Today, most of them accept the Darwinian account that humans like us came into existence about 100,000 years ago, having evolved from more apelike ancestors. But the Vedic literature gives us another account of human origins.
I call this account human devolution.
To put it in its most simple terms, we
do not evolve up from matter but devolve, or come down, from spirit.
In this article, I want to show how this Vedic concept of human
devolution can be presented to those who are not very familiar with
the Vedic literature.
The basic unit of this cyclical time is the day of Brahma, which lasts for 4.32 billion years.
The day of Brahma is followed by a night of Brahma, which also lasts for 4.32 billion years. The days follow the nights endlessly in succession. During the days of Brahma, life, including human life, is manifest, and during the nights it is not manifest.
According to the Puranic cosmological calendar, the current day of Brahma began about 2 billion years ago.
One of the forefathers of humankind, Svayambhuva Manu ruled during that time, and the Bhagavata Purana (Shrimad Bhagavatam 6.4.1) tells us:
Therefore, a Vedic archeologist might expect to find evidence for a human presence going that far back in time.
In Forbidden Archeology, coauthor Richard L. Thompson (Sadaputa Dasa) and I documented extensive evidence, in the form of human skeletons, human footprints, and human artifacts, showing that humans like ourselves have inhabited the earth for hundreds of millions of years, just as the Puranas tell us.
This evidence is not very well known
because of a process of knowledge filtration that operates in the
scientific world. Evidence that contradicts the Darwinian theory of
human evolution is set aside, ignored, and eventually forgotten.
Why offer a new explanation, unless one
is really required? In
Human Devolution, I set forth such a new
explanation, an explanation based on information found in the Puranas.
Today most scientists believe that a human being is simply a combination of matter, the ordinary chemical elements.
This assumption limits the kinds of explanations that can be offered for human origins. I propose that it is more reasonable, based on available scientific evidence, to start with the assumption that a human being is composed of three separately existing substances:
This assumption widens the circle of possible explanations.
And it is reasonable, on the basis of
available evidence, to posit the existence of mind and
consciousness, in addition to ordinary matter, as separate elements
composing the human being.
Evidence for this mind element comes from scientific research into the phenomena called by some "paranormal" or "psychical."
Here we are led into the hidden history
of physics (the knowledge filtering process also operates in this
field of knowledge).
They were part of a large group of prominent European scientists, including other Nobel Prize winners, who were jointly conducting research into the paranormal in Paris early in the twentieth century.
For two years, the group studied the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino.
Historian Anna Hurwic notes in her biography of Pierre Curie (1995, p. 247),
About some séances with Eusapia, Pierre Curie wrote to physicist Georges Gouy in a letter dated July 24, 1905:
Pierre Curie reported that on such occasions, the medium was carefully physically controlled by the scientists present.
On April 14, 1906, Pierre wrote to Gouy about some further investigations he and Marie had carried out:
Such results, and many more like them from the hidden history of physics, suggest there is associated with the human organism a mind element that can act on ordinary matter in ways we cannot easily explain by our current physical laws.
Such research continues today, although most scientists doing it are concentrating on microeffects rather than the macroeffects reported by Pierre Curie. For example, Robert Jahn, head of the engineering department at Princeton University, started to research the effects of mental attention on random number generators.
A random number generator will normally generate a sequence of ones and zeros, with equal numbers of each.
But Jahn, and his associates who have
continued the research, found that subjects can mentally influence
the random number generators to produce a statistically significant
greater number of ones than zeros (or vice versa).
They report consciously observing their own bodies. The reality of such experiences has been confirmed by medical researchers.
For example, in February 2001, a team from the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, published a favorable study on OBEs in cardiac arrest patients in the journal Resuscitation (v. 48, pp. 149–156). The team was headed by Dr. Sam Parnia, a senior research fellow at the university.
On February 16, 2001, a report published on the university's web site said that the work of Dr. Parnia,
This is exactly the Vedic conception.
At death the conscious self leaves the
body, accompanied by the subtle material covering of the mind, and
then enters another body of gross matter. Memories from past lives
are recorded in the mind, and may be accessed by the conscious self
in its new body made of gross matter, as shown by psychiatrist Ian
Stevenson's extensive studies verifying past life memories of
First, there is a region of pure consciousness. Consciousness, as we experience it, is individual and personal. This suggests that the original source of conscious selves is also individual and personal.
So in addition to the individual units of consciousness existing in the realm of pure consciousness, there is also an original conscious being who is their source. When the fractional conscious selves give up their connection with their source, they are placed in lower regions of the cosmos predominated by either subtle material substance (mind) or gross material substance.
There is thus a cosmic hierarchy of conscious beings.
Accounts of this cosmic hierarchy of
beings can be found not only in the Puranas but in the cosmologies
of many other cultures. The cosmologies share many features. They
generally include an original God inhabiting a realm of pure
consciousness, a subordinate creator god inhabiting a subtle
material region of the cosmos along with many kinds of demigods and
demigoddesses, an earthly realm, dominated by gross matter,
inhabited by humans like us.
Astronomer Sir Martin Rees considers six of these numbers to be especially significant.
In his book Just Six Numbers (2000, pp. 3-4), he says,
There are three main explanations for the apparent fine tuning of the physical constants and laws of nature:
Many cosmologists admit that the odds against the fine tuning are too extreme for a simple chance to be offered as a credible scientific explanation.
To avoid the conclusion of a providential designer, they have posited the existence of a practically unlimited number of universes, each with the values of fundamental constants and laws of nature adjusted in a different way. And we just happen to live in the one universe with everything adjusted correctly for the existence of human life.
But for modern science these
universes have only a theoretical existence, and even if their
existence could be physically demonstrated, one would further have
to show that in these other universes the values of the fundamental
constants and laws of nature are in fact different than those in our
Originally, we exist there as units of pure consciousness in harmonious connection with the supreme conscious being, known by the Sanskrit name Krishna (and by other names in other religious traditions).
When we give up our willing connection with that supreme conscious being, we descend to regions of the cosmos dominated by the subtle and gross material elements, mind and matter. Forgetful of our original position, we attempt to dominate and enjoy the subtle and gross material elements. For this purpose, we are provided with bodies made of the subtle and gross material elements.
The subtle material body is made up not only of mind, but of the even finer material elements, intelligence and false ego (for the sake of simplicity, I have in this discussion collapsed them into mind).
The gross material body is made of
earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Bodies made of these gross and
subtle material elements are vehicles for conscious selves. They are
designed for existence within the realms of the subtle and gross
His body, manifested directly from Vishnu (the expansion of Krishna who controls the material universe), is made primarily of the subtle material elements. He is tasked with manifesting bodies for the other conscious selves existing at various levels of the cosmic hierarchy.
From the body of Brahma come great sages, sometimes known as his mental sons, and also the first sexually reproducing pair, Svayambhuva Manu and his consort Shatarupa. The daughters of Manu become the wives of some of the sages, and they produce generations of demigods and demigoddesses, with bodies composed primarily of the subtle material energy.
These demigods and demigoddesses, by
their reproductive processes, produce the forms of living things,
including humans, who reside on our earth planet.
There is a kind of re-evolution by which we can free consciousness from its coverings, and restore it to its original pure state. Every great spiritual tradition has some means for accomplishing this - some form of prayer, or meditation, or yoga.
In the course of chanting mantras,
praying, or meditating, the covering elements are spiritualized and
removed, so that one gradually comes back in touch with the original
source of all conscious beings.