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आकाशाद्वायु: | वायोरग्नि: | अग्नेराप: | अद्भ्य: पृथिवी | पृथिव्या ओषधयः | ओषधिभ्यो अन्नं | अन्नात्पुरुष: [तैत्तिरीयोपनिषत]

aakaashaadvaayu: | vaayoragni: | agneraap: | adbhy: prthivii | prthivyaa oshadhayha | oshadhibhyo annam | annaatpurush: [Taittriyopanishad]

Ether, Space, Fire, Water, Earth is the ordain। From Earth sprouted food (living beings)। From Food sprouted the human form।
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The World is given!

As we look into our place in the scheme of things, a few facts become obvious. Situations like parentage are not negotiable; they are given. The place of birth, time of birth, childhood, and the world that I confront are all given. My body, its limitations, and its capacities are given. My faculty to know and my free will (my ability to choose) are also given.

The universe, which includes the Earth, the sun, the moon, the atmosphere, and other life forms that are here, is given. The Milky Way, our own Galaxy, and all other galaxies are given. What is given is already in a form that we cannot do anything about, like the sun, that is how the sun is. Certain laws are given; that is how they are. Light travels at a certain speed; that is how it is. We cannot alter that.

A lot of possibilities are given that are not now on the surface but which can be tapped in time, like underground water. If the theory evolution that there was a certain simple unicellular life form, and from that all these complex life forms came to manifest in time by natural selection, is true, that possibility was also given.

By human genius, many things can be accomplished because there are possibilities. Technology is a possibility; it is given. A bullock cart was a possibility at one time. Certain knowledge and technology were needed – wheels and a cart pulled by bullocks. That was great technology. The computer was a possibility only few decades ago. Within these years, many things have been developed, from video onwards.

Within the last few years, internet and e-mail have covered the globe. We cannot now imagine how we lived without them. All these were possibilities. These possibilities and the capacity to tap those possibilities and the materials available to make use of those possibilities were all given.

Certain fundamental laws and forces are given, and that we can make use of them is also given. Really, there is nothing new created. The faculties to explore, discover, and invent and the materials and resources necessary for that are given. Also our being here with a body, mind and senses confronting the world is given.

How can there be arrogance?

This has to be understood properly: Everything is given. There is nothing to be arrogant about. We depend upon a number of factors to accomplish anything. So it is impossible for anybody to say, “I am the author of this.” to be the author of anything, there are a number of given factors to which we must pay our dues. The balance for which we can claim credit is very little.

All the scientists, from Newton onwards, owe a lot to those people who had already worked in the field providing certain knowledge. From there, they picked up the thread and continued to explore and learn. To learn anything, the facts to be discovered must already be there. If a potential situation does not already exist, the discovery is not possible.

The faculty of knowing must also be there. And that the faculty is a prepared faculty is due to generations of thinkers and work that had gone on before and also due to some giver. Therefore, we pay our dues to all of them. We need to discover who that giver is. The fact is there for me to discover. If you say, “I am the author,” you are taking undue credit. You have not yet paid your dues.

What is it that one discovers in order to say, “I am the author of this”? Even though we call the law of floatation the Archimedes’ principle, this principle was already there. It is not that Archimedes created a new principle or that Newton created the law of gravity. If Newton created the law of gravity, then before Newton, gravitation was there. That means that Newton’s mother was floating somewhere, Newton would not have been born without that gravitation. We simply pay our respects to that person by calling it Newton’s law. There is nothing that is authored by any individual. If this is clear, arrogance is not possible.

There is no reason to be proud.

Arrogance and pride are due to ignorance; nothing else. There is no reason for pride. In fact, humility should not be a value. Humility should be talked about only when pride is a possibility, and pride is a possibility only because of ignorance. Pride is knocked off by seeing the fact that there is no reason to be proud of anything. There is no necessity for humbleness. I do not consider humbleness a value. If you begin seeing the reason why there cannot be pride or arrogance, then you are naturally humble. When knowledge is there, humility will be natural.

When it is understood that I am not the author of any given situation, then the question will be, “Is there an author for all this?” When we talk about the given, a giver has to be appreciated. Mom went away, and when she came back, she asked the child, “Did you miss me?” The child said. “No, I didn’t need you, because whenever I was hungry I went to the fridge and sandwiches and coke were there.” But the fridge didn’t produce sandwiches. Mom kept the sandwiches there. Even when she isn’t around, still she is the provider, the giver.

A giver is assumed.

When we see all that is given, it is natural for the human intellect, the rational thinking faculty, to think of a giver. Who is this giver? What is this giver is another matter. That is where all the problems start. There may be a giver is the human assumption. Then the assumption is that the giver cannot be found. The giver has to introduce him or herself and reveal where he or she is and what he or she is.

In all the religious traditions, the giver does not come and directly say, “I am the Lord, the provider, the giver.” We do not see the giver at all. Like when go to a five-star guest house in India, we do not see the host, but still we appreciate the host. We can write a thank-you letter because we have his address. There is a location. Sometimes the guest can see the host for he does appear one day just to check up and see if everything is all right.

