Death Was Never Born Life Never Died: Reincarnation or Evolution?

By Dwaraknath Reddy

Born in 1924, a post-graduate in Science (L.S.U., USA), Dwaraknath Reddy was thirty five when relentless life raised haunting questions about Creator and created, birth and death. About ultimate meanings and methods that encompass all our lives. He listened, studied, contemplated, and remained alertly concerned. Prosperity, position and prestige came, but there was a soul in search of its beginnings in order to unravel its ends.

He understood that the relative cannot contain the Absolute. The ‘knower’ is not a thing amongst the known. Consciousness is not an effulgence from matter. In the mind and through the mind, must the riddle be solved. This calls for transcendence from objective knowledge to subjective experience.

He came across the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, the great sage of the 20th century, and was flooded with an inner conviction that Ramana was the epitome of all scriptures and proof of their promise of attainable perfection, the abidance in the Absolute.

He therefore lives and strives as a seeker at the sanctified shrine, Sri Ramanashramam, at Tiruvannamalai, South India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dwaraknath Reddy
• Release date: Jun 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9789384363123

Dwaraknath Reddy

Dwaraknath Reddy, a post-graduate in science (L.S.U.; USA), built up a family-owned industry into national eminence and has donated all his wealth to serve the poor multitudes of his countrymen. All his adult life, his was a quest to know the ultimate goal of human existence. His was a soul in search of its beginnings, to enable understanding of its highest ultimate purpose. He saw clearly that the relative cannot contain the Absolute. Objective knowledge can and must end in subjective experience. The teachings of RamanaMaharshi convinced him that Ramana was the epitome of all scriptures, the promise and proof of attainable perfection. Of Ramana’s transcendence into Absolute Consciousness beyond concepts of time, space, and causality, he writes: “Long before Time could write Ramana’s obituary, Ramana wrote Time’s obituary.” Reddy, now 84 years old, is a seeker of Reality and lives at Sri Ramanashram, Tiruvannamalai (South India), which is the sanctified shrine of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

This story that I now tell you, you might have heard before as a one-line witticism, and may be you laughed it away. Yet I proceed to make a narration of it, for, after the frivolous mockery of unconcerned humanity has faded away, the refrain of this tale seems to return upon the tidal wave of a tortured intellect that probes origins and ends, meaning and methods, atoms and galaxies.

And so, on with the story.

The day of the debate of the century has dawned. In the city reputed through the continents for its culture and tradition, where many momentous events in history had taken place, a great hall of majestic splendour has been meticulously prepared to host the venerable teams. A great deal of publicity having preceded the event, the city is agog with excitement and expectation, while the whole world indeed is eagerly awaiting a drama of the utmost intensity.

For, today the most eminent scientists of the world have chosen their team to debate with the most venerated philosophic thinkers of the age the vexatious differences in their perceptions. Today’s debate, it is hoped and believed, will resolve the fundamental problem for ever more, so that relieved mankind may no longer suffer the stress and confusion of conflicting assertions.

As the appointed hour chimes serenely, the scientists occupy one side of the stage, while the philosophers seat themselves on the other.

You and I are amongst the crowd that has come early to secure vantage positions, and soon the hall fills to overcrowding. A hush has descended upon the congregations. It is a pause in the flow of time.

First it is the turn of the scientists whose leader rises briskly in his seat. For a moment his gaze scans the audience, and as he walks with measured steps to the centre, his eyes stay focused upon the opposition. There is a severity upon his face that will brook no denial, and a sternness in his posture. In a voice firm and assertive, full of authority tinged with scorn, he says:

NEVER MIND.

That is all. He says nothing besides. He looks at the leader of the other group in the eye, deliberately, swings around on his heel, and walks towards his seat.

The eerie silence erupts into loud clapping by his teammates. One would have thought an hour’s profound oratory had just ended in a climactic conclusion. You turn to me perplexed and ask: What is happening?. I have to sound wiser than thee, so I tell you: He had no doubt a lot to say, but looking at the opposition he felt they were unworthy of his dissertation and incapable of understanding the subtleties of his discoveries; so he decided he would save his breath. He just told them: Never mind. Keep your misguided thoughts. We can’t help you".

