanced beings become aware that they are Goddust becoming self-aware. From that point, transcendence is immanent.
 

Parsifal

Member
It all beganed with a decided end,
It all is going on with love to end in love :)

Very well said! I dedicate this post to you.
A Story for Children. . .
for when they ask those cute, innocent questions like:
"Where did the world come from? Why did God make the world? Where was I before I was born? Where will I be after I die?" My son once asked: "How did we get to be alive in the first place?"​

God does not play dice with the universe, but he does play hide and seek. And that's the title of the story:​

Why God Plays Hide and Seek with the Universe

Parts of it are adapted from THE BOOK on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Really Are by Alan Watts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

The world didn't begin once and for all, but many times; and each time it begins, it always comes to an end. It's the same world every time it comes back, just as you are the same person when you wake up in the morning as you were when you went to sleep the night before. Nevertheless, the world is just a little bit different each time it returns, just as a child will learn and grow and change every day ~ and a wise adult will too.

Every time the world begins, it comes right out of nothing. It's like a great big firecracker exploding in the night sky. It looks like there's nothing there, then all of a sudden: BANG! ~ there's all this light and fire exploding as if out of nowhere. Our ancestors knew this thousands and thousands of years ago ~ that the world comes out of nothing, and that it keeps doing it, over and over, forever. When the scientists came along much later and thought they were so smart, they made fun of the people who still believed this. But when the scientists looked into it a little further, and got at least a little bit smarter, they discovered that sure enough, the old ideas were right.

Now, why does the world ~ or the Universe, to give it its big name ~ keep going back and forth, in and out of nothing, like day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying? If the world were just a THING, made up of clumps of dead pieces, or a machine that moves by itself but isn't alive, then there could never be an answer to this question ~ which is why the scientists can't answer it, because they think the world is a thing or a machine, or maybe a giant computer. But wise people and children know that the world is alive. The Universe is like an immensely gigantic person, whom we call God.

Now we can see why the world keeps going back and forth from nothing. If God just went on and on forever without rest, he would get very tired. So after more years than you could count in your whole life if you started right now at a million, God goes to sleep. And when he does, the whole Universe just disappears.

God's night is very long, and very dark, because there’s nothing at all but blackness stretching out in every direction. But at last the morining comes, and God wakes up, and the darkness is filled with light. So because God refreshes himself by disappearing, he always comes back and the world begins again. It's like a game: he comes and he goes; now you see him, now you don’t.

God's day lasts even longer than his night ~ millions and millions of years, as I said. So he has to think of something to do in all this time to keep himself busy and to have fun. One of the things he likes to do best is to play hide-and-seek. But because there is nothing outside of God, he has no one to play with but himself. He gets over this difficulty in a very clever way: he pretends that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But then in the end he always remembers that he is really God, and that he was just imagining all this ~ and then all the scary things disappear.

Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that's the whole fun of it ~ just what he wanted to do. He doesn't want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That's why it's so hard for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. Sometimes we can start to remember, at least a little bit, and then we can play the game right along with God. And if two people, or lots of people, begin to remember that they are God at the same time, they can have the most fun and excitement of all, for they will know that everything they do together is God playing games with himself.

And I should mention that although I've been talking about God as "he" and not "she", God isn't a man or a woman ~ except when he remembers himself in two or more people, and then he will be all the men and women in the group. . . and also all the children, of course. God always remembers himself in little children, but when they get older they begin to forget.

You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of very bad people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. And if everyone is God, you may wonder why different groups of people sometimes fight each other, and even kill each other. But remember first that God isn't really doing all this to anyone but himself. Remember too that in most of the stories you enjoy there are usually bad people as well as good people ~ and they usually disagree about something strongly enough to fight about it. This is because the thrill of a good story is to find out how the good people get the better of the bad, or how the people we like in the story will win the battle against the people we don't like ~ or how the misunderstanding will get resolved, so that everyone will live happily ever after. But even this best ending is possible only because there was a conflict to resolve. If there were no conflict in a story, you would get bored with it very quickly and toss it aside. And if there were no conflict in the Universe, God would get bored and go back to sleep, and everything would vanish once again.
 

Parsifal

Member
I don't know. My current impression that I cannot shake is that the foundational ground of being simply emanates all existence as infinite potentials that expand and unfold into new universes. Some universes evolve to the point of producing life forms and a few life forms become vaguely aware of the singularity in which everything originally spawned from.

