“It should be understood that all species of life, O son of Kunti, are made possible by birth in this material nature, and that I am the seed-giving father.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 14.4)

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सर्व-योनिषु कौन्तेय
मूर्तयः सम्भवन्ति याः
तासां ब्रह्म महद् योनिर्
अहं बीज-प्रदः पिता

sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya
mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
tāsāṁ brahma mahad yonir
ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā

We have the case of a seed. It is from an avocado. Upon cutting open a ripe avocado, for preparing a dip to be served with potato chips, we find a massive pit inside. This is actually a seed, though it could be mistaken for a wooden ball of sorts. Something for the children to play with. Something to substitute for the baseball that went missing in the woods in the backyard.

The reality is that this pit, which is a seed, comes preconfigured. It is like the end-product rolling off an assembly line of a factory. The seed has passed all quality control tests. Based on avocado consumption in the local area, there are too many of these seeds to count. The majority could be thrown away, but there would still be plenty of trees producing avocadoes.

That one seed has such a precise configuration that the outcome also has exact specifications. The seed will not produce tomatoes. It will not grow potatoes or bananas. That one seed, of a specific size and shape, has the potential to produce a tree that yields many avocadoes.

This outcome is expected. Simply plant the seed in proper soil, with sufficient sunlight and water, and wait for the outcome to manifest. The very blossoming of plants and flowers on trees is one way to understand the appropriate delivery of reactions to behavior that we consider bad or ghastly, ghoram.

अवश्यं लभते जन्तुः फलं पापस्य कर्मणः
घोरं पर्यागते काले द्रुमाः पुष्पमिवार्तवम्

avaśyaṃ labhate jantuḥ phalaṃ pāpasya karmaṇaḥ
ghoraṃ paryāgate kāle drumāḥ puṣpamivārtavam

“Just as a tree starts to blossom during the proper season, so the doer of sinful deeds inevitably reaps the horrible fruit of their actions at the appropriate time.” (Lord Rama speaking to Khara, Valmiki Ramayana, Aranya Kand, 29.8)

This one example, of the perfectness of the avocado seed, with amazing intelligence automatically embedded, eviscerates any sophistry or foolish speculation claiming that there is no God. If the outcome is known, then the cause must be known. If the outcome has intelligence, then the cause has intelligence. If the outcome has an exact specification, then the cause did something to create that specification.

If there were no God, then the flowers would be the product of chance. Chemicals would randomly collide to create this and other universes. There would be no concept of a sun, since randomness does not produce individuality and exceptionality. If chance produced one sun, then the same chance could produce thousands of suns, where one is equally as brilliant as the next.

Bhagavad-gita, and Vedic culture as a whole, provides insight into the cause. There is something like an unmanifest material substance. Known as the pradhana, we can think of it like a massive ball of clay. The ball has the potential for distinctions, in the form of sculptures and particles scattering. In the way of the artist, the original and fully potent source of everything glances over the pradhana to produce the variegatedness that we witness today.

That source is like the seed-giving father. He impregnates the prakriti. There are expansions of Himself, amshas, who take up temporary residence in different aspects of this collective prakriti. These residences are known visibly as the different species, of which there are 8,400,000 varieties. The amshas are like small versions of the source, who is Almighty. They have the intelligence to make the machine of the localized prakriti operate and function in a way that is understandable, predictable, and reliable, to the extent that time allows.

ईश्वरः सर्व-भूतानां
हृद्-देशे ऽर्जुन तिष्ठति
भ्रामयन् सर्व-भूतानि
यन्त्रारूढानि मायया

īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
hṛd-deśe ‘rjuna tiṣṭhati
bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni
yantrārūḍhāni māyayā

“The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 18.61)

Then where is the question of randomness? What sane person would attribute any of this to chance? Where is the issue of lack of identification? We know that there is an original giver of the seed. We know that He is higher in the sense of authority. He is the original cause. In Sanskrit this is described as sarva karana-karanam.

If a person is intent on disproving the concept of a Supreme Controller [ishvara], have them grow tomatoes using the seed of a different plant. After all, the seed is inanimate. It cannot do anything on its own. There is no special substance within that anyone can detect. If one seed produces one kind of plant, why should it not be able to produce a different kind? That would align with the law of randomness.

The truth is that there is intelligence, at the very source, running through the course of the duration of the manifest world. That world appears and disappears over and over, in the proper understanding of time that is the unit known as a kalpa. The one truth is the basis of all truths, and so the wise person chooses to study that truth at a priority above all others.

मत्तः परतरं नान्यत्
किञ्चिद् अस्ति धनञ्जय
मयि सर्वम् इदं प्रोतं
सूत्रे मणि-गणा इव

mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat
kiñcid asti dhanañjaya
mayi sarvam idaṁ protaṁ
sūtre maṇi-gaṇā iva

“O conquerer of wealth [Arjuna], there is no Truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 7.7)

In Closing:

If the result already known,
Then cause cannot be unknown.

If with configuration precise,
Like reliable and working device.

Then intelligence at the source,
Never from randomness course.

Foundational understanding to construct,
That this world from Krishna to instruct.

Categories: science

Tags: dailyprompt, gardening, poem, poems, poetry, science, seeds