Yes indeed, Life is Complicated. The complexities of Life involve exploring the phenomenon of Life in which the events called Birth and Death occur during the Cyclical Flow of Time and Life whereas in reality Time moves forwards in a Straight Line like an Arrow. The Study of Life must include the concepts of Past Birth, Present Birth and Rebirth.
Understanding Time and the Concept of Unchanging Reality:
The word ‘Concept’ describes a thought or an idea about a thing or event. Man exists on the surface of planet Earth and formulates his ideas or concepts about the reality of his existence and the reality of the world in which he exists. These mental concepts will not be possible unless the reality of the world is modified by other forces on which man has no control or power. Even if man knows that the Sun does not rise in the East, and the Sun does not set in the West, his mortal existence is governed by this singular event.
I use the term ‘WholeConcept’ to describe the relationship between man, world, Time, and Space that is established by an Unchanging Reality which is unaffected by the dimensions of Time and Space.
Time is defined as the period or interval between two events or during which something exists, happens, or acts; the duration is a measurable interval. Indian thinkers have described ‘Time’ or ‘Kala’ as a Power or a Force that is eternal suggesting that ‘Time’ existed before the formation of this created universe, Time operates during the existence of this created universe, and Time remains after the total dissolution of this created universe.
‘Things in Nature change with Time’. Does Time exert a force entirely of its own to change things in Nature? If Time is viewed as a Power or Force, who controls this Force and what are the Laws that operate this Force?
The Living Systems display a timing capacity and behave as if they contain a highly dependable clock. The specialized properties of this clock suggest that it involves some unique biological mechanism indissociable from life itself. The ‘immutability’ of Soul or Spirit can be observed as its operations are not influenced by time or external geophysical correlates.
Everything that is born, everything that has come into existence, and everything that is conditioned arrives with its own plan for dissolution. Whosoever had arrived on this planet Earth, is sure to depart. Time operates this plan for dissolution. Time has the power to cause dissolution of the animate as well as the inanimate world and the physical universe.
Whatever qualities, or attributes such as material wealth, social status, social position, and physical state of well-being that man cherishes and desires most would be dissolved and would be rendered useless by the effects of Time. Humans lack the material, and the biological abilities to transform their physical beings into sources of perpetual enjoyment.
Time with its Power of Dissolution would eventually compel us to investigate and to explore the concept of Absolute and Unchanging Reality. This Subjective Reality of Man’s existence on this planet Earth which is a member of the Solar System would be dissolved by the influence of Time. The dissolution of Sun and the Solar System would not result in the dissolution of this universe that we currently know and understand. When man has been dissolved, the conditioned reality of this physical universe will continue and remains as before as earth and sun do not describe the total reality of this conditioned universe.
The Perception of Change and Human concepts about Time:
Many of you who learned Physics understand the term Speed and Velocity. A person riding in a train or any other moving object could perceive a change that is caused by the motion. The nature of this perception depends on the Speed or Velocity of that moving object. If the person jumps out of the train, the change that he has been perceiving immediately stops. There would be no changing landscape. If the speed of the train is increased, the perception of change also alters and at very high speeds man actually loses the ability of visual perception. The visual image becomes a blur. If man is viewing a Motion Picture, his visual ability to view the Picture could be destroyed by simply increasing the speed of the Projector. Any given point on the surface of the Earth moves with the Speed of the Earth. Earth is moving at a great speed and man has no ability to perceive this motion or the speed. Man perceives a change in his environment and calls it day and night. We run our lives by numbers on clocks and calendars. The clocks and calendars create the illusion that we live in a world of mathematically measured segments of time.
The Flow of Time is measured as the duration or the interval between two events; Time exists for man and other living organisms as the measure of the period of duration from Sunrise to Sunset that causes an environmental change; the alternating periods of Light (Day) and Darkness (Night). Earth’s Rotational Spin transforms the instant called ‘Future’ into an instant called ‘Past’ without giving man any choice to know the instant called ‘Present’. Earth’s Revolution brings Seasons that man experiences at regular and constant intervals of Time while man simply exists on the surface of planet Earth with no physical experience of Earth’s Motions through Space.