Yes, that resonates with my own inklings. Here are some thoughts I recently jotted down which I think strike some similar chords ~ see if you agree:

OM

Some humans who attain a high degree of enlightenment tell us that the ultimate reality is nothing ~ a kind of blissful non-being, Nirvana. Others say that this big blankness is merely a door or barrier to an incredible realm beyond, a stateless state and implacable place of infinite magnitude and absolute perfection. This is the unthinkable, unspeakable Thing-In-Itself which is designated by the ineffable mantra OM. Within this OM is All and Everything, seamlessly conjoined with the Nil and Nothing ~ so Nirvana is only the next-to-last stop before OM.

If OM is the Truth, then the riddle of the cosmos is why it ever emerges from its sublime self-containment, so that you and me and the rest of the universe can one day come to be. The answer is that it doesn't. We're still there right now, but we don't know it because our awareness of OM as the only reality is clouded by the many veils that overlay it and create the mirrored images that we perceive as the world around us.

Of course this answer just pushes the riddle to the next layer of perplexity ~ the skeptical mind can't accept that it's all done with mirrors, just as it can no longer believe in the miracle of "Let there be light". So I offer the next best answer, favored by many enlightened minds: the OM, which is to say the whole of reality, breathes in and out. This makes perfect sense, since it's one big living thing. From our perspective as small living things occupying only parts of reality, the breathing rhythm of the OM is incredibly long. In terms of modern cosmology, each out-breath lasts from the first nanosecond of the Big Bang all the way until the universe reaches its point of maximum expansion, perhaps twenty-five billion years. Then the in-breath is the cosmic contraction, lasting just as long and ending in the Big Gulp, the fusion of all matter and energy back into one.
 

Parsifal

Member
The most advanced beings become aware that they are Goddust becoming self-aware. From that point, transcendence is immanent.

A very poetic insight! Here's my own humble effort:

OM Mani Padme Hum

The truth of OM can never be told ~
It's That of which naught can be said.
But when a self-knowing being awakens in OM
It becomes the Truth-in-Itself.
OM will henceforth reside in this being,
Be it God or a lesser form ~
Whatever it speaks is the Word of God,
And whatever it wills is OM;
Whatever it does is driven by OM,
Perfect down to the core.
A sentient being as a vessel of OM
Can work wonders great and small,
And Almighty God as OM-in-Itself
Creates the world, the cosmos, the All.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

robo

Active Member
"How did it all begin?"

The question presupposes its conclusion - that there must have been a beginning.

There is no convincing reason to conclude that the universe even "began" to exist.
 

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
"How did it all begin?"

The question presupposes its conclusion - that there must have been a beginning.

There is no convincing reason to conclude that the universe even "began" to exist.
You reject Big Bang Theory, then?
 

robo

Active Member
You reject Big Bang Theory, then?

It is a common misconception that the BBT talks of the creation of the universe ex nihilo much like how evolution (how life evolved) is confused with abiogenesis (how life began).

The BBT simply talks of how the universe evolved from around 13.7 Billion years ago.

The BB makes no claim whatsoever about whether something preceded it in time or not. It is simply silent on the issue.
 

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
It is a common misconception that the BBT talks of the creation of the universe ex nihilo much like how evolution (how life evolved) is confused with abiogenesis (how life began).

The BBT simply talks of how the universe evolved from around 13.7 Billion years ago.

The BB makes no claim whatsoever about whether something preceded it in time or not. It is simply silent on the issue.
Saying time didn't exist and therefore the question of "before" is inapplicable does in fact make precisely that claim.
 

robo

Active Member
Saying time didn't exist and therefore the question of "before" is inapplicable does in fact make precisely that claim.

Time cannot begin. Period. Anything else is metaphysics. Metaphysics is belief, in some cases well supported by evidence. But science does not concern itself with metaphysics.
 

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
Time cannot begin. Period. Anything else is metaphysics. Metaphysics is belief, in some cases well supported by evidence. But science does not concern itself with metaphysics.
OK, so you reject modern physics' understanding of the nature of time. That's much better.
 

robo

Active Member
OK, so you reject modern physics' understanding of the nature of time. That's much better.

"Modern physics" is too broad a term and it includes relativity and quantum physics within itself. Neither of these fields is completely well understood although we are able to make pretty good predictions using these. There is still research happening in these areas.

