Cosmological Myths

COSMOLOGICAL MYTHS

With the further evolution of the human spirit, there came a need to explain the world around us. There came the necessity to explain how the world and all the creatures within it was created. These explanations could only conform to the horizon and the understanding of the particular people. The spiritual maturity of a particular people would determine the nature of the stories. Every group of people have their creation-stories and it is a conscious attempt motivated by the developing spirit to try to want to explain the world it sees around it. It is one of the higher developmental stages of the human spirits and it is indeed a sign of self-consciousness.

At this stage, he is able to see himself as distinct from his environment and also able to perceive powers which are greater than himself. He recognises himself as not being the Creator either of himself or his environment. That indeed is a very important recognition. It is peculiar that no human society has ever attributed the existence of Creation to itself but always to a particular deity which they know and worship. It is always this deity who creates the world and everything therein. There is always a beginning and for many groups there is an end to the world also. Variations exists in these accounts depending on the power of comprehension of the people.

The most advanced story is that of the Jews as given in Genesis. They have been able by virtue of their spiritual maturity receive such tidings of the existence of the Creator. They had been able to go beyond the other peoples in not attributing Creation, in that particular stage having gone beyond this, to the many 'gods' which the other peoples still did at that time. In fact with their religion they were over a thousand years ahead of many other peoples. The Creation story of the Jews as described in the Bible has already been examined, therefore we will examine the creation stories of other peoples to see how close they had come to the recognition of the real happening.

In Scandinavian Mythology, we had a period of primeval chaos, followed by the creation of giants, and 'gods' and finally mankind. "There was the great world tree 'Yggdrasil', which reached all time and space but was perpetually under attack by 'Nidhogg', the evil serpent. The fountain of 'Mimir', source of hidden wisdom, lay hidden under one of the roots of the tree". This story like that of the Jews recognised the negative role of the serpent. In Greek Mythology, we have what is called 'Chaos', which generated the solid mass of the earth from which arose the heaven. Mother earth and father heaven which were personified by Gaea and her husband Uranus were the parents of the first creatures of the universe. This indeed is very far away from the other two creation stories which showed that these had advanced further in their recognition.

What came after the era of the Greek Mythology in Greece itself was very interesting in the work of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. These people, especially Socrates believed that each individual had the moral responsibility to examine matters for himself, that each individual had the ability to decide to choose between good and evil. These were very advanced recognitions which if it had been allowed to take root would have helped many to higher spiritual recognition. These ideas were not allowed to take root as strife and war overtook the country and prevented the growth of what would have been a very fruitful step. In their work especially that of Socrates, they for the first time tried to make human beings aware of their responsibility before the Laws of God and the fact we were the ones who had to use our free wills to choose our paths.

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