Posted on: 01 Jul 2017
Shri Nikhil asked: Padanamaskarams Swamiji,
I would like to bring the following questions from the perspective of atheists who feel that theism and religions are mere human inventions that are based on the misunderstanding that extraterrestrial aliens, who have been visiting Earth since ancient times, are gods.
I seek Your clarifications on the same.
At Your Divine Feet, Nikhil
1) Why are intelligent life forms on other planets not possible?
[You have said that souls are present in material bodies only on Earth and that in all other worlds (lokas), souls are present in energetic bodies. Souls in energetic bodies, according to You, are undetectable by us, based on our current scientific understanding. So those energetic beings, even though they are ‘living beings’ are not relevant to us at least for now. But it seems very odd that no living forms (souls in material bodies), belonging to any species—from microbes to human-like beings—can exist outside of Earth. According to many scientists, it seems to be highly probable that intelligent life forms (in material bodies) exist on other planets within our galaxy, not to mention other galaxies. While we do not have hard evidence yet, it seems to be highly probable. Of course, not all stars can have Earth-like planets, with conditions suitable for life as we know it. The appropriate elemental composition, the presence of liquid water, the right amount of gravity and the presence of a planetary magnetosphere are some of the essential conditions for a planet to be able to support life that is similar to life on Earth.
Astronomers have identified billions of stars in our galaxy (Milky Way) that are similar to our sun. They estimate that many such stars would have Earth-like planets, with conditions suitable for the development of life. It seems odd and arbitrary to say that among all those numerous planets, only Earth has developed intelligent life forms, and that not a single other planet has the same.Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain, why we do not have any evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life forms, or why we have not been able to make any contact with them sofar. Some think that they might exist but they are simply too far apart in space and time and so there has been no contact sofar. Besides, humans have started space exploration only in the past few hundred years, which is a very short time. Eventually, we would make contact with them. Others think that perhaps extraterrestrial civilizations are sending some signals to us, but we do not have the technology to decode them yet.
Some have proposed that certain extraterrestrial civilizations that are far more advanced than us, are secretly watching the development of life on Earth, without interfering,as if it were a zoo. The reports about UFOs and kidnapping of humans by aliens might be related to this hypothesis. There are people who even claim that they were kidnapped by aliens, taken in their flying ships and were subjected to medical and even reproductive experimentation. None of these reports are accepted by the mainstream scientific community. But if they were true, such incidents would not only prove the existence of extra-terrestrial civilizations, but also that they are directly or indirectly controlling the development of life and human civilization on Earth.]
Swami replied: Living beings in materialized bodies do not exist in the upper worlds or planets or galaxies. Except this one earth, all other planets contain living beings in energetic bodies called as Deva, Gandharva, Siddha, Chaarana, Asura, Naaga etc., who can’t be visualized by human beings unless blessed by the grace of God. The main reason for this is that God gets unimaginable and infinite headache with this humanity present on this single earth! You are speaking of a second earth! The materialized human being or any other materialized living being contains matter or Tamas in the body. Awareness is Sattvam and inert energy is Rajas. It is very easy to handle Sattvam, which is always straight forward. But, unfortunately, Sattvam can’t exist independently without a body or container. For Sattvam or awareness, the container made of Rajas (inert energy) or Tamas (matter) is essentially needed. Of course, in the materialized living beings, along with Tamas, Rajas also exists, which is either in free state or in the state of bonds between atoms and molecules. The Sattvam or awareness is certainly influenced by Rajas and Tamas. Sattvam stands for pure enlightened analytical knowledge (Sattvaat sanjayate jnaanam). Rajas stands for activity (Rajah karmani) and ego. Tamas stands for inertia and ignorance. We can tackle either pure ego or pure ignorance with some difficulty. If ego and ignorance are mixed together, handling such a living being is most difficult and almost impossible. Even in energetic living beings, the inertia of inert energy (rest mass) exists in trace and hence, rajas and tamas always co-exist with sattvam. One of these qualities may predominate. The energetic living being may appear to us or even may materialize its body if God’s will permits. If Rajas alone exists in the body as in the case of living beings in the upper worlds, mistakes happening are rare. A scholar knows the truth perfectly and even if the scholar is affected by ego, introduction of higher knowledge is sufficient, which is reminding the missing truth only. Immediately, the rectification comes since it is only reminding the truth that is forgotten. This is the state of all living beings in energetic bodies in the upper worlds. Even angels are affected by ego after conquering the demons in the war. They thought that the victory was due to their powers. They forgot God, who has given