The point is that the BBT does NOT talk about creation of the universe ex nihilo. To say that time began with the BB is as much metaphysics as positing Gods to explain the phenomenon.
 

granpa

Member
It isnt that the answer is beyond us.
Its that we are asking the wrong question.
When we finally ask the right question the answer will be obvious.
We will say to ourselves 'but of course, how else could it have been?'
 

Luke Morningstar

Mourning Stalker
I'm working on a story about the origin of the universe from a spiritual perspective, and would be interested in hearing other people's ideas about it. I've looked through the threads on similar subjects, and found many comments that were informative. So now I'd like to pose the question directly: how did it all begin?​

Hey, I'm doing this too! How far back do you want to go? If you're thinking this observable universe, then you can start with the big bang, and turn the current objective understanding into metaphor.

If you want to go before that, well, good luck. All I remember is infinite wholeness. There are plenty of stories and metaphors to build from that, as well as cycles and patterns. Just have fun and follow your heart and hope for the best.

Another option would be to focus on the evolution of human consciousness. Every oral story, which is the basis for pretty much every culture at some point, rose out of pre-language humanity. There's an analogy to be made here that ties in the awakening of every person as a child. Those early memories that just start out of some earlier darkness, unconnected and vague until our handle on language becomes more concrete. Words form our memories, both personal and cultural.

How can we mark a beginning when we don't have family to tell us what happened, like our birthday or first word?
 

Luke Morningstar

Mourning Stalker
Saying time didn't exist and therefore the question of "before" is inapplicable does in fact make precisely that claim.

Sorry, Storm. robo is on the right track. You're playing with semantics.

When do you start making a cake? Is it when you buy the ingredients, when you combine the ingredients, or when you put it in the oven? Maybe it's before all of that, when you first start learning how to bake. Does your first cake begin with your first bread or cookies?

Semanitcally, I could argue for all of those things. Does the universe begin in the first precise moment of time or does it begin 377,000 years later, when it finally cools down enough that the first atoms that form everything we see in the unverse? Does life begin at conception, when the baby takes a first breath, or when the egg and sperm form as living cells?

Questions of beginning are questions that have no answers without a lot of criteria for semantic definitions. What's great about science is that it has a LOT of semantic definitions based in universal mathematics. But once you leave mathematics for physics and other sciences, you introduce language and conceptual semantics, which are less universal. You can try to cover the problem by pulling from common languages, but then you alienate non-Europeans and West Asians who aren't familiar with Latin and Greek.

Science isn't the last authority on the topic, it's just picks a time that can be agreed upon by scientists. It's a pretty good choice, no doubt, but it's not the only choice.

Time is a human concept. It begins whenever we agree that it begins. If you think that just because we can't see beyond the horizon, then nothing beyond the horizon exists - I've got some bad news for you. It may not be time as we know it, but rationally, things happen from a cause and effect, so I'm going to assume that's true with the big bang. It's scientific to say "Let's put together some wild hypotheses" not "Well, I don't know, possibly can never know, so it must not exist."

So, saying that there can't be a beginning is worse than saying it's an egg. At least in the latter case, we're encouraged to talk about it and think about the unknown and possibly unknowable. And talking about it and making stories about it is how science leads to discoveries.

Galileo would never have challenged the European cosmology if they didn't create a story that was based in metaphor and supernatural power. Galileo wouldn't have died, if they had been open minded enough to hear new stories and new ideas.

Don't assume that the science of your age is the science that has all the answers. Don't let science of great answers get in the way of dreaming of new questions and new answers.
 

chinu

chinu
In the beganing YOU created a game for yourself to play, but before stepping into that game there was a question in YOUR mind.

Q: How can such a game give true enjoyment until you may forget you are the creator of this game ? Thus.. you turned this game into an illusionary game, Which means that you will forget everything, your power, your rank, your place, your status, after jumping into that game.


But again an another new question got arrised, Q: As You will forget everthing about yourself after jumping into that game, than who will pull you out when you will get tired after playing a lot ? Thus, by giving all of yours powers you created a CLONE of yourself and gave him the duty to pull you out.

Now, asked the clone; Sir, how will i come to know that you are really tired of this game ? YOU said; when i'll cry and beg infront of you to take me out of this game like as you have created me, rather than i created you.

And finally by saying this YOU jumped into that game.

GOD is that CLONE
 
Top