The Upanishads (Easwaran's Classics of Indian Spirituality Book 2)

by Eknath Easwaran

Astrophysicists use similar language when they talk about creation. All the matter in the universe must have been present in that “primeval atom,” supercondensed to an unbelievable degree. In such a state, matter would no longer be possible as matter. It would be stripped down to pure energy, and energy itself would be raw and undifferentiated; variations like gravity and light would not have emerged. Time would not yet be real, for there can be no time before zero; neither would space make sense in the context of a question like, “What was there before the Big Bang?” Physicists reply, with Gertrude Stein, “There’s no ‘there’ there. There’s no ‘then’ then.” Space and time, matter and energy, sprung into existence at the moment of creation; “before” that moment the concepts do not apply. The sages would find all this a perfect metaphor for the unitive state. In samadhi, reality is condensed into pure potential, without dimensions, without time, without any differentiation. Physicists do not say there was nothing before the Big Bang; they say everything came from that, and nothing more can be said. Similarly, samadhi is not emptiness but purnata: plenitude, complete fullness. The whole of reality is there, inner as well as outer: not only matter and energy but all time, space, causality, and states of consciousness.