In 1974, Shri Nathji had written in his book: “The Secret of Death” in the Chapter on Creation:
“Did some Intelligent Force create dead matter, or did dead matter create an Intelligent Force? Was the Universe created in the single thought of some Beginningless Divine Being or was it an outcome of an explosion of matter and energy, which ultimately assumed the shape we see today?
Of these two views, the first seems more plausible. This is so, because it appears that any Creative Force must be endowed with creative knowledge. And the presence of knowledge implies consciousness. Without creative knowledge, the Universe would have been irregular and purposeless.
“There is a chair before you. The formation and structure of the chair make it clear that it has been designed for some purpose, which existed in the mind of the creative force which produced it. And the purpose of the chair is to allow people to sit upon it, and to give them rest.
“The chair and its formation are lifeless. The chair does not exist on the basis of its own knowledge about itself. It is totally unaware of its own existence. And this must be so, for the awareness of existence can only dawn upon a thing when it is endowed with knowledge about itself.
“The difference between a living body and a dead body is that the living body is aware of itself, while the dead body is not aware of itself. And whilst the body is living, it knows about itself and uses its living instruments effectively.
This shows very clearly that life can guide matter, but matter cannot guide itself.
If, that, which existed before Creation, was lifeless, then how could the faculty for creating have arisen in it? And if there was a sudden explosion in the beginning, that explosion must have been at some particular time. Why was there no explosion before that time, and no explosion after it? What is the answer to this question? How did things come to have the shape they have today because of that explosion? Why did not things take a different shape? Why did not the chain of events proceed differently?
“The laws of the Universe follow a definite regularity; for every effect there is a cause in the world around us.
“For the eyes there is light; for the ears there is sound; for the tongue there is taste; for the nose there are things to smell; for the sense of touch there are things to touch–there is coarseness and softness, heat and cold; for hunger there is food; for thirst there is water; for the brain there are things to ponder upon; the sun rises and sets on time, allowing man time for activity and rest.
“For the toothless child there is the milk of the mother, and with the coming of the child’s teeth, the mother’s milk dries up.
“There is the instinctive love of the mother which sustains the child. There is an instinct of self-preservation in all living things; there is a natural hatred for sorrow and a natural love for joy; there is a fear of Death and a desire for life–and that, too, for a life which does not end; a desire for a happiness which is everlasting; a quest for that knowledge which reveals all the mysteries of the Universe.
There is some PURPOSE in this scheme of things. This scheme indicates that all that has come into being is correctly placed and formed. And CONSCIOUSNESS has been provided to understand that which has been created, to visualise the portrait of the Universe. It is that very consciousness which admires the beauty of the flower and fears the ugliness of the thorn. If there were no consciousness, no life, then there would have been no awareness at all of all that existed and all that exists.
Consider for a moment this vast Universe around us. There are millions of stars and galaxies. What are they to themselves? They are not aware of their own existence. They are not aware of the existence of anything else either. If seen from their own frames of reference, they do not even exist, in terms of the consciousness of such an existence. And then again, there are millions and millions of worlds in the Universe of which Science has no knowledge as yet. What are these to themselves? They have no consciousness of their own existence either. Why do they exist? Or do they exist at all? Who can tell?
All this goes to show that we are surrounded by an Infinite Universe which has no consciousness of its own existence. Its existence–or non-existence–is established only in those regions where there is consciousness or life. The ultimate in existence appears to be Human Life, which appears in an incomplete form in the world, and seeks to reach completion.
When the eyes of man open to the vast Universe around him, they see a multitude of questions appearing before them:
(1) What is that, which exists?
(2) From where did it come?
(3) And what is the meaning of it all?
These questions exhibit ignorance, and seek knowledge. There is a mixture of Ignorance and Knowledge. Consciousness appears as the final stage of matter. It proves the existence of matter, and seeks an understanding of its mysteries.
If this tiny spark of consciousness did not exist, in what, indeed, would the Universe exist? In what would the stars and the moons exist? In what would the rivers and the oceans exist?
What is this Universe? From where did it come? Who created it? How was it created? Who would ask all these questions if there were not this tiny spark of consciousness? There would be no questions, and no answer. There would be no existence and no non-existence.
“This tiny spark of consciousness–this is everything. It is priceless. It is immortal. It appears mortal only when attached to the frame of the body. Death is not the annihilation of life; it is the existence of life in a state of silence, in quiescence.
We note that a circle ends only where it begins. The last stage of a seed is identical to its first stage.
“In a like manner, if the final stage of evolution has brought forth consciousness, then its initial stage must have had consciousness. It was not a sudden explosion, but rather a well-planned design, which could have been produced only by consciousness.