Here there is no chance of meeting the giver. They say he only occasionally (one in two-thousand years or five-thousand years) sends a special person. At least if he comes along with that person and introduces him (“this is the person who is going to represent me”) I can accept that. but no, he doesn’t do that either. This person has to declare himself: “I am sent by God.” Suppose you say, “I am sent down by God so save all souls.” You will be taken to a specialist for medication.

A giver is assumed and talked about, but the giver himself does not appear anywhere. It seems that he loves to be behind the scenes, yet the human intellect assumes that there is a give because of the complexity and intelligence that is involved in the making of every living organism that we see. We find so much intelligence in and through the creation, which is what is studied by us in the various disciplines of science, like biology and zoology. There are endless questions, such as, “How does organic material get fossilized ad become stone?”

There is geological history going back millions of years. There is predictability. Every stone has a story to tell. If it could tell its story, it would be very interesting. Pick up any rock alongside the road and ask it to tell you its entire story. It will say, “You’ll have to listen to me for minimum of one hundred years in order to make my story precise. I am trillions of years old.” It has much to tell about how it became a stone.

Physicists are modern gods.

From everything we have learned, we have come to understand that there is order and knowledge. If there is a discipline called geology, you must know that it is not random. If we can talk about ‘random’ then order is there also. Geologists are able to explain how things change; how a piece of charcoal under pressure for millions of years turns into a diamond; how anything is what it is. And we are told that the same laws operate not only here but on the moon also. Everywhere the laws are the same, even on Mars. And if there is a heaven, it has to be included. The laws do not change. That is amazing. This is proven by physicists.

Fundamentally speaking, almost every discipline of knowledge becomes physics. At a particle level, it is all physics. That is why the physicists have the last word. They are the modern sages (Rishi). It is all just sitting and deducing from certain data that they have, and the given is not something simple. We have to thank them.

The given is available for knowledge.

Let us imagine that all human beings, god forbid, die away by some global calamity like the dinosaurs disappeared. (if dinosaurs can disappear, we can disappear as well) then after a million years or so, people came back. Imagine that, again there was a stone age and a this age and a that age and that man went on discovering and unearthing things. What would be found?

In staten island, lawns are growing over huge garbage dumps. Now they are going to make a big park there I am told. When the new age people dig up that area, they will find plastic bags, Styrofoam cups and endless non-biodegradable waste. From this, they will conclude that there was a great civilization there before. “I think this place was some kind of a planned dump because all kinds of things are here at the same place.”

“There is a lot of intelligence involved in bringing all these things together and dumping them in one place, not all over. It means that there was a great intellectual activity. It was a sophisticated, highly civilized society, and they brought all their useless things to this one place.” Even a simple thing like a dump, implies so much intelligence, so much activity, and so many millions of dollars spent. Garbage is an industry; it is a big business.

There is a behavior pattern of laws that is operating, and that is what we study and learn. We cannot take it for granted. Whatever knowledge we gain is because things are there in a certain way. Suppose you study the structure of a clock. There are some people who allow other to invent and produce, and then, afterwards, they study the product, gain the know-how, and then produce the same. What is already there we study and learn because knowledge is there.

We study the product and get an insight into how the product is made. We gain that knowledge. If after the product is produced, we study and gain knowledge, it is clear that before the product was produced, there was the same knowledge. It was knowledge before, and the knowledge that you discover later is the same knowledge.

Who is the author for the eyes, ears, and brain?

There are certain things that are produced by different creatures. Like birds build nests, and honeybees make honeycombs. There is always an intelligent being behind every product that is created. This is all given. Among the given, there is some kind of authorship.

We cannot question that there is an author for everything, like a clock and this room. That we can easily understand. But who is the author for the eyes, ears, left and right brain? It is not that the left brain created the right brain, and the right brain created the left brain. Who is the author?

This is where certain theologies have come up with the idea that there is no local author. But there is an author because everything is intelligently put together, and so much knowledge is involved. Therefore, there must be someone who has that knowledge. If there is an author, there is a giver. The given cannot be without the giver.

What is the giver? We have to ask a further question: “Is there locally a giver?” locally, there is not a giver; no man can make a human body. Even if they make one in a test tube, it can be done only because the possibility is given. Human beings cannot make all the things growing on this earth that are intelligently put together, like a tree or an animal or another human being or a cockroach.

Who is the giver? Theology says that giver must be outside the system that he must be somewhere above. Where? It is said that God is in heaven. Let’s imagine that heaven is a vast kingdom, and there sits God. That is what is called the kingdom of God. He gets located there. When we go to heaven, we will have to find his address. There are so many places there. Perhaps God will be in a place in one special room.

If you go to there and have a vision, of God, you can say, “I have seen God now. Wonderful! So brilliant! So effulgent! Aaah! Uuuh! Waaa!” then after doing Aaah! Uuuh! What are you going to do? You start looking around. Since there are other people present, you want to find out it there is anybody you know. Have your own dear people made it or not?

Right in front of God you become sad and angry because your ex-neighbor is here. You know all about this person, all the things he did. You did none of that. “He did everything in the book of crime, and still made it to heaven. I don’t know how he got here; perhaps a last minute confession.” You feel sad because, “When I was down below, if I had known that this man would make it to heaven, I could have done a few more things, too.” Like that man who got angry with his wife who was a health-food freak.

No health-food in heaven।

हे राम्