Time is looked upon as a flow like a river. Sir Issac Newton (1687) stated that the flow of Time is absolute; “It flows equably without relation to anything external.” In 1905 while postulating the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein observed that Time is not absolute and the measurement of Time is affected by the motion of the observer. The Relativity of Time becomes significant only at great speeds. Gravity affects both Light and Time. Gravity bends both Space and Light. Time is affected by the gravitational field of each celestial body. Time is unique to any one spot in the universe. If you and me do not exist at the same spot in the universe, our experience of Time is conditioned by the place or the position of that particular spot in the universe. Thus, the experience of Time on this planet is an illusionary experience and is not an absolute experience.
Kaala Chakra or the Cyclical Flow of Time:
Herman Minkowski, a mathematician, added Time as the Fourth Dimension of Three Dimensional Space. Time is seen as a Dimension as it gives meaning to events and the order in which they occur. Physicists describe Time and Space as the building blocks of this universe. Biologists see Time in the internal clocks that keep all living entities in sync with Nature. Human existence and the existence of all other living entities depend upon this illusionary experience of Time. Life exists and operates only if Time flows in a cyclical manner just like a wheel that moves, rotates on an axle or axis. Man needs this experience of day and night during his entire life journey. Man needs the changing Seasons with its cyclical regularity. Just imagine the consequences to human existence if Spring Season does not arrive at the Time it is expected. You have correctly pointed out that planet Earth is not at the same location or place in Space as Time flows. Last year, we had experienced the Spring Season while Earth existed at an entirely different location and we look forward for the arrival of a new Spring Season in spite of the Change in the position. In spite of Changes in location or position, in relative terms, the Spring Season is the Unchanging Reality of the Conditioned State of Human Existence. Because of the Conditioned nature of Human Existence, Man always looks forward, and hopes that Time would flow in a cyclical manner bringing cyclical changes. Biologists describe Life in terms of Life Cycles.
All living functions have a rhythmic or cyclical quality. The exchange of gases during a cycle called Respiration involves the cyclical events of Inspiration and Expiration. The vital functions sustained by Circulation demands cyclical flow of Blood. The Individual and his State or Condition of Individuality remains existing as an Unchanging Reality as long as he experiences the cyclical changes in his bodily functions and in the environment in which he exists.
I am that Unchanging Reality, the Reality of my Identity and my Individuality remains unchanged as my physical body experiences cyclical changes in its substance and in the environment where it exists. My phenotype or morphological appearance or outward appearance undergoes a constant change and this change is synchronized with the cyclical change called alternating periods of Day and Night. The Biological Clock precisely measures this Time interval or duration of my existence relative to the illusionary change; in Reality, the Sun is shining with all His brightness at all times with no significant change that I can perceive.
The God Connection:
My Identity and my Individuality is the Unchanging Reality of my conditioned state of human existence. I explore the Nature of this Unchanging Identity and Individuality. This Unchanging Reality of Identity and Individuality exists during the Time interval or duration of my God Connection. I know that Time existed before my creation, Time is operating during my existence as a created being, and Time would continue to operate after my physical dissolution. Time with its great power of Dissolution could not change my perception about my Unchanging Identity and Individuality because of my God Connection.
It is rational, it is logical, and it is reasonable to reflect on Absolute and Unchanging Reality as long as I maintain my Identity and Individuality which can not be changed or altered by the Powerful influence of Flow of Time.
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 8:30 AM, Dr. Rajaram Bojji wrote:
Truth, simple but so difficult to assimilate because, the question, “So, what next ?” arises.
More often than not our own fear defeats us by painting bleak pictures of failure much before actual occurrence.