all the powers to them. Then God appeared in the form of a radiant energy (Yaksha) and taught them a lesson. Indra was even refused by God for the vision also. Then, Uma, the closest devotee of God, advised him to do penance for very long time. Penance means the enquiry of truth through sharp analytical debates. The ego of Indra was highest in the angels since Indra is the Lord of angels. This story exists in the Veda. Thus, the effect of Rajas on true knowledge is weak and can be removed by analytical knowledge. In the case of materialized human beings, lot of Tamas (matter) exists in the bodies causing very strong ignorance. Tamas generates jealousy. Even if the miracles are performed by human incarnation, the human beings do not realize God in reality. Either they try to exploit the miraculous powers for the solutions of their personal problems or try to achieve those powers so that they can also become human incarnations and this is due to jealousy as in case of demonic human beings. The actual direction of a miracle is to note the existence of unimaginable event through which the source of unimaginable events or unimaginable God is inferred. It becomes very difficult to treat a devotee suffering with both ego and jealousy, just like it is very difficult for a doctor to treat a patient suffering from blood pressure and diabetes together. These human beings question the existence of God being invisible since they believe in perception (Pratyaksham) only as the authority of knowledge. God appears in human form and performs miracles, which are clearly visible and experienced by suffering devotees. They mock all these miracles as either magic or apply these miracles to the concept of probability. Hence, the human being is the most complicated living being that brings progressing headache to God continuously. When the headache reaches the climax, God destroys the entire humanity for some time and takes rest, which is called as final dissolution (Mahapralaya) that takes place in the end of Kaliyuga. As we proceed from Kritayuga to Tretayuga to Dwaparayuga and finally to Kaliyuga, the duration of the yuga goes on decreasing from 32 to 16 to 8 and finally to 4 lakhs of years. As the time proceeds, the disturbance also increases and hence the interim dissolutions of humanity become more and more fast! Kritayuga with least ignorance and ego is maintained for a long time. Kaliyuga with climax of ego and ignorance is maintained for a short time only.
The presence of circumstances to develop life and intelligence depends on the will of God and not on the physical factors. The fire can burn anything, but, it could not burn even a dry blade of grass thrown by the above mentioned Yaksha or God! Hence, investigating the physical parameters, which are congenial for the development of life on any planet, is meaningless provided the scientists accept the unimaginable God by observing the genuine miracles. Science is good because it accepts its inability to calculate the position and momentum of electron simultaneously through the uncertainty principle. This means that the human being even though aided by sophisticated technologies is unable to grasp the subtle concept, which is beyond the scope of human being and technology. Science accepts its limits and also the existence of the concept beyond its limits. Science does not say that the position and momentum of an electron do not exist simultaneously since it can’t calculate both together! In this same place, the worst atheist says that since both these can’t be calculated together by him, both these do not exist simultaneously!! One day, these crude scientific instruments may develop to calculate both these values simultaneously, but the unimaginable God can never be touched. One day you may succeed to touch the roof of your house by long practice of high jump, but you can never touch the sky with your high jump. If this is the case even with the created physical entities, we need not speak about the creator, unimaginable God, who is beyond this space, having no spatial dimensions! As long as the human being does not recognize the limits of the potency of human intelligence, it will go on speaking about the probability of existence of life in the existence of certain elements and compounds needed for the life. The existence of living beings from other planets capturing some human beings must be referred to the investigation wing of police department for tracing such missing human beings! Did you not notice some criminal cases in which the criminals kill some human beings propagating that a ghost is killing them? Some people say that the flying saucer stopped all watchers in London indicating their technology beyond time! I asked a simple question that whether the sunset on that day was also postponed!!
2) Are the reports of gods, angels and demons since ancient times simply extra-terrestrial alien civilizations interacting with humanity?
[In the scriptures, and mythology of ancient civilizations all over the world, including the Indian, Egyptian, Greek, South American, there are numerous mentions of gods and demons. These beings are said to come from the sky in their flying machines (vimanas), which might be aircrafts or spacecrafts. They are said to bear miraculous weapons. Some of these beings are said to be good (devas) and some are said to be bad (asuras) and both are said to be more powerful than human beings. There is evidence that both might have material bodies, since there are mentions of the gods or demons eating and drinking. There are mentions of they having sexual relations with humans and having produced children. This also suggests that they might be genetically similar to humans, otherwise they would probably not be able to produce offspring.]
