I. Overture
SPK - Hi Dad, how was your cruise to Antartica?
RVK - excellent. I have been invited back by the cruise to lecture as well.
SPK - oh?
RVK - yeah. I get to 'entertain' the guests on the cruise with a lecture on lasers, and in turn the cruise line sponsors me and I get to travel around the world free.
SPK - woah! sign me up for this gig.
RVK - you need some more grey hair. What do you want to talk about today?
SPK - nothing.
RVK - that's unusual. You usually rattle around like a half-empty pitcher.
SPK - I mean I want to talk about nothing.
RVK - ah. I knew you were up to something. Say more
II. Deep space
SPK - I read something interesting about Astranouts on the moon-
missions.
RVK - very interesting. Do you know that your brother was born when
the first Apollo mission successfully circled the moon.
SPK - yup, I was reading about the astronaut left behind in the space
capsule while the other two left the space capsule to land on the
moon collect samples and return.
RVK - yeah, one person stayed behind to communicate with both base
station back home and the astronauts on the moom
SPK - well, it turns out that the two astronauts on the moon were were very busy with mission critical actions and so they were aborbed in their work. On the other hand, the astronaut left behind had lot of spare time to himself and was alone and kept staring into the deep dark space.
RVK - and staring into nothingness! I see where you are going with this. So what happened?
SPK - these particular astronauts came back deeply psychologically impacted about how lonely it is up in the universe and fundamentally altered their perception of who we are and what our place is as not
just the human race, but life as such as we know it.
RVK - deep space and nothingness. Lets imagine you are in a space ship at the outer edge of our solar system. What is there? There is no up or down left or right. Very disorienting.
SPK - So the question is - at the point where there is nothing, is there anything?
RVK - I get the sense that our conversation is about to take a turn.
III. No-thing
SPK - In Indian literature, there is one penetrating description on nothingness. A verse of the Mandukya Upanisad, which I believe is the 'nucleus'. i.e. no metaphors, no signs, rather just a plain
description of 'what it is'.
RVK - However, peculiarly, the description really is 'what it is not'. The objective I believe, is to turn upside down our current categories of knowledge, so that one can really 'see'. Hence - neti, neti or adhi kaadhu...idhi kaadhu (in Telugu)
SPK - Here is the verse
Neither inward-turned nor outward-turned consciousness, nor the two together;
Not an undifferentiated mass of consciousness; neither knowing, nor unknowing;
Invisible, ineffable, intangible, devoid of characteristics, inconceivable, indefinable,
Its sole essence being the consciousness of its own Self; the coming to rest of all relative existence;
Utterly quiet; peaceful; blissful; without a second:
That is known as the fourth quarter:This is the Atman, the Self;
This is to be realized.
RVK: I have been giving some thought to the " nothingness ". It is way beyond any form of matter. For example, even at absolute zero, the elctrons keep going round. Which means, there is still something
in terms of matter and there is a finality to it and there is "something" to it. But if we go in to deep space, where we do not know where it begins, where it ends or even what it is ! But the interesting thing which we can not explain is, what is it's relation to the " some thing " and how this transition takes place. We say
black holes swallow matter. So what happens to this matter? Does it go back to nothingness? Similarly, we say Quazars, continuously produce radiation. Does it also come from nothingness? Is there a
relation or correlation between the two?
SPK: if you ponder the question, why does something come from 'nothing', as we have been discussing, there are several reasons you can give. The Indian mind, says it is play - Lila. So I explored what is meant by Lila. There are differences on how a human should react to awareness of Lila. Some emphasize a joyful embrace of all aspects of life ("intentional acceptance") while maintaining distinction from the Supreme, while others advocate striving for oneness with the Supreme. Lila is an important idea and has been used
by modern writers like Stephen Nachmanovitch, Fritjof Capra, Alan Watts and Robert M. Pirsig.
RVK - Heinrich Zimmer and Joseph Campbell have written that we can both visualize and experience life and the universe as the revelation of that Supreme Divine Force with which he is in love, the all-
comprehensive Divine Being in its cosmic aspect of playful, aimless display (lila) - which precipitates pain as well as joy, but in its bliss transcends them both.