While doing tunneling, after making all the pep talk to workers and engineers facing repeated collapses, I used to sleep the night in frustration and depression, which you can share with no one. Get up in the morning and with a gusto start with the saying ” don’t worry , the horse will fly” (reminding one self of another story when a man promises a King to save own beheading for a few days, that he would make King’s horse fly and before he was required to fly the horse some enemy King beheads the King and releases him from prison)… wear a smile and go back to the job.
Yes, as another American writer has said, the only thing you learn from living and observing life is that life goes on.
Story of a King
Once a King called upon all of his wise men and asked them “Is there a mantra or suggestion which works in every situation, in every circumstance, in every place and in every time. Something which can help me when none of you is available to advise me. Tell me is there any mantra?” All wise men got puzzled by King’s question. One answer for all questions? Something that works everywhere, in every situation? In every joy, every sorrow, every defeat and every victory? They thought and thought.
After a lengthy discussion, an old man suggested something which appealed to all of them. They went to the king and gave him something written on paper. But the condition was that king was not to see it out of curiosity. Only in extreme danger, when the King finds himself alone and there seems to be no way, only then he’ll have to see it. The King put the papers under his diamond ring.
After a few days, the neighbors attacked the kingdom. It was a collective surprise attack of the King’s enemies. King and his army fought bravely but lost the battle. King had to flee on his horse. The enemies were following him. His horse took him far away in the jungle. He could hear many troops of horses following him and the noise was coming closer and closer. Suddenly the King found himself standing at the end of the road – that road was not going anywhere. Underneath there was a rocky valley a thousand feet deep. If he jumped into it, he would be finished. And he could not return because it was a small road. The sound of enemy’s horses was approaching fast. King became restless. There seemed to be no way…
Then suddenly he saw the diamond in his ring shining in the sun, and he remembered the message hidden in the ring. He opened the diamond and read the message. The message was very small but very great. The message was – “This too will pass.”
The King read it. Again read it. Suddenly something struck him; Yes! It too will pass. Only a few days ago, I was enjoying my kingdom. I was the mightiest of all the Kings. Yet today, the Kingdom and all his pleasures have gone. I am here trying to escape from enemies. However when those days of luxuries have gone, this day of danger too will pass. Calm come on his face. He kept standing there. The place where he was standing was full of natural beauty. He had never known that such a beautiful place was also a part of his Kingdom. The revelation of the message had a great effect on him. He relaxed and forgot about those following him.
After a few minutes he realized that the noise of the horses and the enemy coming was receding. They moved into some other part of the mountains and were not on that path. The King was very brave. He reorganized his army and fought again. He defeated the enemy and regained his lost empire. When he returned to his empire after victory, he was received with much fan fare at the door. The whole capital was rejoicing in the victory. Everyone was in a festive mood. Flowers were being thrown on the King from every house, from every corner. People were dancing and singing. For a moment King said to himself, “I am one of the bravest and greatest Kings. It is not easy to defeat me..”
With all the reception and celebration he saw an ego emerging in him. Suddenly the diamond of his ring flashed in the sunlight and reminded him of the message. He opened it and read it again: “This too will pass”. He became silent. His face went through a total change – from the egoist he moved to a state of utter humbleness.
If this too is going to pass, it is not yours. The defeat was not yours, the victory is not yours. You are just a watcher. Everything passes by. We are witness of all this. We are the perceiver. Life comes and goes. Happiness comes and goes. Sorrow comes and goes.
Now as you have read this story, just sit silently and evaluate your own life… Think of the moments of joy and victory in your life. Think of the moment of sorrow and defeat. Are they permanent? They all come and pass away. Life just passes away. There were friends in the past. They have gone. There are friends today. They too will go. There will be new friends tomorrow. They too will go. There were enemies in the past. They have gone. There may be enemies in the present. They too will go. There will be new enemies tomorrow and they too will go.
There is nothing permanent in this world. Everything changes except the law of change. Think over it from your own perspective.
