Life, what is it? Krishna defines for scientists
By Vivek Sharma
Krishna says ‘I am life in everything created—matter and spirit. But, we have been assigning life to self-defined categories of living things and strongly dissociating it from the ‘non-living.’
This has just been a product of nonsensical inbuilt mindset. We were so convinced with this mindset that we even scientifically believed for ages that anything that is cellular is life and the sun which energises everything, every life system on the earth and maybe on other planets too, is non-living!
The sun exists, but the Cause that created the sun doesn’t exist. Man is intelligent and animals aren’t, though they show signs of intuition. Yet, we have been holding it for ages that the entire universe has been created randomly by Big Bang—an unintelligent, unplanned divison. Come on! Dear scientists! It is time we aligned our researches along logical lines of the past wisdom. We shouldn’t waste time in needless logic harvesting and getting grainless nothing in return. The hunt for God particle is one such endeavour. God has no particle, the old wisdom says, irrespective of geographical origins that God is One. What is One cannot have a particle. Isn’t it? Then why the hunt? Find God instead! Krishna said over 5000 years ago that everything that has been created has life, irrespective of its state. Good thing is that some kind of awakening is taking place among scientists of late who are now realising that their definition of cellular model of life is just not enough to qualify the latest discoveries which transcend the purview and perspective of hitherto held definition of life.
What scientists view now
Scientists the world over are finding that the difference between the non-living and the living is thinning down with newer discoveries.
They sincerely feel there is a necessity to re-define it under the light of fresh events which take it beyond the very purview of cell and its metabolism. The discovery of the virus as the link between the living and the non-living had given scientists headache for years till they discovered another pre-link to life, which is more like a chemical bond celled up in a circle. They called it extremophile. It has numerous hairlike appendages which radiate from the surface of this ultra-small cell. NASA scientists say that these extremophiles can survive in extreme conditions through the secretion of enzymes (chemicals). They may not require oxygen which is the basic necessity for life as we had so far understood.
In the early 1990s, an advisory panel to NASA's astrobiology programme, which included biochemist Gerald Joyce, came up with a working definition: Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. Philosopher Marianne Schark points out that the specific aspect of living beings is that they can only persist through constant change of material. They are ‘objects in flux', which constantly exchange matter with their environment and thereby modify their composition. Nonetheless, they have a clear and stable boundary and the material is incorporated systematically into an organized body.
What Krishna Says
Krishna is the answer to scientists’ puzzle about life. Will they understand the principle from Him or go a whole hog of shocks, surprises and discoveries making them re-define life?
He refers to Himself in Discourse 7 as “जीवनं सर्वभूतेषु”—I am life in whatever is created. It simply means He doesn’t include separations as living and non-living in His definition of life. Life is a common principle among all that is created in the universe. Now who is He? He is what He qualifies in the same shloka. He says, I am what makes you smell, touch, see forms and hear sound on the earth.
पुण्यो गन्धः पृथिव्यां च तेजश्चास्मि विभावसौ। जीवनं सर्वभूतेषु तपश्चास्मि तपस्विषु।।
पुण्यो गन्धः पृथिव्यां = I am the purifying गन्धः in the earth. We will have to understand what Gandh really means. गम् + ध: that means rotation of the earth around its centre or the axis of gravitation. I am that movement of the earth stopping which will stop life. That is why He says I am that movement. Gandh also means fragrance. Well fragrance also means what गम् + ध: means. Fragrance needs to have a centre or source from which it radiates, permeating the air, water and space medium. Therefore, basically it means the vibratory movement around the centre. The life of earth is nothing but its movement around its centre. There is a centre and there is a movement. Now let’s analyse the next phrase He defines Himself as. तेजश्चास्मि विभावसौ. That means I and the heat and light in the fire. Heat and light radiate off the centre, that is fire. Remove heat and light and the fire will be dead. Again there is a centre and the circle or sphere around it. Let us analyse the last phrase तपश्चास्मि तपस्विषु.
It means I am the radiations of heat and light in the sun-like beings. Remove these and the sun will die.
We will have to understand the entire shloka fully to reach the definition of life.
He starts with the earth, fire, beings and then radiation of cosmic stars. He is talking about the hidden continuity which excludes the difference between the material or the non-material creations. The earth moves around its axis and the sun. This meaningful movement is life. Why it is called life? Because, this sustains the metabolism of the earth. The various seasons are its various metabolic activities. All these activities are inter-dependent. Without which there won’t be earth as such and hence no life. Everything that we are analysing now is nothing but a product of the earth. All that has been created here has been created by the life-giving movement of the earth—on its own axis and around the sun. The earth itself has thermal power, called vibha at the centre, which is radiating variously through whatever is there on it. That is why even the stone, gold, diamond all carry a particularised or personalised form of that vibha called teja, which sustains it. Tejah comes from the Sanskrit word तिज, to give personalised manifestation of that energy. In the sword, this tejah is its sharpness. In the diamond, its brilliant luster and in the gold, its golden lustre, in the coal, its black lustre. All the colours that you can see can be categorised as personalised brilliance or tejah. The same personalised brilliance in all the being is called जीवन.
Therefore, we need to understand that Darwanian concept of evolution is from matter to spirit and then beyond. Intelligent Energy has created everything. It is in everything and hence the chemicals and matter that we find have energy. This energy is pulsating equally in them as it is in our hearts. This vibrational uniformity is called life. It is called जीवन, as the Sanskrit word means one producing another. This sequential evolutionary course is called life. Haven’t you heard old mythical stories where in a curse is turning a person into a stone? This may sound foolish in a way. But, it does indicate a process and possibility of revers conversion of energy ! Isn’t it? The same ladder that takes you to the rooftop also takes you down! Think!