Logic of Spirituality - Part 1

The average attention span of a person is about 8-10 seconds. Stat
Keeping that in mind, am writing this blog on a 'deep topic'. Tall order I know..
At Chinmaya mission in Raleigh, watched this video by Swami Chinmayananda and wanted to record what I learned and possibly share it with some of my friends, relatives. Hope you guys are still with me.

Regardless of which country you are from, race, gender, religion, this is one question most of us have wondered about.. "Where did we come from". You may have gotten different answers depending on who you ask. For example,

• Scientist may say : Everything started from the "Big Bang", the Big Bang Theory. The universe was infinitely small and dense and then exploded in a big bang and all the known matter in the universe came from it. BigBangWiki
• Abrahamic religions explain it in different ways, which I don't intend to broach in this blog.
• This blog is about answering this question from Vedanta's(Ancient hindu religion's philosophy based on Vedas) perspective  

The ancient vedic were trying to understand the relationship between "Cause" and "Effect" which they used to call it "Karya Karana Sambandh". The Rig Veda basically declared - They can't directly investigate cause of the Universe. But can indirectly make observation about Cause and Effect. They came up with 3 laws.

1. An "Effect" can never be without a "Cause"
2. "Effect(s)" are nothing but "Cause" itself in different forms
3. From the "Effect" if "Cause" is removed, then we are left with "Nothing"

Let us apply the above laws to the observable universe. Apply Law (1) to Universe - So there has to be a "Cause" for what we see in the Universe. Apply Law(2) to Universe. Effects are Nothing but Cause in different forms. This is the famous 'Advaita' philosophy (We are mirror images of God and God is within every living thing). Lets apply Law (3), What is common (pervades) all living things? "Life". If Life is removed, than nothing exists. God exists as Life in all living things.

This concludes my attempt at summary of first part of the "Logic of Spirituality" video. Listening to Lectures/video or articles is called 'Shravanam'. Sharing Thoughts and discussion is called "Mananam".

Finally, during the discussion period, couple of interesting points came up..

1. Embracing this Vedanta philosophy where all of us have God in us, and we all have same Source, it should decimate bigotry hatred among us and also we can learn to treat animals kindly. It is quoted as "Vasudeva Kutumbakam"
2. Another gentleman mentioned that in Quantum physics there is a term "Observer effect" - where you cannot observe a subject without taking into account involvement of Observer. I think what he was saying is - We can't understand Effect without the Cause (God?) within us, the Observer? Or maybe I got it totally wrong..