You have seen all the changes. You have survived all setbacks, all defeats and all sorrows. All have passed away. If there are problems in the present, they too will pass away. Because nothing remains forever. Joy and sorrow are the two faces of the same coin. They both will pass away.
Who are you in reality? Know your real face. Your face is not your true face. It will change with the time. However, there is something in you, which will not change… It will remain unchanged. What is that unchangeable? It is nothing but your true self. You are just a witness of change.
From: Dr. Srinivasa Rao Kankipati.
Lovely story and nice response. The story holds a great truth in it. The truth is that change is the law of nature. The universe, which means the aggregate of all things in it, is changing right from the moment of the Big Bang. I wouldnt say that change is constant. Even the rate of change may be varying. Swami Sivananda penned a beautiful poem titled:”Even This Shall Pass” and some other philosophical essays and poems. All these were contained in a book authored by him, which he sent to me free when I wrote a letter to him in my student days but told him that I cannot pay the cost.
I believe that death which is inevitable for everything is only a result of unavoidable change. As far as I can analyze, the only law governing the universe is the law of (maybe changing) change.
Even though we think that the earth is returning to the same position in space year after year, astronomers tell us that its relative position is changing. We never go back to the same point.
In this light, I don’t think there is anything that can be called permanent. As we can easily see from a train when we travel, the near landscape recedes in the opposite direction, but it seems to move relative to the far landscape, which assumes the character of being permanent. But after some travel, we find that the farther landscape also has changed, as against landscape which is even farther away. After some more travel the distant hills and dales at the farthest distance also vanish.
So we are changing, everything is changing, but we falsely hypothesise that it is all against the background of something that does not change. I believe that all change is perceived vis-a-vis something that changes in a slower manner, not vis-a-vis something that remains permanent. To crave for something permanent is madness and a wild exercise of a feverish imagination.
My own definition of civilization is the construction of something which is less impermanent with the help of things which are more impermanent. All civilizations will eventually crumble. There is nothing permanent.
In this context, imagining a permanent god who will receive us into his kingdom permanently after our cycle of births and deaths is also illusory. With a person’s death, nothing more is heard from him. He has existed only once in the universe and it is just not true that his mind (as Buddhists propound) or his soul (as Hindus propound) will go on to take up another body, until finally God receives the mind and soul.
When a man dies, …
THE END!
Whole Discovery – The Unchanging Biomolecules that operate the Creation of Life and the Dissolution of Life
Several single-celled Blue-Green algae, plankton, microbes, viruses, protozoans, insects, crocodiles, turtles, sharks, and other organisms are known to be existing on Earth from billions to several millions of years. The unchanging genetic code in all past and present members of these long-lived species permit the genes to have the same effects on their carriers from generation to generation. Because of the constancy of the genetic code, we can identify the existence of individual species which maintain their species-specific traits as per Mendelian Principles. There are numerous kinds of longest living species on Earth and their identification is possible because of their genetic codes have essentially remained unchanged. The constancy of the composition of biomolecules relates to the constancy of the Genetic Code, the constancy of Protein Synthesis, the Synthesis of various Amino Acids and other Chemical Molecules that operate various living functions.
I ask my readers to note that the ‘Protoplasm’, the living substance that makes up both the cytoplasm and nucleoplasm appears to be potentially immortal. The term ‘Longevity’, the length or duration of a life or lives, must be interpreted in the context of the potential ability of Protoplasm to survive while individual members of species take birth, live, and die after a period of time. The term Life-Span describes the longest period of time that a typical individual can be expected to live. Similarly, Lifetime is the period of time that someone lives, or that something lasts, functions, or is in effect.
The concept of Life-Span implies that there is an individual whose existence has a definite beginning and end. Within the Phylum Protozoa, organisms that consist of a single cell, are numerous species that reproduce by fission which is a form of asexual reproduction in which the parent organism divides into two or more approximately equal parts, each becoming an independent individual. In such organisms where it is not easy to establish the beginning and end of an individual organism, the growth seems to continue indefinitely and a potential immortality can be observed.
