Human Devolution: a Vedic Account
Let us now review the path we have taken. The evidence documented in Forbidden Archeology shows that humans of our type have existed on this planet for the duration of the current day of Brahma, about two billion years. This archeological evidence, along with genetic evidence, contradicts current evolutionary accounts of human origins and opens the way to new kinds of explanations. We then decided that before we ask how humans came into existence, we should first of all ask the question, “What is a human being?” Today most scientists assume that humans are simply a combination of the ordinary chemical elements. We concluded, however, that it is more reasonable, on the basis of all available scientific evidence, to start with the assumption that humans are composed not just of one thing, ordinary matter, but of three things—ordinary matter, subtle matter in the form of mind, and consciousness. With this established, we found it natural for us to assume that the cosmos is divided into regions with different balances of these three substances. We also found it natural to suppose that in each region conscious beings exist, of different grades and powers, with bodies adapted to the conditions there. With these basic elements in place, it is now time to integrate them all into a comprehensive account of what I call human devolution, in a specifically Vedic form. To put the Vedic account in its most simple terms, we did not evolve up from matter; rather, we have devolved, or come down, from the level of pure spiritual consciousness.
Today, most people favor relatively simple accounts of human origins. They favor either a simple creation account, or a simple Darwinian evolutionary account, or a simple extraterrestrial intervention account. The Vedic account of human devolution involves elements of all three. In common with the usual creation account, the Vedic account posits the existence of an overall conscious designer and controller, God. But the Vedic account also incorporates something from the evolutionary account. By evolution, Darwinists mean reproduction with modification. As we shall see, the Vedic account also involves reproduction with modification, a kind of intelligently guided genetic engineering, which starts with the more complex and subtle life forms and then moves on to simpler and grosser life forms. The Vedic account also includes an extraterrestrial element. The Vedic tradition may support variants of the account I am about to give, but these variants all share a family resemblance with each other, and, more generally, with creation accounts from others of the world’s wisdom traditions.
The conscious self originally exists on the level of pure consciousness, in relationship with the supreme self, God, known in Sanskrit by many names, including the name Krishna, which means all attractive. The constitutional relationship of the particulate conscious self with the supreme conscious self is one of eternal reciprocal enjoyment. If a conscious self departs from its constitutional relationship with the supreme self, it descends to the level of the material energies. The basic motivation for this descent is the desire to assume the position of independent enjoyer, apart from the supreme conscious self. Because one cannot assume this position in the domain of pure consciousness, one must try to assume it in another domain, that of the material energies. The particulate conscious self then takes on a material body for action within the material energies.
The material energies are of two basic kinds: the subtle material energies and the gross material energies. Conscious selves existing in levels or regions of the cosmos dominated by the subtle material energies have bodies composed principally of the subtle material energies—mind (manas), intelligence (buddhi), and false ego (ahankara). Conscious selves existing in the realm dominated by the gross material energies have, in addition to a bodily covering made of the subtle material energies, a bodily covering made of the gross material energies—earth (bhumi), water (apa), fire (anala), air (vayu), and ether (kham).
God himself (Krishna) is not directly involved in the affairs of manifesting the material universes to accommodate the conscious selves who have departed from the spiritual level of reality. For this purpose Krishna expands himself as the Maha Vishnu, who lies in the Causal Ocean. From the pores of Maha Vishnu come numberless universes. By His glance, the Maha Vishnu injects conscious selves into each universe. The Maha Vishnu also expands into each universe as the Garbhodakashayi Vishnu. From the Garbhodakashayi Vishnu in each universe comes a subordinate creator god, Brahma. Brahma is one of the conscious selves injected into a universe. He is charged with populating the universe. He does this by manifesting bodies to serve as vehicles for conscious selves.
Brahma exists on the highest, most subtle level of the material universe. His place is called Brahmaloka. The body of Brahma is composed primarily of the subtle material elements. In his commentary on Chaitanya Charitamrita (Adi lila 5.22), Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada said, “The residents of Brahmaloka do not have gross material bodies to change at death, but they transform their subtle bodies into spiritual bodies and thus enter the spiritual sky.” From his mind, Brahma directly produces mental sons (manasa putras), such as the sage Kardama Muni. Then from his body, Brahma produces other sages and the first sexually reproducing pair—Svayambhuva Manu and his consort Shatarupa. The Sanskrit word svayambhuva means self born. Svayambhuva Manu and Shatarupa have sons and daughters. The daughters are given in marriage to some of the mental sons of Brahma, and they begin to produce children. This reproduction of great sages, demigods, and demigoddesses takes place on the higher more subtle levels of the material universe.
When it is time for the production of the forms for souls who require bodies made of the grosser material elements, the demigods and demigoddesses engage in reproductive activities to produce them. In the course of these reproductive activities they make use of bijas, or seeds. These bijas contain the plans for the forms of the bodies. Modern biologists have difficulty explaining exactly how the process of development takes place. Each plant or animal generally begins as a single cell, which begins to divide. Each cell contains the same DNA, the same set of genes. So it is not easy to explain how and why, in the course of the progressive division of a few cells into millions of cells (trillions in the case of humans), that the cells sequentially differentiate and arrange themselves into complex forms of bodily tissues. I propose that associated with each form is not only the DNA but also a bija, or subtle seed, containing the developmental plan for the particular kind of body.