SPK: Continuing on the topic of nothingness to somethingness to playfulness; I wanted to touch upon in our rumination, what is it then that causes us to only intellectually appreciate this in terms of reason and logic and not something that we can see and experience (darshan) i.e why don't we view the universe as bursts of energy everywhere, from the flowers, to the trees, to the sun, to all matter and to all life.
IV. Some-thing
RVK - All of the Universe is vibrating atoms, molecules in motion, in a gigantic playful dance of energy (tandava) playful like the annual fireworks.
SPK - Here is a verse from the Gita seems to be pertinent.
Like smoke covers fire
Like dirt covers a mirror
Like the embryo covers the fetus
'Desire' covers knowledge
RVK - This verse points to desire (as Gautama Buddha did) as the root of inability to see. I believe that this is not to be misunderstood to mean that I should not eat a sweet, if I desire a sweet. Rather, recognize that one desires to eat a sweet and not fuss about it, but make sure that you keep the 'desire for sweet' in its place, and continue looking deep into space (metaphorically speaking) to see how all this lila is playing out in the universe.
SPK - So here, it seems to me that the guidance is that the heart and the eye can participate with the intellect in perceive the universe as a gigantic playful dance of energy, so long as you are willing to see past your 'local' desire' and letting go of yourself as part of the larger dance.
RVK: This verse is of course the most important. All the explanations are fine. But we can never answer one question. That is " why" . Depending on the intellectual capability and training and environment, all great people have tried to interpret the leela as well as nothingness. But when it comes to why does this happen, the answer is always a silence. Further, each person looks at this great mystery, in his or her perspective. No two can perceive it in the same way. May be it is like the seven blind men and the elephant. The
ultimate reality may be much different from what we perceive. Also, there is no verification for this elusive reality. It is again like the binding force that holds the protons and neutrons together. What kind of force is this ? Why does it exist ? Where does this come from ? No one can really answer. Again, there are many mysteries, to which we can probably give and answer to "How", but not "why".
SPK: Continuing on the thought of how does one 'perceive nothing' for what it really is, there is a train of thought around effort (abhyasa). Here are two verses from the Gita that illustrate this.
- "With sustained effort you can indeed see the the real truth that illuminates"
- "Just as the flame without breeze burns brightly, the mind can perceive the truth when undisturbed"
RVK - Well, you need sustained effort, focus and practice to solve any kind of problem after all, leave along the problem of nothingness and being!
V. So What?
SPK - I thought I would end this series of back and forth that started with our discussion of nothingness. In particular, the 2nd astronaut, who stares into deep space, while the others are busy fixing things, is a an apt image for someone who is suddenly awestruck by the immensity of this nothingness.
RVK - Say that we get to the unified principle; the reality behind the cloak / curtain; then what? More importantly, so what? In human affairs, it is indeed the case that most of us have feet of clay; hence the aphorism, 'familiarity breeds contempt'. So we get close to reality, we actually see it, as it is meant to be seen...so what? What is the prize? Why do we seek to know the truth - is it because we can't help ourselves? or is because we are lost and are trying to find our way home? I suppose this is an important question, perhaps even a starting point. For if we don't know the prize, why bother.
SPK - Here the best description I have ever read is in the second chapter of the Taittiriyopanisad
Let us suppose there is a youth, a noble youth In prime of age, most swift and alert
Perfectly whole and resolute Most vigorous and of good learning And that to him belongs the entire earth laden with all riches. We have in this person 'ONE' unit of human joy.
The sage who is full of revelation enjoys a joy that is 100*100*100*100*100*100*100 *100 = (10^16) units of joy compared to the joy of the youth above.
RVK - I believe this is a magnificent passage. The seer understood that we humans always measure and quantify. How much do you have? How much do I have? So he took the entire list of what we value in
our society - youth, family, fame, health and riches - and called that one unit of happiness. And then went on to say, if you do understand and see what the totality of reality is, then that joy is 10^16 of the joy that you can possibly imagine having.
