I had an interesting idea about how evolution might have happened in real life. So far we know of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and the fact that living entities progress from one form of life to another according to evolution of their consciousness.
Lord Brahma has created all 8,400,000 species of life for them to progress and that leaves no space for Darwinian evolution. Vedic evolution is better described by the intelligent design theory. That means there is evolution but it by no means random. Unfortunately we don’t know much about how Lord Brahma actually created those species of life.
On one hand it doesn’t matter because that happened many many years of Brahma ago, and life on Earth is destroyed every time he goes to sleep, which happens every 4 billion Earth years. Does he personally recreate all forms of life from scratch every time he wakes up? He’s quite possibly figured out the way it happens automatically, we usually hear about his involvement with creation only when the universe was completely dark and empty.
On the other hand he definitely did not create all species at the same time. That’s just not how material world works. We have plenty of examples of evolution material elements from one another and there’s no reason to believe life forms didn’t follow a similar process, too.
The new idea that I had is what helped Lord Brahma in his creative process.
What if he got the clues what to create next by observing Lord Vishnu’s incarnations? What if he had no idea what to do or where to start, then Vishnu manifested itself in a completely new and unexpected form, then Lord Brahma tried to re-create and develop it.
First such incarnation was Matsya avatara, a fish, and that’s how Brahma got the idea of aquatic forms of life. Nowadays Vedas consider fish one of the lowest forms of life but back then it was probably a huge step forward.
Then the Lord appears as Kurma avatara – a tortoise, and so Brahma gets new class of animals to experiment with – reptiles.
Next incarnation is Varahadev, a boar, and this marks introduction of mammals.
Then there’s Lord Nrisimha, half lion and half new species – half man.
Then there’s Vamandadev, a dwarf, and that could be Darwinists’s missing link or one of those underdeveloped humans.
Then there’s Parashurama, a wilding, a savage who goes on a killing spree just to enjoy his power.
Then there’s Lord Ramachandra, finally a civilized king.
Of course there are many holes in this “theory” because Lord Ramachandra wasn’t the first civilized king, He was the best of them all but the idea was already there so it wasn’t an innovation. Or the fact that Matsya avatar helped Manu save all species of life from the flood, or that there already were demigods and demons at the time of Lord Kurma’s appearance.
On the other hand we do not know how it all happened the first time around – now these avatars appear in every yuga cycle, or maybe during life of every Manu, or maybe every day in Brahma’s life. It’s not a surprise anymore and beings like demigods probably get to see them many times over the course of their lives.
This is just a philosophical speculation that is somehow related to Krishna, that’s all its practical value.
Or we could use to suggest various alternatives to Darwinism, or maybe understand it better.
If Lord Brahma does not get involved with recreation after his every night and all species reappear automatically then maybe there IS a place for Darwinism after all. Maybe Lord Brahma figured out how to preserve all the necessary information overnight for species to grow up on their own the next morning, maybe that’s what DNA actually is. Now this recreation does not need God’s involvement anymore, precisely what scientists observe and try to prove. It just needs sun and water and DNA will push out everything else.
Hmm, perhaps there IS a way to see absolutely everything as related to Krishna and as separated from Him at the same time, ie both Darwnists and religionists are right in their own way. Thus it would be pointless to try to establish “the truth” but we should rather concentrate on connection to Krishna as any “truth” in this world can also be seen as separated from Him.
So it’s not the facts that matter but whether we manage to see them through the prism of Krishna consciousness or not. We tend to presume that once all the facts are known we will make our minds accordingly. Perhaps it isn’t so and direction of our minds has no connection to “reality”, only to the purity of our hearts.
That is a long reaching conclusion that could lead to a change in attitude when trying to resolve our contemporary issues that sometimes seems to be very important and could make or break our faith and our future as organization. Now it appears that they won’t and any outcome could be turned pro- or anti- Krishna consciousness as you desire.
The good news is that in this case ISKCON will never die.
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