MEMORABLE SPECULATION

Swami Bhaskarananda is a senior monk and president of the Vedanta Society of Western Washington in Seattle, Washington.  In a recent talk on meditation, he brought up the subject of the creation of the universe.  It brings to mind a particularly memorable speculation in the 129th hymn of the 10th book of the Rig-Veda:

Then there was neither being nor non-being:
There was no air, nor firmament beyond it.
Was there a stirring?  Where?  Beneath what cover?
Was there a great abyss of unplumbed water?

There was no death nor anything immortal;
Nor any sign dividing day from night.
That One Thing, given no breath, was yet self-breathing;
No second thing existed whatsoever.

Darkness was hidden in a deeper darkness;
This All was as a sea without dimensions;
The void still held unformed what was potential,
Until the power of Warmth produced the sole One...

Who truly knows, and who can here declare it,
Whence it was born, and how this world was fashioned?
The gods came later than the earth's creation.
Who knows then out of what the world has issued?

Whether the world was made or whether self-made,
He knows with full assurance, he alone,
Who in the highest heaven guards and watches;
He knows indeed, but then, perhaps, he knows not.

This last line is intriguing.  Swami Bhaskarananda said in his talk that God dreamed the world into existence.  If this is the case, then God may in fact not know whether “the world was made or whether self-made,” which is to say whether he created it, or whether, by coincidence, it created itself.  Who remembers a dream after they wake up?

Then, God may still be dreaming, probably is still dreaming.