| THE sixth
chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad begins with the old, old riddle: Was there a first
cause? Shall we, seeing that the search for causes leads us backward along an interminable
chain, give up the theory of causation and say that the world came out of nothing? This
cannot be, says the Rishi. Out of nothing, nothing could come. Non-Being cannot produce Being. Much less could the phenomenon of
consciousness come out of no thing. We must hold that there was a first Cause: Sat: i.e.,
Being with consciousness. Sat willed that it may expand and multiply. So it produced
light, Tejas. The Spirit in Tejas willed to multiply and produced water. The Spirit in
Water willed to become manifold, and it produced all the living things of the world. |
