A while ago, I read an essay in which the author imagined our ancestors living in caves. One night, the woman tries to wake up her man who is beside her, and he doesn't respond. She touches him again and realizes that he is colder than normal. She falls asleep.
She wakes up later as the sun comes up, and her man is in the same position.
Our ancestors understood that something had happened. The guy is no more. What happened to him?
Ever since we became conscious of the fact that we die, we have wondered what really happens when our body is here but we are no longer here. We are not what we see as bodies? Then, who are we? Where did we come from, and what happens when we die?
I grew up in a traditional, orthodox, Brahmin setting, and that context provided a narrative that explained this existential question.
As a kid, I was convinced about that narrative.
But then came the science classes. Atoms. Carbon. Sex and reproduction. Galaxies and the universe. The big bang.
The Brahminical explanation seemed like nothing but a tall tale.
We read about Stanley Miller's experiment. The idea that a primordial soup provided the building blocks of life seemed a better and more convincing narrative than anything else.
But, where did that primordial soup come from?
On this question, I like the answer that goes way back in my Brahminical roots--to the Rig Veda.
Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whence this creation has arisen
- perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps even He does not know.
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