Is Moksha the real end??!!

We Hindus believe in the philosophy of rebirth i.e. any living being after his death will be reborn depending upon his karmas (actions & deeds). We further believe that this life itself is the reason behind the agony of a living being and Moksha is the answer to get rid of this agony.

Moksha or Salvation is a state of eternal bliss where a living being (in the form of a soul) unites with ‘Brahman’ – a supreme being and frees itself from the vicious cycle of birth-life-death & rebirth. This is supposed to be the ultimate aim of a being and thus the end.

Now before we move on to my question, that is, ‘is Moksha the real end?’, I would like to tell you about two books* I was simultaneously reading a month back.

The 1^st one was ‘Bhavarth Dyaneshwari’ by Mr. Vijay Pandhare (it is a rendition of ‘Dyaneshwari’ in present day Marathi -‘Dyaneshwri’ being the in depth commentary on ‘Bhagvat Gita’ in 11^th century Marathi by the greatest Mrathi poet ‘Saint Dyaneshwar’. Whereas Bhagvat Gita is said to be the gist of Hindu philosophy as told by Lord Krishna to his worrier friend Arjuna in epic Mahabharata). The 2^nd book was ‘The Theory of everything’ by the greatest mind of our times – Mr. Stephen Hawking (it covers & explains the origin of universe right from historical beliefs up till present day ideas).

You will surely wonder of all the books in the universe, why these two?

I have always beleived that you can never separate Science (as we know it in present day) from Hindu spiritual knowledge and these two books will lead us to our answer.

Let’s start by understanding in short, how the universe is formed by parallely looking at what’s being told in above two books:

Sr. No.	As understood by modern day scientists from 17th to 20th century	As told in 11th century Dyaneshwari & age old Sanskrit Scriptures before that	Old Concepts & the respective scientific terms of present era
1.	Big Bang - It’s a stage of singularity where the universe had very high energy density and thus very high pressures & temperatures where all laws of physics (including general relativity) break down. Big Bang Expansion	God / Brahman / Parmatma is dormant or sleeping - a stage of nothingness	Brahman = total amount of energy in the universe (remember law of conservation of energy?) = amalgamation of positive & negative energy forces
2	Due to high pressure, world rapidly (exponentially to be more precise) starts expanding & cooling	** Prakruti (a phenomenon responsible for this illusion called world) comes in to play & by taking a disadvantage of dormant Brahman, catalyzes expansion of nothingness – state of illusion (Maya)	Prakruti = Negative energy force (Remember electric circuit diagrams we studied in schools? Though we traditionally show flow of electricity from +ve terminal of the battery to the –ve terminal, it’s actually a –ve terminal from where the electricity flows similarly the creation process starts from -ve Prakruti) or = antimatter (actually Prakruti creates humans, & traditionally we called ourselves - matter)
3	Because of gravitational force of subatomic particles & simple atoms released through exponential cooling & expansion, the pace of expansion is slowed down to give rise to galaxies & stars	Dormant Brahman awakens due to this expansion and is now called Lord Vishnu. Lord Brahma manifests from him & creates the world	Hindu trinity = positive energy force (electrical circuit is complete only if the current reaches the opposite terminal of the battery) or = matter (to balance the antimatter) Brahma Vishnu Mahesh (Shiva)
4	All laws of physics / chemistry / biology now hold their ground in this relatively cool universe Life becomes the reality with human beings being the last to be created by nature. Creature dies and scope of modern science ends here.	Lord Vishnu takes the responsibility of maintenance of the world Soul – a minuscule part of Brahman is born through 84 Lakh creatures (including human). Depending upon Karma’s of a creature, it may be reborn as a lower / higher level creature or a human with a bad / better life or finally might attain Moksha after death in human life.
5	Today modern scientists have started believing that this expansion would stop some time in future; the world would then start contracting & will ultimately collapse in to a new Big Bang. But still we have not found a way to prove this collapse.	Lord Shiva – the third god of Hindu trinity – a primordial yogi will take the responsibility to destroy this world by contraction. Brahman could now again go in to its dormant stage by collapsing in to nothingness
6	Fate of a new big bang is still to be discovered by our modern scientists. But in all these stages scientists still give a scope to the ‘Will of a God’ to create the universe as we see it today.	Prakruti will again take over & repeat this cycle umpteen no of times – as Hindus believe that there is no end or no beginning to the Brahman. Further reading: Ekeshwarwad-aani-law-of-conservation-of-energy	Prakruti taking over Brahman is nothing but the proof of a law of thermodynamics which states that – ‘nothing is perfect in this world’ (i.e. not even the all encompassing Brahman. Otherwise possibility of a disturbance in its sleep wouldn’t have arisen).

 

Now, 'the cycle of the universe continues from its birth to rebirth', means, even if a soul has attended a moksha in this cycle of the universe, it might fall in the trap of ‘Prakruti’ in the next cycle and might again be born as a living being & suffer till it again attains Moksha.

This implies, Moksha is surely not an end. This in turn means, all the efforts a particular human soul takes by walking on the strenuous path of salvation are futile.

But that's not the case. Following two principles (from old & modern world) will make you understand why all our scriptures still emphasize on Moksha:

Sr. No.	As told in age old Sanskrit Scriptures	As understood by modern day scientists
1.	ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते पूर्णश्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥ ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ... Above verse correctly describes the Brahman as below: It is complete. Only completeness can manifest from the complete. Even if a completeness is removed from the complete, a complete is what that will remain Ones a particular soul is united with the complete Brahman, its individual identity ceases to exist & it becomes the complete Brahman. Once this individual identity is lost, whatever happens to the Brahman in the next cycle of universe ceases to be that particular soul’s concern.	Present day ‘Black holes’ are the miniscule models of Big Bang Singularity. Black holes are the patches in the fabric of the universe with such a high density that even a light (fastest in the universe) can’t escape it – giving them a dark appearance and the name. It is mathematically proved that if some matter collapses in to this high gravity black hole, owing to ‘Law of conservation of Energy’, equal amount / quantity of energy / matter is freed from the black hole maintaining its equilibrium. Thus even with this logic, once soul units with Brahman, some other part of the Brahman will be born as a creature making this soul free from the cycle of birth & rebirth.

Thus in short: Moksha is definitely not an end but an individual soul need not bother about the real end as there isn't any!!!

PS: * I don’t claim to fully understand these two books completely. This blog is crux of whatever little I have understood from these two books.

 ** There is another less scientific story of the creation of the universe which says, ‘God was alone & he thought of becoming many’ & thus created the universe.