The issue of Life-Span of plants and trees and of Human Life-Span need special consideration. In all animals, where the organism is formed by sexual reproduction, the beginning of life is defined by the formation of the fertilized egg cell or zygote. Very often, physical birth is considered to be the beginning of the Life-Span. The end or death of an organism is reflected in its inability to support its structural and functional organization that gives it a distinctive physical identity. This generation of Life by the union of an egg and sperm is a most remarkable event. In the entire Animal and Plant Kingdom where the organisms achieve reproduction sexually, the Generative Mechanism remains the same and is unchanged over millions of years. This Generative Potential of Sexual Reproduction is unaltered and it describes a most creative process that is involved in the beginning of all living creatures. In my view, the immutability of Life’s beginning is dependent on the Unchanging Principle called Soul or Spirit.
The Laws of Conservation of Matter:
Chemical elements are the fundamental materials of which all matter is composed. There are about 107 known chemical elements. Chemical elements can combine with one another to form a wide variety of more complex substances called compounds. The number of possible compounds is infinite; perhaps a million chemical compounds are known. When two or more elements combine to form a compound, they lose their separate identities and the product has characteristics quite different from those of the constituent elements. The gaseous elements hydrogen and oxygen with quite different properties can combine to form the compound water which has altogether different properties from either hydrogen or oxygen. Most of naturally occurring matter represents physical mixtures of compounds. The indestructibility of matter was explained by Lavoisier as the Law of Conservation. “We may lay it down as an incontestable axiom,” Lavoisier writes, “that in all the operations of art and nature, nothing is created; an equal quantity of matter exists both before and after the experiment.” What appears to be the destruction of a body is merely the transformation of its matter into another physical condition, without loss of mass unless there is an equivalent gain in energy. The total quantity of matter and energy remains constant throughout all physical changes. Material substances undergo changes when they interact with other material substances, but this “change” cannot be described as the permanent reality. The permanent reality describes the unchanging, or constant nature of chemical elements and molecules in spite of their tendency to interact with other elements and molecules.
The Laws of Conservation are any of the several principles applied in Physics and Chemistry that state that certain properties of an isolated system remain constant with time. Each Law signifies that the nature of a substance or thing that does not change with the passage of time. However, it must be noted that change is the pervasive phenomenon of the natural world. It is said that, “Things in Nature Change with Time.” Although matter may change its form, or shape under the influence of time, its mass always remains the same. The Law of Conservation of Mass implies that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, that is, processes that change the physical, or chemical properties of substances within an isolated system leave the total mass unchanged. Similarly, The Law of Conservation of Energy implies that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, although it can be changed from one form (mechanical, kinetic, chemical, etc.,) into another form such as heat, or the energy consumed in the performance of work. In an isolated system, the sum of all forms of energy therefore remain constant. Every conservation law concerns a collection of two, or more objects, isolated from external influence, for which some physical quantity remains unchanged in time, or is conserved, quite apart from the details of what goes on between the interacting particles within the system. An important function of conservation laws is that they make it possible to predict the macroscopic behavior of a system without having to consider the microscopic details of the course of a physical process or chemical reaction. The fundamental character of these conservation laws is evident in the fact that each law may be deduced from or related to a symmetry property of space and time. The symmetry property of space and time determines the periodic frequency with which a natural change occurs while the nature or properties of things is conserved to allow the change to repeat itself in an expected manner.
Dr. Rudranarasimham, Rebbapragada, B.Sc., M.B.B.S.,
Father’s Name: R. Suryanarayana Murty, M.A., B.Ed.,
Sri Venkateswara University, M.B.B.S. Class of April, 1970
Andhra Pradesh Medical Council Medical Registration Number: AMC5282; Date of Registration: September 16, 1971