Swami replied: All this is false mystic concept, which is neither pure science based on clear physical evidence, nor on the philosophy or spiritual knowledge based on God, who is unimaginable being beyond space. These false stories neither stand on that bank nor on this bank, which are solidly true. These stories flow like the water present in between these two banks and are not accepted either by science or by philosophy. This is generated by the intermediate atheists, who are neither perfect scientists nor perfect philosophers. The motive behind this poetical gossip is a trial to bring the unimaginable domain into imaginable domain. All the angels or other similar living beings of upper worlds are souls with energetic bodies of variable frequencies responsible for appearance and disappearance, provided they come into the ranges of visible and invisible frequencies. In the absence of God’s grace, such energetic living beings are always in the invisible range of frequency only (invisible even through any technology). These atheists have created such stories with a primary motive of avoiding the unimaginable domain of unimaginable God. These atheists try to conquer the lowest portion of unimaginable domain, in which the angels etc., exist. By this, their motive is to disprove even the higher portion of unimaginable domain. If they conquer the initial plane of unimaginable domain (angels etc.,), they feel that they can slowly disprove the higher plane (unimaginable God) of the unimaginable domain also. Science never entertains such false gossips unless there is concrete evidence. A genuine miracle is a concrete evidence of the existence of unimaginable God, which is the real hurdle that can’t be swallowed by them!
There can’t be a physical union of an angel and a materialized human being. The angel is always an energetic living being associated with some unimaginable powers granted by God. This unimaginable power associated with a ray of inert energy enters the human being and fertilization of ovum happens by that ray of energy due to unimaginable power. These atheists filter the unimaginable power from the ray and try to create a sperm due to the condensation of the energy of that ray! These atheists are trying to explain everything through imaginable domain only, totally rejecting the unimaginable domain! They never accept the existence of unimaginable domain even on observing a clear genuine miracle. Their aim is that nothing can exist, which is not understood by their human brain! I do not know what these people comment on the uncertainty principle of science, which can be easily applied to the concept of unimaginable God also in a similar way!
3) If the so-called gods and angels are merely extraterrestrial aliens of advanced civilizations, does it not shake the foundation of theistic philosophies?
[Many atheists feel that theism and religions are human inventions that are based on the misunderstanding that extraterrestrial aliens, who have been visiting Earth since ancient times, are gods. So, if the misunderstanding is cleared now and we realize that the so-called gods were simply aliens, then theism would simply crumble. Let’s see this perspective in more detail. The Ṛg Veda mostly describes such gods, Agni, Indra, Varuṇa, Puṣan, the Aśvins, etc. When these so-called gods (extra-terrestrial aliens) helped the ignorant and gullible people in ancient times, they began to worship the aliens. Since the aliens possessed advanced technologies, people thought that they had miraculous powers. One can imagine that if a few modern people went to an isolated island inhabited by barbaric tribes, who have never had any contact with our modern civilization, they would also be worshipped as gods.
The ‘gods’ taught the uncivilized people valuable things necessary to progress as a civilization including technologies, economics, politics, law and ethics. Some wise people perhaps developed some philosophies based on the teachings of the gods. Later, other philosophers might have built their own philosophies on this. But all through the progress of human civilization, the gods, who helped humanity, were not actually gods. There was nothing divine about them at all. They were just ‘people’ like the people on Earth. They certainly had advanced technologies. They were probably more cultured and perhaps even genetically superior to humans, but there was nothing divine in them. Some even suggest that humanity is a vast breeding and colonization experiment conducted by these aliens. We are descendants of some early aliens who landed on this planet and since then we have grown to a huge population. That is why we are genetically similar to the original aliens and periodically, some humans and could produce children through sexual contactwith the original aliens. There is some evidence in scriptures that supports this idea that the descendants of the gods (prajapatis) were given the task of breeding and colonizing Earth.
In any case, the aliens or gods, were fallible and imperfect just like humans. Scriptures and mythologies describe several incidents where the gods showed all kinds of ‘human’ defects like greed, lust and so on. When their defects became too obvious to people, there might have been a risk of the collapse of human civilization, which was based on the faith in the divinity of these gods. Instead of allowing human civilization to degenerate into a barbaric society, some intelligent philosophers might have invented the concept of a ‘higher authority’—a single all-powerful God, who controls even the gods, along with humans and all other creatures. In fact, in ancient times, there was no concept of a single universal, omniscient and omnipotent God. People only worshipped these individual gods. The single omnipotent God is a fairly recent invention; and it is only a human invention. Whether there is any truth in the concept, is difficult or perhaps impossible to know. At least, there does not seem to be any direct evidence that is acceptable to a person with a scientific mind.
