II. The
wonders of cyclic change on earth
The second thing which has appealed to me
most in science is the endless cycle between life and death and the equilibrium
exists between them. When a candle burns it is soon consumed, but my science
master told me that the candle is not lost, it has merely changed its form and
has become gaseous, carbonic acid gas, as we call it. I could not believe, but
the teacher soon convinced me by carrying the resultant gas into colourless
lime-water which became milky showing that something has come in, and I
realised how things may change their form and yet exist. The cyclic change that
begins here is continued; for the plants devour that gas that we exhale
producing flower and fruit and when they die, they leave for us wood and coal
which we burn to warm ourselves and thus the cycle is completed from day to
day, to the endless time. Thus as a school boy, I learnt that nothing is lost, it may change form but
the sum-total of matter in creation remains the same, unaltered.
This is the law of conservation of
matter which may be called the very backbone of science. Today science has gone
a little further and it has demolished the boundary between matter and energy,
for matter is now found to be pent-up energy. Not that this conclusion is very
strange, for many years it was known that when radium disintegrates it emits
enormous energy. But this process was spontaneous and could not be influenced
one way or the other. But now in the Cavendish laboratory matter has been matter
has been artificially blasted and transmuted by the application of high voltage
electricity and the dreams of old chemists, the alchemists, as we call them are
well high within the domain of practical politics. Interesting as are such
transmutations, the most wonderful of such observations is the conclusion that
matter is nothing but energy (electricity) neutralized, positive protons
overridden by negative electrons, and that each grain of matter represents a
definite, corresponding amount of inner atomic energy. To put it into simple
language matter has been discovered and re-discovered; it is pent-up energy,
and once more we find that the sum total of energy in the universe remains the
same whatever the changes it undergoes. The old conception of conservation of
matter comes back to us in a new garb i.e., conservation of energy, which is
the latest conclusion of Science and may be called its high water-mark. Now,
this unaltered sum-total of energy is a very significant proposition and if
only we had the eyes to see we will find that it means and can mean only one
thing viz; that behind the flux of
matter, there is one Invisible Power or Energy; the Nirankar, as we call It,
which ever remains the same undisturbed, unaltered, undiminished! You may call
this Being as Energy, for that is one of His aspects, but as we go further I
will tell you why we should not call Him merely as Energy. We can no more call
Him merely as Energy then we can call sun as sphere, for the sun is a sphere
plus light, heat and energy. Whatever, the avenue we approach our Father, The
Nirnakar, the fact remains that He is there. Science cannot deny Him, for as
shown above its laws and conclusions rather point to the unerring existence of
the supreme Being who guarantees the validity of the laws. This Law of Conservation
of Energy is, to my mind one of the strongest arguments of the existence of
God. I will you, youngmen, to take my advice to heart and when you wash the
test-tube, or handle the induction coil in the laboratory remember that He is
there with you, your hidden Instructor. Were He not there, your X-rays, and
your cosmic rays would die of mere inanity, your broad-casting programme will
go amiss, your Messages in the telephone and telegraph wires would die out of
sheer chaos, and your Mazda Lamps would not twinkle, the dynamo in the
Rolls-Royce car could cool down despite all the money spent on it and that
prime-Dynamo, the sun would heat you no longer for there would be no ether to
transmit its rays, and the nebular mist which makes star would dissolve; no more
stars would be born, there would be no earth, no moon, no sun, — nothing! Believe,
me youngmen, all this is true, terribly true. And conversely, I tell you, with
all the strength at my command that all that is on this earth and on the
millions of stars and earths in the out-spread space, is here because of Him,
because of that Formless One, who though formless, yet is. He playeth the
hide-and-seek with us so that we may discover Him and relish the play!
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