You say: The philosophers must be raging inside. After all, you cannot arrive at this great debate in the moment of truth and literally walk out contemptuously. I say: I agree. We will see the fire-works now.

The leader of the group of philosophers stands up slowly. His colleagues seem hushed and troubled, but he wears a benign smile upon his peaceful countenance. His gentle eyes survey the hall as he takes his position at the rostrum. There is a touch of sadness to the assured voice as he speaks:

NO MATTER.

Hushed silence for an agonized moment, as all wait for what must surely follow. But there is only a slow nod of the head that seems to lay the seal of eternity upon the declaration, as he returns to his group.

Meanwhile pandemonium has broken loose. The peace of the philosopher and the intellect of the scientist lie in shambles. Cries of Victory, Victory and Shame, Shame are shouted and screamed from both sides, while to the thumping of desks rises a crescendo of incessant chants:

NEVER MIND. NO MATTER.

The audience is in total disarray. You ask me slowly; What is it now?. I tell you: The philosopher wanted to give a profound discourse, but sensing the dogma and intolerance of the scientific temper, he decided to keep his dignity intact, and could only say: It does not matter any more. You are not worth arguing with".

You and I turn homeward, disappointed, disillusioned, the chorus ringing in our ears, Never mind… No matter…, signifying the frozen forms of the stated wisdom of scientist and philosophers.

This happened a decade of decades ago. Today I revisited the great hall of learning which now stands isolated in an expanse that the ravages of time have laid desolate. From the eerie spaces within I heard even today the unabated clash of convictions as raised and angry voices kept chanting NEVER MIND …. NO MATTER…. Generations of scientific researchers and philosophic thinkers had succeeded one another, but the din of battle had kept the silent truth at bay.

To the scientist matter alone exists, and all that happened, happens, or can happen, is reducible into terms of matter, which is a self-revealing and self-sufficient truth, and proof that matter-as-matter and matter-as-energy constitute all that is sensed and known. There is nothing besides, and if one talks of mind as an aspect apart, then the answer is: Never, never, can there be such an adjunct. Therefore NEVER (a) MIND.

To the philosopher, knowing is the manifestation of consciousness and all that is stated to exist denotes the knowledge of such existence, which in turn is only moded consciousness. Thus all is consciousness, which in relation to the perceiving individual is called mind. Stated plainly, mind alone is the source and substance of all that is mistakenly distinguished as matter. Be it said with finality NO (any) MATTER.

As I sit upon this rock and gaze upon the distant horizon, the refrain in my ears is the succinct summation of a sage;

"LOOK AT THE MIND AS A FUNCTION OF MATTER, AND YOU HAVE SCIENCE;

LOOK AT MATTER AS THE PRODUCT OF THE MIND, AND YOU HAVE RELIGION".

1

THE DECEPTION OF THE THREE WITCHES OF MACBETH

Double double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Step gingerly, you are in a dark cave and it is the hour when the brinded cat hath mew’d thrice and the hedge-pig has whined once. Round and round a boiling cauldron three witches are stirring the broth, throwing into it in ordered sequence and measured quantity the ingredients of an age old recipe that includes, for good measure, the venomous toad, the fillet of a fenny snake, wool of bat, tongue of dog, adder’s fork and lizard’s leg, scale of dragon and tooth of wolf (and all this before the Chinese restaurant of the five-star hotel had announced its cuisine). I forgot: pour in sow’s blood that hath eaten her nine farrow. The stage is set for mysteries to be unravelled, the past revealed, the future foretold.

Standing there, his face lit by the flickering flame as tongues of fire leap and fall, is Macbeth, a general of the Scottish King, whom the witches address with predictions and promises, caution and courage, clothed in words of dubious purport.

A scary admonition is made: Macbeth, Macbeth, beware Macduff, beware the Thane of Fife. But mercifully, a security net is provided: For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.

