Ancient Indians – Satya Samhita

Bhishma in Vishnu Sahasranamam tells us that Vishnu is

prANadah : the one who gives life

prANah : the life breath

jIvanah : life itself.

So for those curious about Vishnu and for those curious about the world, a very interesting question to ask is “What is Life?”

The scientific view of life has grown over time, much beyond “things that move” and “things that do not move” ie animate and inanimate.

Today we understand that 

• Life is that which captures food and converts it into energy for use in further food capture, self-repair and reproduction.
• Life preserves its form and its attributes as defined by its DNA.
• From viruses to human beings this ‘life’ is common. Life must eat to maintain itself, to grow, to reproduce or to move about. Life need not eat all the time, it can sleep or hibernate or fast. But it must eat sometime.
• Life is a self-sustaining bio-chemical reaction.
• It may ‘end’ for an amoeba when it spilts into two amoebas.
• It may ‘end’ for a human being when his telomeres ‘run out’ and his (her) individual cells cannot divide anymore to repair themselves.
• Amoeba ‘daughters’ having the exact same DNA as their ‘mother’., identical twins or clones., count as different living things., even though their DNA patterns are identical, they are not the ‘same’ living being. Because they ‘eat’ seperately to maintain two seperate bodies.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, “I become the vais’vAnarah (the universal person) and live in the bodies of living things, and with the prANa  and apAna (out and in breaths), I digest the four kinds of anna (food).”  The digestive function is Krishna, Vishnu, Purusha. So eating, life and divinity are tied together at a definition level.

Do stars have life? 

We speak of the birth, life and death of stars. By which we really mean they have a beginning, an existence and an end.

But stars don’t eat. They don’t capture food as an activity.  A star converts its own material (read Hydrogen) into another material (Helium) and converts a part of the left over mass into energy, which it radiates! A star does not ‘eat’ or capture ‘food’ for energy. So a star has no ‘life’ as we have defined it above. It is not a self-sustaining bio-chemical reaction. It is a self-consuming thermo-nuclear reaction.

Stars support life. 

The Iron in our blood is made in the stars. The Oxygen that it carries to our cells is made in the stars. The Carbon that we are made of, the Silicon of our computers all : Made in Star! The stars provide the material and energy that sustain life as we define it. The first molecules of life were created in stellar reactions. (New discovery).  They make all the raw material that we have organised into ourselves and our world.

“Stars concentrate the matter (“sat”) in the universe, distribute energy (“sakti”) and illuminate (“rajas”) the universe (vis’wam)” ( – Sergei, The Majestic Universe).

The self-consuming thermo-nuclear reactions support the self-sustaining bio-chemical reaction. Stars support Life.

So stars can also be understood to be prANadAh – the givers of life. We worship our Sun as pratyaksha nArAyaNa or the Visible Vishnu! The name Kesi refers to the sunrays as hairs of Vishnu.

Today, we are also close to synthesising life as we have defined above!

Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula

Time

• Time : Past, Present and Future : Bhuta Bhavya Bhavan Nathah Vishnuh
• Time : Why study time ? : “Kaalah Aham – I am Time” – Krishna
• Time : Kalakantha, kalamurthi, kalagni, kalanasana, Siva : Markandeya : Maghamahatmya
• Time and Space : Are Time and Space “side-effect” of matter? Is Space empty? or full of some”thing” else?
• Time and Space : Are Time and Space “side-effect” of matter? Is Space empty? or full of some”thing” else?
• Time, Matter, Energy and Consciousness : Kaala, Sat, Sakthi, Purusha/Devi
• Life : Pranadah, Pranah, Jivanah, Vishnuh! : What is Life? In science and sanskrit texts.