SPK - So if I were to summarize the logical train of thought that we have been carrying over the past couple of weeks, it seems to be the following:
1. If you look carefully, everything is actually nothing.
2. If you look even more carefully, nothing is actually everything.
3. Nothing and everything inter-play with each other in a giant cosmic fireworks.
4. What stops you from actually seeing this, beyond intellectual speculation, is one's own desire.
5. Motivation, Practice, undisturbed concentration is needed for this journey.
6. The end-game is an experience of pure, limitless (10^16) units of joy, beyond our best imagined state of happiness.
RVK - (silence)
SPK - Dad?
RVK - (silence)
SPK - Dad?
RVK - I just wanted to test you. Silence is also nothingness, you know.
SPK - (silence ....realizing two can engage in this lila)
SPK - Hi Dad, how was your cruise to Antartica?
RVK - excellent. I have been invited back by the cruise to lecture as well.
SPK - oh?
RVK - yeah. I get to 'entertain' the guests on the cruise with a lecture on lasers, and in turn the cruise line sponsors me and I get to travel around the world free.
SPK - woah! sign me up for this gig.
RVK - you need some more grey hair. What do you want to talk about today?
SPK - nothing.
RVK - that's unusual. You usually rattle around like a half-empty pitcher.
SPK - I mean I want to talk about nothing.
RVK - ah. I knew you were up to something. Say more
II. Deep space
missions.
RVK - very interesting. Do you know that your brother was born when
the first Apollo mission successfully circled the moon.
SPK - yup, I was reading about the astronaut left behind in the space
capsule while the other two left the space capsule to land on the
moon collect samples and return.
RVK - yeah, one person stayed behind to communicate with both base
station back home and the astronauts on the moom
SPK - well, it turns out that the two astronauts on the moon were were very busy with mission critical actions and so they were aborbed in their work. On the other hand, the astronaut left behind had lot of spare time to himself and was alone and kept staring into the deep dark space.
RVK - and staring into nothingness! I see where you are going with this. So what happened?
SPK - these particular astronauts came back deeply psychologically impacted about how lonely it is up in the universe and fundamentally altered their perception of who we are and what our place is as not
just the human race, but life as such as we know it.
RVK - deep space and nothingness. Lets imagine you are in a space ship at the outer edge of our solar system. What is there? There is no up or down left or right. Very disorienting.
SPK - So the question is - at the point where there is nothing, is there anything?
RVK - I get the sense that our conversation is about to take a turn.
III. No-thing
SPK - In Indian literature, there is one penetrating description on nothingness. A verse of the Mandukya Upanisad, which I believe is the 'nucleus'. i.e. no metaphors, no signs, rather just a plain
description of 'what it is'.
RVK - However, peculiarly, the description really is 'what it is not'. The objective I believe, is to turn upside down our current categories of knowledge, so that one can really 'see'. Hence - neti, neti or adhi kaadhu...idhi kaadhu (in Telugu)
SPK - Here is the verse
Neither inward-turned nor outward-turned consciousness, nor the two together;
Not an undifferentiated mass of consciousness; neither knowing, nor unknowing;
Invisible, ineffable, intangible, devoid of characteristics, inconceivable, indefinable,
Its sole essence being the consciousness of its own Self; the coming to rest of all relative existence;
Utterly quiet; peaceful; blissful; without a second:
That is known as the fourth quarter:This is the Atman, the Self;
This is to be realized.
RVK: I have been giving some thought to the " nothingness ". It is way beyond any form of matter. For example, even at absolute zero, the elctrons keep going round. Which means, there is still something
in terms of matter and there is a finality to it and there is "something" to it. But if we go in to deep space, where we do not know where it begins, where it ends or even what it is ! But the interesting thing which we can not explain is, what is it's relation to the " some thing " and how this transition takes place. We say
black holes swallow matter. So what happens to this matter? Does it go back to nothingness? Similarly, we say Quazars, continuously produce radiation. Does it also come from nothingness? Is there a
relation or correlation between the two?
