“Nothing can be created from nothing.”

The quotation is attributed to Lucretius – a Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, but many philosophers of the materialistic school have voiced this idea over the ages. Its interpretation depends on how one defines the word nothing. In a materialistic sense it implies the absence of any object that can be perceived. In this case the existence or reality of a thing is tied to perception.

Also this statement is generally made in the context of the origin of the universe when one tries to trace back the cause and effect relationship. The causation principle is based on the concept of time as it assumes that cause precedes effect. But time and space exist only in the universe; before the origin of the universe there is no time and space. In fact it becomes meaningless to talk about before and after in a timeless state.

When we use the word nothing in a material sense the presence of space is also implicit there. If there is no space the words presence and absence also become meaningless like before and after. In order to get a clear understanding of nothing one has to go beyond space and time. But that is very difficult to do even conceptually.

In a metaphysical sense the idea of the creation is tied to the concept of reality and existence. What is real can never cease to exist and what is unreal cannot ever exist in the sense of being real. If there is a reality behind the universe, it cannot disappear with the universe; it has to exist even if it is wrapped up in ‘nothingness’. It is in this sense that the ancient philosophies state: “Nothing is everything”. This idea is perhaps better expressed if the word void is used instead of nothingness. The Ultimate Reality is contained in the void and has the entire creation in a latent form just as a tiny seed contains the huge tree.

Quantum physics has essentially come to the same viewpoint in the case of quantum void. This void is not nothingness but full of cosmic energy spontaneously transforming itself into virtual particles and back. This is a state where space and time have not completely vanished but are at the smallest scale. We can consider this state as one approaching zero space-time. The energy filling the ultimate void is then the same cosmic energy that can be identified with universal consciousness.

So what was termed ‘nothing’ is consciousness that is the ultimate source of creation. In that sense ‘nothing’ indeed is ‘everything’.

The author's website CosmosEbooks has ebooks and articles on philosophy, science, and self-development.

‘Love Is A Many Splendored Thing’ is one of the most poignant movies I have ever seen. At the time (which was several decades ago) the real significance of the title did not register with me. Now after all these years it has dawned on me that it was not just a movie title but also the statement of a universal truth. Love is such a common word. Everyone uses it in some context or other; but do we really understand what love is? To put it more bluntly, can we ever understand love? Understanding is always of the mind and in its true sense love transcends mind.

The graphic representation of this transcendence is the practice of using the heart symbol in the context of love. But the significance of this symbolism is lost in its commercialization. The marketing of products related to the observance of Valentine’s day is a perfect example of exploitation of the symbol.

In the normal usage of the word love there is an inherent tendency to associate it with an object. But love is a sublime emotion that is not directed to anything or anyone. Let us leave that aspect aside for the moment and consider love only from the common human perspective. In this limited usage also it has many, almost infinite hues and colors. There is mother’s love for the child, sister’s love for brother, husband’s love for wife, friend’s love for friend, and so on. The list is as long as that of relationships. Then there is the love for nature, love for music, love for books, love for work, love for country, and so on.

In all these categories of love there is a relationship involved. Whenever love has an object it involves a sense of gratification consciously or unconsciously. Even if it is a selfless love in a worldly sense, the self is involved through the desire for gratification.
True love does not have a motive of any kind.

When love is brought to the physical level it gets to its lowest denominator. It then becomes lust and ceases to be love. Unfortunately that has become the most frequent degeneration of the word. The modern epidemic of broken marriages is a sad reminder of the difference between lust and love. To be an enduring relationship a marriage needs some substantial values to rest on when lust and passion die as they inevitably do.

In this so-called civilized world the societies are based on relationships, which are reciprocal. So love is also considered a reciprocal relationship, but true love does not require reciprocation. It is like sunshine, it is not directed toward anything and does not expect any return.

The author has a website CosmosEbooks devoted mainly to philosophy, science, and self-development.

If we could only avoid three actions, life would be much happier. These are complaining, criticizing, and condemning.

But it is very hard to do.

Complaining is always a result of dissatisfaction with something. The dissatisfaction essentially arises from not being able to accept ‘what is’ and a desire to change it to ‘what should be’. Likes and dislikes are intrinsic not only to human nature but to all living organisms. What we like we want to continue, what we do not we want to change. But there are not many things that we can change. The only thing that we can control is our own attitude to things. The change of attitude takes care of all other changes.

This is a reality which one has to accept to have inner peace. But most of us are unable to do this and we keep complaining. We complain about weather for example knowing full well that we cannot influence nature. At times we complain against luck, which always pertains to things that have already happened and are in the past. In this case also we are full aware that it cannot be changed. As a starting point, though, we can learn to accept the facts and complaining would stop.

