The Brahmalok (MTS-9)

From: Raju Chidambaram
Date: Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:39 pm
Subject: The Brahmalok (MTS-9: Towards A Mathematical Theory of Spirituality Based on Advaita)

Ref Pages 20-24 of Advaita Math Paper

In the last posting, the relation between contraction in experienced time and degree of Self-Knowledge was derived for jeevas of uniform spiritual detachment. In the present posting, the time contraction result is applied to a very special being with a known time contraction rate, namely Brahmaji.

The ancient Hindu scale of time is truly a wonder ranging as it does from milliseconds to trillions of years. The fact that it comes remarkably close to modern concepts of time has not been lost on scientists such as Carl Sagan. (By the way, Prof VK ji’s web site has a very good summary of the Hindu time concept.) What is interesting to note from our point of view is that one Brahma-day is said to equal 4.32 billion human-years or, equivalently, one Brahma-second equals 100,000 human-years. One way to interpret this is to say that what passes as 100,000 years to a jeeva bound to creation appears as a mere second to the Creator. A little calculation shows, as in page 21, that the time compression ratio applicable to Brahma-ji relative to that of a jeeva bound to O-E-T is approximately one-trillionth of 0.317.

A high rate of compression in experienced time, we saw, is associated with high degree of Self Awareness. With experienced time less than trillionth of that of ordinary jeevas, Brahma-ji is nearly completely established in Self. Quantitatively speaking, Brahma-ji’s Relative Awareness differs from 1 (i.e. Perfection) by a very very small number (calculated in the paper as 0.00000000000000000000000005, written also as 0.5 x 10 exp(-25).) The spiritual detachment of Brahmaji is nearly complete; in Fig 6, Brahmaji’s “path” AC practically overlies the vertical axis AF, the angle CAE being nearly 90 degrees.



A natural question to ask at this juncture is why there should be even this tiniest degree of imperfection in Brahma-ji’s state and whether there is any support for it in our scriptures. If I am not mistaken, Brahma-ji comes across in our mythology as somewhat less perfect than, say, Vishnu or Shiva. I have also heard that formal worship of Brahma-ji is seldom practiced anywhere in India, but the reasons behind this injunction are not clear to me.

Here is something else I found today in the wide world of wisdom known by the initials www: “Being instructed by Lord Vishnu he oversees the creation and all diversity throughout the universe. In our universe he has four heads, one in each direction. Brahma has heads in proportion to the size of the universe he occupies. Because there are unlimited universes throughout the creation that means there are unlimited Brahmas as well. In most cases he is a Jeeva soul. The scripture's say: when there are no qualified Jeevas to do the job, Lord Vishnu will do it. By dint of Brahma's self searching consciousness he realized the Supreme Being, his eternal abode and his eternal service. He then recited what was witnessed for all souls to hear. Brahma Samhita”

As a more direct answer to the question, I have also quoted in page 23 of the paper a picturesque analogy given by Swami Chinmayanandaji to illustrate the tiny fraction of distraction caused in the Creator by the affairs of creation. Immeasurably large and unimaginably complex is this cosmos; yet it is taken care of by the Creator using only an infinitesimally small fraction of His attention. This is the insight provided by Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandaji and the result we have from the model only quantifies it.

Our scriptures speak of the Brahmalok, the abode of Brahma, as the penultimate state of perfection. In the “krama-mukthi” scheme of evolution, a jeeva advances by stages spiritually until it attains to the highest of the seven worlds, namely the Brahmalok. The jeeva spends a length of time in this world before attaining full liberation from the samsar. The passage from the Brahmalok to ultimate Realization is instantaneous and occurs by the grace of Ishwara alone.

In Fig 6, the path AC is viewed as the Brahmalok. Having reached it, the next stop for a jeeva is final liberation, namely the vertical axis AF. Therefore, no jeeva, we may assume, is strictly within the very thin wedge between AC and AF. This implies that no jeeva in this creation (with the exception of fully liberated jeevan mukthas) is more spiritually advanced than the Brahma-ji Himself. As mentioned in the paper, this also ensures that no jeeva is ahead of the Creator in terms of experienced time; that is, no jeeva gets to experience an event in creation before Brahma-ji has created it.

There appear to be two different scriptural views regarding Brahma-ji’s role in creation. One view holds that there is a Brahma associated with each of the infinite number of universes, the beginning and end of a universe coinciding with the finite life span of its Brahma, namely 100 Brahma-years. It is as though a special, very highly evolved jeeva is appointed by Ishwara as the Brahma-ji “in charge” of each universe; in this view Ishwara is eternal, but Brahma-ji is not. A second, and more common, view is that Brahma-ji is part of the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva trinity representing Ishwara and as such eternal. Perhaps someone in the Advaitin list can clarify this aspect of our scriptures and possibly even reconcile the two points of view. I have followed the former view, noting that Brahma-ji administers the universe as per Ishwara’s Will alone.

In the next posting, we discuss the role of Ishwara’s Will in creation, controlling everything from the proverbial “Brahma-ji to a blade of grass”.

Hari Om!

- Raju Chidambaram