SPK: if you ponder the question, why does something come from 'nothing', as we have been discussing, there are several reasons you can give. The Indian mind, says it is play - Lila. So I explored what is meant by Lila. There are differences on how a human should react to awareness of Lila. Some emphasize a joyful embrace of all aspects of life ("intentional acceptance") while maintaining distinction from the Supreme, while others advocate striving for oneness with the Supreme. Lila is an important idea and has been used
by modern writers like Stephen Nachmanovitch, Fritjof Capra, Alan Watts and Robert M. Pirsig.
RVK - Heinrich Zimmer and Joseph Campbell have written that we can both visualize and experience life and the universe as the revelation of that Supreme Divine Force with which he is in love, the all-
comprehensive Divine Being in its cosmic aspect of playful, aimless display (lila) - which precipitates pain as well as joy, but in its bliss transcends them both.
SPK: Continuing on the topic of nothingness to somethingness to playfulness; I wanted to touch upon in our rumination, what is it then that causes us to only intellectually appreciate this in terms of reason and logic and not something that we can see and experience (darshan) i.e why don't we view the universe as bursts of energy everywhere, from the flowers, to the trees, to the sun, to all matter and to all life.
IV. Some-thing
RVK - All of the Universe is vibrating atoms, molecules in motion, in a gigantic playful dance of energy (tandava) playful like the annual fireworks.
SPK - Here is a verse from the Gita seems to be pertinent.
Like smoke covers fire
Like dirt covers a mirror
Like the embryo covers the fetus
'Desire' covers knowledge
RVK - This verse points to desire (as Gautama Buddha did) as the root of inability to see. I believe that this is not to be misunderstood to mean that I should not eat a sweet, if I desire a sweet. Rather, recognize that one desires to eat a sweet and not fuss about it, but make sure that you keep the 'desire for sweet' in its place, and continue looking deep into space (metaphorically speaking) to see how all this lila is playing out in the universe.
SPK - So here, it seems to me that the guidance is that the heart and the eye can participate with the intellect in perceive the universe as a gigantic playful dance of energy, so long as you are willing to see past your 'local' desire' and letting go of yourself as part of the larger dance.
RVK: This verse is of course the most important. All the explanations are fine. But we can never answer one question. That is " why" . Depending on the intellectual capability and training and environment, all great people have tried to interpret the leela as well as nothingness. But when it comes to why does this happen, the answer is always a silence. Further, each person looks at this great mystery, in his or her perspective. No two can perceive it in the same way. May be it is like the seven blind men and the elephant. The
ultimate reality may be much different from what we perceive. Also, there is no verification for this elusive reality. It is again like the binding force that holds the protons and neutrons together. What kind of force is this ? Why does it exist ? Where does this come from ? No one can really answer. Again, there are many mysteries, to which we can probably give and answer to "How", but not "why".
SPK: Continuing on the thought of how does one 'perceive nothing' for what it really is, there is a train of thought around effort (abhyasa). Here are two verses from the Gita that illustrate this.
- "With sustained effort you can indeed see the the real truth that illuminates"
- "Just as the flame without breeze burns brightly, the mind can perceive the truth when undisturbed"
RVK - Well, you need sustained effort, focus and practice to solve any kind of problem after all, leave along the problem of nothingness and being!
V. So What?
SPK - I thought I would end this series of back and forth that started with our discussion of nothingness. In particular, the 2nd astronaut, who stares into deep space, while the others are busy fixing things, is a an apt image for someone who is suddenly awestruck by the immensity of this nothingness.
RVK - Say that we get to the unified principle; the reality behind the cloak / curtain; then what? More importantly, so what? In human affairs, it is indeed the case that most of us have feet of clay; hence the aphorism, 'familiarity breeds contempt'. So we get close to reality, we actually see it, as it is meant to be seen...so what? What is the prize? Why do we seek to know the truth - is it because we can't help ourselves? or is because we are lost and are trying to find our way home? I suppose this is an important question, perhaps even a starting point. For if we don't know the prize, why bother.
SPK - Here the best description I have ever read is in the second chapter of the Taittiriyopanisad
Let us suppose there is a youth, a noble youth In prime of age, most swift and alert
Perfectly whole and resolute Most vigorous and of good learning And that to him belongs the entire earth laden with all riches. We have in this person 'ONE' unit of human joy.