Even in Hinduism, the concept of a single omniscient God, appears only in the later philosophies; not so much in the Ṛg Veda, which is supposed to be the most ancient. The modern theistic philosophies such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam etc. have adopted this concept of a single omnipotent God, who is the creator and controller of the universe. However, the concept is still only a human invention based in ancient history, when aliens, who came from the sky, were misunderstood to be gods. Even today, when one refers to God, no matter which religion the person belongs to, he looks up at the sky! Thus, if and when we actually make contact with aliens in a reliable manner, will it not be the end of theism and religions as we know them?]
Swami replied: If our ancient generations were preached about the super technologies, there should have been already a civilization involving these super technologies in the old times. But, the history shows that technology was very primitive in the old generations compared to the super technology that has tremendously developed just in a short past period of a few hundred years only. There might have been super technology in the ancient time, but it missed completely after some span of time and the intensive research of scientists only developed present super technology. The history shows that scientists based on intensive research work developed these super technologies. The imaginable domain contains visible and invisible parts. The invention of invisible part of imaginable domain does not mean invention of even a trace of unimaginable domain. Invention of invisible X-rays is not invention of unimaginable God. The imaginable domain contains both visible and invisible parts (Drushyaadrushyaavibhuti…). You can see radiations of invisible range through instruments and hence this invisible range does not touch even the initial part of unimaginable domain. The inability of a human being to see the angel does not lie in the invisible range of imaginable domain. If the bodies of angels are in the invisible range of imaginable domain, you could have seen the angels through a powerful telescope. Even though the bodies of angels are in the visible range of light energy, the will of God, which is unimaginable power prevents you to see the angels not only with eyes but also even through powerful telescopes. The energetic vision (cosmic vision) shown by Krishna in the beginning of the war was seen by Arjuna only and not by others due to will of God. This is the climax of unimaginable power. All these questions relate to one fundamental point only, which is the acceptance of unimaginable domain or not. All these gossip stories are extensions of the fundamental concept that unimaginable domain does not exist as per atheist. We don’t mind to accept that the present super technologies were also in the past, which were lost by us in course of time since such acceptance does not contradict the existence of unimaginable domain. When Krishna visited the city of demon Naraka, He might have come in the present airplane. This may mean that the technology was already developed by ancient scientists themselves and there is no need of learning that technology from aliens. But when Krishna went to heaven, He must have visited it by airplane moving with unimaginable power since the airplane crossed the unimaginable barrier to enter the actual heaven. This is neither history nor chemistry, but, is a mystery of atheists. This does not contain the fundamental scientific background, which is the necessity of the proof of concrete physical evidence. This is simply based on the excess of jealousy of atheistic human beings. When the jealousy is in least extent, the contemporary human incarnation doing miracles is not accepted even though the miracles of past human incarnations and the power of unimaginable God are accepted. If the jealousy is in greater extent than least, the concept of human incarnation itself (past and contemporary) is rejected and only the unimaginable domain of unimaginable God is accepted. When the jealousy is in climax, even the unimaginable domain of unimaginable God is rejected, which is called as atheism. Duryodhana could not accept the miracles of Krishna, the contemporary human incarnation. He was telling that Krishna lifted a small stone of the hill and exaggerated the stone as a hill. Duryodhana described that the powerful serpent called as Kaliya was only the weakest old snake that was suppressed! Even sages, who conquered ego and surrendered to God failed to conquer jealousy and fought with each other in debates. Hence, jealousy is the most powerful effect of Tamas or ignorance. The jealousy is kept in the top end place among the six vices. Science keeps silent about God since we do not find any chapter on negation of God in any book of science. Science accepts its inability to explain the unimaginable domain of a genuine miracle and keeps silent whereas atheism speaks only on the negation of God even by rejecting a genuine miracle!
A true philosopher accepts the unimaginable domain of unimaginable God based on scripture and genuine miracles observed. The philosopher accepts simultaneously imaginable domain also in which the analysis of science is ultimate. The imaginable domain or creation is equally real to the souls and can’t be neglected. A true scientist accepts the imaginable domain and keeps silent about unimaginable domain indicating that it can’t be understood. In fact, the scriptures also say that the best expression of unimaginable domain is silence (Mauanam vyaakhyaa…). Hence, there is no difference at all between philosophy (spiritual knowledge) and science. The atheist negates the very existence of unimaginable domain since it can’t be understood. The basic alien is non-existent and all the further gossip created is also non-existent. There is a Sanskrit verse, which says that the son of a barren lady is walking with a bow made of horn of a rabbit after taking bath in mirage water and decorated with sky flowers (Mrugatrushnaambhasi snaatah…). Here, the son of barren lady himself is basically non-existent. The other related items in the story like mirage water, horn of rabbit and sky flower are also non-existent!
To be continued …