Criticizing is also like complaining but it is a more aggressive action. Criticism may be of a view or action toward which we adopt a rather belligerent approach. Most of the time it involves a lack of understanding of the other person’s viewpoint. As long as there are different people there will be different opinions about things. Most of the conflicts in life or in the world arise because of this lack of understanding. In this respect the most serious are the differences in ideologies.

Condemning is criticism in its extreme form. It is a violent reaction to some action by a person or a group. It is usually a response of our conditioning determined by various factors such as social, religious, or even associative. In this case also there is a complete disconnect between the thinking of the condemning and the condemned parties. Each has its own interpretation (or idea) of right and wrong.

As stated earlier it is hard to refrain from resorting to these actions. However, if one starts to realize the futility of these actions in personal as well as social life, it may not be so difficult to make a start – not by making just a resolution but acting on it.

The author has a website CosmosEbooks mainly devoted to philosophy, science, and self-development.

Empty and full are words that are used all the time without paying much attention to their full implication. The state of being empty is emptiness. But what do we mean when we say that something is empty? In a strict sense nothing in this physical world can be empty. What we really mean is that the space we are referring to has not objects that we can perceive. An empty vessel is full of air that is replaced when it is filled with something that can be seen. Even if all the air were to be pumped out of a container (which is impossible in practice) it will have something called space. It may not be perceptible but it is still real; we cannot deny the reality of space and time in the physical universe.

The confusion arises because space is usually identified with emptiness. Emptiness is a property not a thing. A vessel gets its usefulness because of the emptiness associated with it. Without the emptiness it would not be a vessel. This is true for almost everything that we associate with the words empty and full. Emptiness of the vessel disappears with the vessel. Space on the other hand is not associated with anything and exists only in relation to the universe itself. What happens to space (and time) when every thing (matter as a whole) disappears? In Einstein’s words – ‘nothing remains’.

This may suggest the existence of a state that we may call ‘nothingness’. But this term contradicts the modern science view that matter can only transform itself into energy, it cannot vanish. This state is called the quantum void and according to quantum physics this void contains the cosmic energy; virtual particles keep appearing and disappearing into energy all the time. There is no emptiness associated with this state.

So we come to a seemingly contradictory statement that ‘nothing is everything’. When we consider this statement in metaphysical sense then there is no contradiction. In Vedanta and Buddhism the term used to describe this state is shunyata, for which there is no exact English equivalent. This is the state that exists before and after creation, if we assume that the universe has a beginning and an end. We come across the same statement in Taoism also. The discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of a short article. I will be discussed in detail in separate article.

The author's website CosmosEbooks has articles and ebooks on philosophy, science, and self-development.

Everything in this manifested world has duality associated with it. The most basic in this regard is the word existence that has its immediate dual non-existence. This has been pondered over and discussed by man forever. Considering the physical world we find that it is full of the so-called pairs of opposites – small and large, hot and cold, high and low, and so on. On social and esthetic levels we have these opposites in the form of beauty and ugliness, rich and poor, success and failure, pleasure and pain, good and evil etc. In fact all our concepts are defined in terms of opposites – north and south, up and down, inside and outside, top and bottom, and so on.

However, if we look into it closely, we can see that what we call opposites are really two different aspects (or sides) of the same thing. They are all relative terms and one has meaning only in relation to the other. Let us take the example of small and large. Something is large compared to something else that is not so large. The basic concept is that of size and the difference is a matter of degree. There is no defined limit on either end, in fact there are no ends. Theoretically we may say that the ends are zero and infinite size, but neither can be defined. Also there is no clear line of demarcation between small and large.

The same is true for all other pairs of opposites. In the case of social concepts the relationship between the opposites gets more obscure. Here an additional factor comes into play – the conditioning of the mind. The distinction between success and failure or rich and poor depends on one’s state of mind and on the environment in which one lives. Good and evil are understood differently according to one’s background and conditioning. We have a tendency to see these opposites as separate and irreconcilable, which is the root of all conflicts in life and in the world.

We often come across statements like ‘poles apart’. This comes from the concept of polarity but we fail to realize that poles are only two aspects of a unit as a whole. The north and south poles of a magnet may be at the two ends, but they are interconnected; they cannot exist separately. We also hear of things being ‘as different as day and night’. Again it is evident that day and night have meaning only in reference to each other and what is day for one can be night for another.

The normal tendency in man is to ignore the reality that the opposites can be reconciled and considered together. They are like two sides of a coin, they cannot be separated. If we choose one and try to negate the other, the attempt is doomed to fail. This is not merely a philosophical issue. Even modern science has shown that this reconciliation is not only possible but also necessary. Matter and energy, wave and particle, motion and stationary state – these pairs are all dual aspects of one underlying concept.

The author has a website CosmosEbooks featuring ebooks and articles on philosophy, science, and self-development.