“FIRST WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD IS GOD” That which we know as evolution was created at the time of the big bang when billions and billions of articles flew through this vastness of the universe. The neutral energy or the impersonal God manifested itself, not by will but by its nature, like the nature of a flower giving fragrance or fire giving off heat. Without will and by its natural Self, the Manifestor manifested, so the unmanifest became manifested. The primal manifestation of the Manifestor was nothing else but vibration. Therefore, in the Scriptures, we discuss, “First was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God.” That Word is the primal manifestation described in different ways in all different theologies and Scriptures. When this manifestation took about or form, it had to become more condensed. That primal manifestation condensed itself into what we could call the mind. So that universal mind with the excellent currents of manifestation started activating itself. It woke up from that stillness, and the very process of manifestation started producing motion in the Universal Mind. When motion was produced in the Universal Mind, it had to concretise itself more. Although the essence that permeates it has always remained the same, like water vapour, water and a block of ice still have the principle of H2O. So, this Universal Mind was permeated by the unmanifest, and yet the unmanifest took on manifestation. We call it the Manifestor and his manifestation. When this motion occurs in the Universal Mind, it has to become further concretised. In the process of concretisation, the intermixing and the permutations of these various currents arise. That process creates a primal thought, and, most necessarily, the primal thought would have a will. When we say “God’s will”, it is true, but it is not a direct will of the impersonal God; it is the will of the manifestation, and the totality of that manifestation is the personal God and, therefore, what we worship is the personal God that willed. Will could never stay apart from thought, for wherever there is a will, there is a direction of energy and that very energy, that very direction is thought. So, the primal mind produced the primal will, and the primal will produced primal thought. That is where thought began. It goes right back to the Godhead. BEHIND THE SYMBOLISM IN THE SCRIPTURES IS DEEP MEANING Further condensations take place. This very well formed what creation is. When the Scriptures say that God created the universe in seven days, six days, it is true, but it has not been adequately understood. It could have been six seconds, as these cosmic explosions prove, where entire universes collapse within a matter of seconds and from which entire universes are recreated in a matter of seconds. So, all these things we read in the Scriptures are necessarily symbolic. But behind the symbolism, there is deep thought, deep meaning. When I say this universe, I mean our universe, for there are millions and millions and billions of universes that at this very moment are collapsing, and others are being recreated. So, in the entire scheme of things which is infinite, all these billions of universes are finding creation, and they are sustained, and then they are dissolved. The Hindus believe in the same thing; it is very symbolic as Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the dissolver. This process is taking place; it is going on all the time, even in the human body, where cells are being created and serve their purpose, are preserved for a while and then dissolved. This is the scheme of creation. But underlying this creation, that primal will still exist, and that primal will, which could also be called Life Force, is forever there to keep on the continuity or the eternity of this universe. ORIGINALLY THERE WAS ONLY ONE THOUGHT; ONE WILL When this incredible explosion took place, these particles could duplicate and replicate themselves and further intermingled with other particles, and there were a lot of permutations. Like that, the process went on for millions of years, and that very primal atom or sub-atomic matter or just that concretised will, now fragmented by itself, by the process of creation, for that very well recreates itself too. In that explosion of innovation and re-creation, it becomes fragmented. So here you have the individual sub-atomic particles which go through the process of the plant kingdom, animal kingdom and then, at last, we come to man. We say man is made in the image of God because man has the mechanism built in him to cognise that will or the primal thought, which is why we do meditation and spiritual practices. Because of the experiences that man has gone through, through this long process of evolution, thoughts differ from man to man. In this process of evolution, with the various individual experiences gained, man’s mind has become conditioned, and it is the very conditioning that has taken the primal thought or will. Man started interpreting it according to his conditioned mind. Initially, there was only one thought, the one will, like the sun reflected in millions of bubbles in this large pond of the universe. Every thought you think, be it positive or negative, is still propelled and still contains within itself the essence of that Divinity, that primal will. That is the true nature of thought, although, for each individual, the processes differ. Suppose something is happening, and you have five witnesses to describe the happening. In that case, each one will give his interpretation, and the interpretations might even be contrary to each other because of these various experiences man has gained, so he is interpreting through his experiences. In reality, the mind is a collection of all the impressions or samskaras, all the impressions gained over many lifetimes, and these impressions can only be expressed as thought.