I remember telling my grandchildren about how the universe was formed. I heard that story from my grandma. In the beginning the heaven and the earth were one. The entire universe was one cosmic egg. It stayed like that for eighteen thousand years. Then with the union of yin and yang a giant creature called Pangu came to life. It was huge and strong. Was hairy and had horns on his head. One day Pangu felt really suffocated in that egg so he broke it apart. The upper part of the egg became the sky (yang) and the lower part became the earth (yin). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. This task took eighteen thousand years; with each day the sky grew ten feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In these eighteen thousand years Pangu became a great giant. When Pangu died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the rolling thunder. His body and limbs turned to five big mountains and his blood formed the roaring water that created the rivers, lakes, seas and oceans. His veins became far-stretching roads and his muscles fertile land. His sweat flowed like the good rain and sweet dew that nurtured all things on earth. My grand dad added that his tears flowed to make rivers and radiance of his eyes turned into thunder and lighting. When he was happy the sun shone, but when he was angry black clouds gathered in the sky. The fleas and lice (parasites) on his body became the ancestors of mankind.
As a kid, I used to be amazed to know that my ancestors were fleas and parasites. But I believed in it. I believed in everything that my grandma used to tell me. Everything around me was governed by yin and yang and this story was the ultimate truth behind the duality that existed in my world then.
Its strange how our beliefs change with time. Today, I am sitting in front of my computer with an image of milky way on one window, an article about star dust to start dust on another, and a talk by Lawrence cross about myths being rubbish on the third. Though I do not believe in what I once held sacred but at no point can I deny the fact that that was my universe then, and it was as true for me as my universe today is. It is just a different time where I have a different language to articulate my logic – a different institution to answer my questions. I just function like million others who look for answers and just place their faith in whoever seems to have an answer to this incomprehensible phenomenon. I believe that as I live through these years there will come a time when I will look back at how I perceive universe today, smile and sit back to wait for many more theories to come my way.
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