Also a guarantee is given: Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him. Like you and me, Macbeth did not read the fine print. He chose to accept the words at their empirical value and paid the price. Too late did be see the hidden turns of an unrelenting destiny that justly betrayed the traitor and threw down the tyrant. Earlier the attacking army of the legitimate king had adopted a military manoeuvre of camouflage behind the chopped boughs of trees, creating a visual impression of the Birnam wood moving towards the Dunsinane fortress. Doubt and disbelief now assail Macbeth.

Macduff faces him with raised sword. Macbeth scoffs at him saying I bear a charmed life, that must not yield to one of woman born, but is told with fatal finality, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.

Macbeth belatedly sees the disaster of conclusions that keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope. And his misguided life ends on that note.

2

THE DECEPTION OF TIME, SPACE AND CAUSATION

Gravity swirl, and atoms whirl,

Nuclei meet with white-hot heat.

This is written with apologies to Shakespeare, and seeking your pardon for any trespass on science or poetry or grammar. But step gingerly again, as we are transposed and are now standing awe-struck in a corner of the unbounded laboratory of cosmology. The primeval Broth is brewing in the Cauldron of Material Manifestation, fired by its inherent energies, and presiding over the function are three witches of gnarled visage, Time, Space and Causation. Holding lightning as ladles in their wizened hands, round and round the cauldron they go, stirring the concoction into which are thrown quarks and mesons, protons and neutrons, photons and gravitons, electrons and neutrinos, particles and antiparticles.

The scientist stands near them peering over the rim of the container. An unequalled academician that he is, in him are combined all the revelations and promptings of chemistry, biology, physics, cosmology and mathematics. He has equipped himself with microscope and telescope, with computer and Geiger-counter. He is peeping into the bubbling, churning, boiling turbulence, replete with fumes of giddy odours, flashing colours of weird brilliance, and vapours of floating mists.

Gazing with strained eyes at the primordial soup in the making, the scientist sees in a half-dazed state, the reflections of the three witches mixing and mingling with all the ingredients and seemingly subject to equal participation in the brew, and in some sequence of befuddled logic, the cook gets integrated with the cooked. Time, space and causation gain an equal reality with manifested matter and its mechanical processes. The real is denied while the reflection is declared independent.

Sourceless voices speak to the scientist;: "Doctor, doctor, beware the thought of God. It is an empty word of seers who have not seen (you have seen more).

A security net is provided: For nothing not born of matter shall disprove the scientist’s doctrine.

A guarantee is given: As one cannot step over the horizon, so too one cannot have knowledge beyond science. All that can be known will be known through matter. And that will be all that need be known.

The scientist is reassured. This is the voice of reason, the authority of time, the confirmation of experience. What else can make sense?

The story has a foot-note. When the doctor peeped over the rim of the cauldron and discerned inside it the reflected presence of Time, Space and Causation, he failed to recognize that his own reflection was equally there, being churned up in the contents, whose fate would perforce be his too. Whatever reality was gained by Time-Space-Causation by their seeming merger with the essence of brewing matter, would be the extent to which his reflected selfhood could partake of the understanding of reality. But the doctor missed this in-built factor of limitation. Had he observed it then, surely he would have asked himself: Am I in a soup too?.

All that follows in this discourse is intended to ask and answer that same question, after arriving at the distinction between the I-ness of Absolute Consciousness and the relative or reflected I-sense of participatory consciousness.

3

CHEMISTRY IS NOT THE CHEMIST

Iassert I am a conscious being. BEING denotes the simple fact of a presence, an existence. CONSCIOUS reveals a self-awareness of existence. By virtue of this faculty, or capability, I am aware of your existence too. Since I have subjective experience of being conscious, and am able to operate with that energy, I have an instinct that you are, like me, conscious. The same instinct asserts to me that the bench we are sitting upon is not conscious. It is insentient. The bench is not aware of its existence, nor of our ample weight upon it.

Do not ask me: How do you know? The bench did not tell you. It cannot SPEAK. But who are you to say it cannot ‘FEEL’?. That would be mere verbosity on our part, talking just to listen to the sound of our own voices.