The sage who is full of revelation enjoys a joy that is 100*100*100*100*100*100*100 *100 = (10^16) units of joy compared to the joy of the youth above.
RVK - I believe this is a magnificent passage. The seer understood that we humans always measure and quantify. How much do you have? How much do I have? So he took the entire list of what we value in
our society - youth, family, fame, health and riches - and called that one unit of happiness. And then went on to say, if you do understand and see what the totality of reality is, then that joy is 10^16 of the joy that you can possibly imagine having.
SPK - So if I were to summarize the logical train of thought that we have been carrying over the past couple of weeks, it seems to be the following:
1. If you look carefully, everything is actually nothing.
2. If you look even more carefully, nothing is actually everything.
3. Nothing and everything inter-play with each other in a giant cosmic fireworks.
4. What stops you from actually seeing this, beyond intellectual speculation, is one's own desire.
5. Motivation, Practice, undisturbed concentration is needed for this journey.
6. The end-game is an experience of pure, limitless (10^16) units of joy, beyond our best imagined state of happiness.
RVK - (silence)
SPK - Dad?
RVK - (silence)
SPK - Dad?
RVK - I just wanted to test you. Silence is also nothingness, you know.
SPK - (silence ....realizing two can engage in this lila)
1 comment:
Review:
Your dialogue, Nothingness and Being, is a remarkable interplay of intellect, philosophy, and familial warmth. It is both an inquiry into the cosmos and an intimate father-son exchange—blending physics, metaphysics, and humor with effortless grace. The conversation begins with the tangible—a cruise lecture, an astronaut staring into deep space—but soon expands into the vastness of nothingness itself, mirroring the structure of a philosophical quest. The metaphor of the astronaut, left alone to confront the void, serves as a powerful image for anyone who dares to reflect on existence rather than remain occupied with mission-critical tasks.
The dialogue’s style echoes classical Socratic exchanges, yet retains an informality that makes it deeply personal. It is structured like a musical piece, progressing from an opening theme to an intricate development and ending in a profound silence that becomes the ultimate answer to the questions posed. The juxtaposition of physics and Vedanta, of black holes and Upanishadic negation (neti, neti), showcases the beauty of intellectual curiosity unbound by disciplinary constraints. The discussion of Lila—the playful dance of existence—adds an essential dimension, reframing cosmic mystery not as a puzzle to solve, but as an experience to embrace.
The thematic depth is striking: the tension between nothing and something, the veil of desire obscuring reality, the paradox of seeking truth while questioning its purpose. Your father’s pointed so what? is a necessary provocation—reminding us that the ultimate prize of knowledge may not be certainty, but joy. The invocation of the Taittiriya Upanishad offers a poetic resolution: the discovery of an immeasurable, radiant happiness beyond human comprehension.
Beyond its intellectual richness, the dialogue captures something rare—the ability to think seriously without taking oneself too seriously. The humor, the teasing, and the closing silence all reinforce the very idea at the heart of Lila: that reality is a cosmic play, and those who engage with it do so best when they embrace both rigor and playfulness. This is not just a philosophical inquiry; it is a lived experience, an enactment of wonder, love, and curiosity between a father and son.
May your future dialogues continue this tradition—pushing boundaries, exploring contradictions, and, perhaps most importantly, leaving space for silence.
Three Takeaways
1. Intellectual inquiry is enriched by playfulness – The conversation blends humor with profound ideas, showing that exploration of truth need not be solemn.
2. Different disciplines provide complementary insights – Physics, Indian philosophy, and personal reflection intertwine, revealing deeper perspectives than any one field alone.
3. The ultimate question may not be ‘how’ but ‘why’ – The dialogue highlights that while science can explain mechanisms, the existential why often leads to silence.
Three Questions
1. If the astronaut is our metaphor for existential reflection, what happens when one returns to ‘mission-critical’ tasks—how does this insight translate into daily life?
2. Does the playful nature of Lila suggest that ultimate reality is best approached through experience rather than reason alone?
3. If joy (10^16 units worth!) is the true prize of understanding reality, why do so few seek it seriously? Is it because desire obscures, or because we are distracted by smaller joys?
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