Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a renowned spiritual teacher known for his profound insights into Vedic scriptures, karma, devotion, etc., imparted a deeply enlightening discourse on the essence of human existence. Below, his profound words shed light on the purpose and consequences of actions in life.
The divine souls. The topic is “Cosmic Destiny”. Yesterday, I explained that every human being does actions, and those actions are classified as bad, good, or Godly devotion. According to the actions, the person receives the consequence in the present life, and it is called fate, destiny, or luck. This goes on forever in cycles.
Just like we have a destiny, this planet also has a destiny. See, for instance, in this whole cosmos, there’s nothing stable. Everything is in motion, everything is changing every second, and everything is unstable. These are the nature of Maya, cosmic energy.
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A human takes birth and dies. He is born, he is dead. The planet is born and dies. The galaxy is born and dies at some time. The whole universe comes into being and at some time it will be finished at some time. So, everything, whatever is observed in this universe, is governed by life and death, destiny. No one can change it; this is the cosmic law, you can say.
A human being has a very short life – within 100 years. A planet might have many thousand million years of lifetime. Agalaxy – much more. A cluster of galaxies much more, and the universe – beyond imagination. But everything, everyone has life, and because he has life, he has to die. Everything that is born is bound to die because birth is followed by death, and death is followed by birth. So, birth and death are also the nature of Maya.
Birth and death, birth and death, each and everything – whatever is in this cosmos. So, a human being’s life, I mean fate, is governed by his past actions. For that reason, someone is poor, someone is rich, someone is very healthy, and somebody is very weak. You again meet some other physical destinies, accidents, and things.
Just like your past actions govern your present destiny, then who governs the destiny of your planet your galaxy, or the universe? I will answer this question today, starting from the universe and coming to your planet.
The universe contains all the uncountable souls. It has a very fixed time, just like you set your alarm. At that particular time, your alarm will go on – ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. The time is set. So, the universe has a kind of set time. It can be billions and billions and billions and billions of years. Whatever that is, there IS a time limit. For that length of time, it stays just as a visual cosmos, and for the same length of time, it stays just as an energy. Equal. It’s like night and day. But night and day are not equal. So, something like that, for the same length of time, it stays as a visual cosmos. And for the same length of time, when it is dissolved, it stays as perfect, absolute nothingness. There is nothing at that time because there is no time. There is no space.
Could you imagine having no space? Because space is an energy, and it is very physical as regards to the cosmic power. It might be puzzling to scientists(what) I’m telling you, (that) space is physical. You see, you say “abstract”. What is abstract? The abstract is your imagination. Take for instance this atom. A hundred years ago, the atom was supposed to be abstract, and now it’s not abstract, it’s physical. So, whatever is abstract today might be proven physical after again one hundred years or twenty years. So, how can you say whatever is abstract in imagination and consideration nowadays will remain as abstract? You cannot say. Many things we supposed to be abstract in the past, are not now abstract, they are physical.
That’s why I’m telling this space is very physical. Just to give you a glimpse from our scriptures, evolution. “Prikriti, Mahan, Ahankar, Panchtanmatra, PanchMahabhoot.” So many steps. Prikriti -these are all the names from the most absolute cosmic power, Maya (just the power itself, energy itself), then it develops into Mahan, then Mahan to Ahankar. Ahankar means very subtle existence, just the existence, very subtle. Existence of what? Just Maya. Panchtanmatra and then panchmahabhoot. And panchmahabhoot- there is space. And they all start from time. (Vedic mantra) Kal, called the “time factor”, that was born in the very beginning because from that on this world evolved, and this universe evolved. So, from absolute original magic power, from there first time factor came, and after the time factor, time energy. Then mahan, ahankar, panchtanmatra.So after these three steps, space came into being. And from space, panchmahabhoot, and panchikaran – they’reall Sanskrit terms. Panchmahabhoot means the original substance, the original abstract substance of all these elements. At that time, space came into being. And from open space, then atoms just started, began. How? Because space is an energy, just energy. It has everything, just like soil has a seed. Could you imagine? It’s beyond imagination.
