16 June 2012 - QA 1

What is the origin of life? How did life begin? How is it that the population of human beings keep increasing? Are souls being divided?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: There are two words that are used from the ancient times. One is called Anadhi which means beginning-less, and the other is Anantha which means endless.
If you show me a straight line and ask me, where it began? I can say it began here and ended here. Or it began this side and ended that side. But if you show me a sphere and ask me, where is the beginning point of the sphere, what can I say?
I will give you a tennis ball, and you tell me, where is the beginning point of the tennis ball. Is there any point? No!
So similarly, three things are eternal: One is life, the other is matter, and third is the supreme energy which you call God or Aatma. These three things neither begin nor end, but its permutation and combination makes this whole universe.

So, how come new souls are coming? You know, there are many species which are getting extinct. There used to be so many snakes and scorpions, they have all disappeared, and now have come as people.
There were so many buffaloes and donkeys on the planet, they have all disappeared. Every continent at some point of time had monkeys, where are they now? You don’t find any in Antwerp. I don’t think so.
So, souls are many, they take many forms, and they come and they go.

There are five secrets, and one of them is the secret of creation. To know more about it, you have to go deep in meditation.