We need words to communicate, to transact in knowledge. Societies adopt sound-symbols as language and it is assumed that words convey a predictable pre-determined sense shared by speaker and listener. You and I are now earnestly engaged in resolving the true nature of what we are calling consciousness. What the word denotes could not possibly be conveyed to someone (or something) that did not already possess it subjectively. Objective description cannot structure it as an idea to be newly acquired by the listener. Let us look at the word through the FEELING and not through the MEANING. Agreed?.

And now I am asking you: Can this consciousness be a product of matter?.

The human body is a conglomerate of flesh, blood, bone and hair. We may identify the components as brain, heart, lungs, kidneys and intestines; also as veins, arteries and nerves. They are all distinct and different, but they share a common truth: they are all matter that can be reduced to carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, calcium, phosphorous, sodium and other elements. None of these elements can be said to be anything but insentient, inert, lifeless. We are looking at the assemblage of these inert chemicals into a living human being, and posing to ourselves the question: By the particular manner in which these chemicals have become molecules and come together in a certain arrangement, are we saying that the total mass of inert material has acquired the capability of producing, from within its confines, that which you and I are able to experience in ourselves as consciousness; the feel of life, the proof of being alive – the perceiving, feeling and thinking faculty?

A body is only a product of food. The embryo grows on the nourishment it receives from the food consumed by the parent, the child from the food it itself takes. Food, or the extract of food (which means the same) is the visible human being. Food is not a living thing, is it, though we say food sustains life? How then does food develop the capability to generate in my body-mass consciousness?

If the body is the laboratory in which consciousness is an effervescing reaction, who is the chemist that is recording it? Is it the laboratory? Is the feel of it in the test-tube and retort, or is it in the observer of the phenomenon? Or do we mean one and the same thing when we use the words chemistry and chemist?

4

CHANCE OR PURPOSE?

Darwin is quoted as having said: I have nothing to do with the origin of the mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself. Thank you, Darwin, for this honest and unambiguous declaration, defining the scope and substance of the studies you engaged in, sitting in the watch-tower of Time and witnessing from the privileged perch the panoramic processes of historical evolution of forms in creation. Your successors have agreed or disagreed, have elaborated or altered, but have stayed within the same circle. If there were errors, they could have been only those of observation, codification, or rationalization – they could not be of trespass.

But this totally permissible, and indeed admirable excursion in the realm of material inquiry and conclusions, raised the cockles of self-righteous men who not only believed they knew all about the origin of life and its expression as mind, but were also alarmed that your heretic onslaught on their cozy convictions might derail sanity and sanctity. You have to forgive them their trespass.

Your focus was on how the primal demands of a living entity, the needs for existence, the crafts for survival, the compulsions of homely or hostile environments – how all these congealed as the causal factor for purposeful change in form, faculty, facility and felicity. And how a life-time of living with the world while living for oneself, left its impress upon the physical structure and its supportive chemistry. And how the natural processes of transmission of form through reproduction, were equally naturally the transmitters of the progressive mutations. From your watch-tower you viewed the unrolled expanse of Time and saw the imperceptible alterations gradually become quite perceptible, and over wider intervals, even unrecognizable. Chance needed endless time and Time was willing to offer unending chances. If gusts of wind can reduce mountains to deserts and dry up oceans, what must be the prowess of an eternity of Time playing with an infinity of Chances?

But to what purpose? Time does not know. It cannot.

But you and I – do we know? At least, CAN we know?

Or is the question inadmissible? Is the question turned back upon us asking: Why should there be a purpose? How can there be a purpose?

These are no longer questions being posed to Time or to Chance. They are personalized. They are from me and the answer should dwell in me. I am ALIVE, I am experiencing, I am not content to remain a CHANCE, I need to be a PURPOSE.

Someone out there is saying: By chance you began (birth) and by chance you will cease (death). In between is your chance to be what you chance to be.

Let him come in.

There are two of them, holding hands. What we heard was the chorus of two voices, one of the Physicist, the other of the Chemist. Between them they honestly believe they have all the answers to all questions relating to creation. Creation means the totality of the universe of matter shaped into shifting phenomena by action of energy, perceived