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Short pieces |
LIFE, DEATH AND MAYA ( Page 1 ) |
Discussions with Dr. Pillai
on 3 /1 / 03 |
| (Dr Pilla had not yet come to terms with the tragic death of his son when my wife passed away. The following discussion took place when he visited me in India after that.) |
| Pilla: “How do we understand
the mystery of death?” Vempeny: Many things in this universe are mysterious; Life is a mystery, so is birth. Evolution is a mystery. But there is nothing mysterious about death. It is the most natural and certain thing about life. |
| P: “Matter is not created or
destroyed. Then what about life being destroyed?” V: But life is not matter. P: “Is it energy?” V: No it is not energy. Matter, energy, space and time are four aspects of our material universe. None of these is life and none of these can produce life. Life is something that God has put into the combination of molecules that resulted from the chemical evolution. This entity called life has certain properties- if I may use that word for want of a better one. These are growth, reproduction and death. Death is thus an integral part of life. |
| P: “What about immortality?”
V: We cannot speak of immortality concerning all forms of life. As I understand it, the human soul, created in the image and likeness of God is immortal. It has no death. The real self of man is the soul, spirit or athman enshrined in this physical body of ours. I always like the imagery of human life as a voyage across an ocean, the soul the passenger and the body just a boat. At the end of the voyage, you discard the boat on the shore and you proceed to reach your goal. This abandoning of the boat is what appears to be the death of the person. For the real life there is no end, no death. The spirit passes on from this phase of life into anther one. The atman is immortal. The words of prophets and sages of various times and places regarding this eternal life is misunderstood by many to mean immortality of the body. |
| P: “How do we make sense of
life as all this around us is unreal – Maya?” V: Most people misunderstand the concept of Maya. It is true that the whole material universe as well as space and time, everything that is changeable or ephemeral can be described as being unreal, the only absolute reality being God. Though our bodies, forming part of the material environment, are unreal, our souls, which form part of the Cosmic Spirit, must, in my opinion, be considered real. |
| But the main thing that we must grasp speaking of Maya is that though unreal, all these things around us, the material world, the living things – plants and animals as well as humans in it – though part of the Maya, are each in their own way meaningful and significant. What is important is not whether it is real or unreal but whether it is meaningful or not – whether it is significant or not. More important is, how we interact with this ‘unreal’, but significant and meaningful environment of ours. How we interact with our fellow beings is of very great importance. |