Suppose according to modern science, when your Earth’s planet was a burning globe and it cooled down and there was an atmosphere and water, how did those plantations begin? Could you imagine? How (did)this Earth got the seed? Mango tree, rose flower, how they got the seed? Who threw them in? Just a bare Earth planet, nothing was there, but it happened; vegetation came. So just like Earth, from Earth, it developed seed itself. So similarly, from open space, the particles of an atom – not the full atom, there are lots of particles in one single atom – just the particles like electrons, or neutrons like this; independent parts of an atom, particles, they came up from the open sky. And scientists call them, “space dust.” However, this is the theory of evolution of this universe. So we see, what we call space, it is also an energy, a kind of physical energy, as related to original Mayic energy, and the original Mayic energy is the absolute, subtle, absolute abstract you can say. Somatic energy, this whole cosmos, for a certain limit of time, remains visual, and after that, it dissolves as it has evolved. In the same way, it dissolves and goes back in the form of absolute, absolute mayic energy. So, it has to be life and death.
Now, when this cosmos begins, cosmos means, the cluster of galaxies, uncountable. In those galaxies, there are many Earth planets, not only this one. There are uncountable Earth planets – millions in every galaxy, you can say. And on those Earth planets, human beings, animal beings, vegetation, they all come. There comes a question: “When they are all souls: a human, an animal, a bird, a tree, then which soul becomes a tree, which soul becomes human?” There’s no partiality and no mistaking because it is enlivened by God himself. And also, he keeps an eye on, nothing that should go wrong. Every soul must be judged carefully, his actions.
So, in the previous universe, whoever was what, just like a human – he died; a tree – it died, an animal – it died. Universe finished. So, whatever those souls were in the past universe when this universe came into being, they appear in the same sequence, you can say. So, plants became plants, humans became humans, birds became birds, and animal became animal in the beginning of this universe. And then, all the human beings, they started doing karmas. And all those animal beings, plantations, vegetation, everything, they could not do any karma, but they were in the process of becoming (evolving) into human beings. So, they were slowly entering into human life. If everything becomes human, there will not be a space to stand on this Earth. And those who were plants and vegetation and animals in the beginning, they were the same in the end of the previous universe. And how they became those plants and animals? They would have been human beings in their further remote past, but they would have been doing bad karmas so they became animals and static beings.
So, similarly, in this evolution, all those human beings, some keep on transferring into animal life, some to plant life, some to vegetation life, and some remain human. And some from those plants and vegetation and animals are being transferred into human life. So, this cosmos goes on for billions and billions and billions and billions of years. During that time, suppose one human being has taken(in your terms, uncountable – it’s not actually uncountable, but in your imagination, it can be uncountable times), he has taken birth. And during that time, every soul had got a chance to become a human being. So, only human beings do karmas. According to his karmas, he’s rewarded and he’s given the kind of body he deserves according to his imagination, attachment, and thinking prior to his death. This is how this whole world moves.
Now comes the destiny of a planet. You see, what is in the planet? Some physical things: dead, lifeless, just energy – and all those souls. And the souls, even the static souls and animals, and birds, they also have karmas of the past. Because when they were human beings, they did karmas, and they also carry all those uncountable karmas all the time with them because every soul, in his mind, carries all the karmas, all the time. Mind and soul are never destroyed. The body is destroyed. A plant also has a mind and soul, but his mind is not developed. His senses are not developed. A plant has only one kind of sense: touch. You have five senses. A plant has only one sense: touch. So, that plant feels cold, hot, like this, Feels, also because of the touch it can feel. But it has no imagination because the mind is undeveloped. But the mind is there. Mind means fully unconscious mind, and unconscious mind, these two parts of the mind are always with every soul. And these two carry all the Sanskars. And subconscious mind also to some extent, it has some consciousness into all those beings. So, every soul is carrying all the sanskaras of all the uncountable past lives.
So, imagine the souls, the number of souls of this globe, this Earth planet, and all the human beings. All the human beings, doing their karmas, good and bad, and devotional. So, collectively, just like your past action determines the destiny of this life, and this life’s destiny is destined at the time of your birth for the whole lifespan. Similarly, the collective good, bad, and devotional sanskars of all the souls on this Earth planet determine the destiny of this planet.
Any planet, at the time of the planet’s birth, when the planet was born, at that time, all the souls which are on this Earth planet, according to their karmas, good, bad, and devotional, this Earth planet’s destiny was destined at the time of birth and will continue until its death. You see, almost fifty percent of the life of this Earth is finished, fifty percent is left. And that is governed by, you can say, your sun. Your sunshine, your sun has consumed fifty percent of its fuel. Fifty percent roughly is left. When that is consumed, then the sun will (makes a gesture showing that the sun’s energy will be exhausted) and everything will be finished. So I think tomorrow I will speak on more….