英国新闻听力 不同宗教的宇宙起源论（在线收听）

Good morning. This week Radio 4 launched an ambitious new series of A History of Ideas entitled: How did everything begin? And yesterday, Jessica Frazier presented an excellent synopsis of creation stories from several diverse traditions suggesting that many ideas from past millennia may still have relevance today… as we continue to ponder the ultimate big question:what came before the universe? Was there something or nothing?

The ancient Hindu text, Vedanta-sutra starts with this very question; and calls whatever existed before space & time: Brahman.

The big issue, even for cosmologists today, is whether or not that primordial state contained some of the information needed for the appearance and development of the cosmos. And where did that information come from: From chaos? Or, from an infinite regression of information leaking from previous universes.

Vedanta argues that useful information most likely has a sentient source, and that Brahman, is conscious energy in its “purest” state. Physical matter is transformed by the passage of time. But Brahman exists before time and is therefore timeless, eternal.

But, then Vedanta makes an extraordinary claim: that thou art – you are Brahman. The idea is that each soul or atma, the life force that is inhabiting our physical body, the self experiencing all the thoughts & emotions of our mind – is a tiny fragment of Brahman. And therefore, the atma soul, like Brahman, also pre-dates the universe and is eternal.

This distinguishes the Vedantic view from many other religious creation stories. Instead of God alone creating the world, then creating us to live in it; Vedanta suggests that our own consciousness and desires before the dawn of creation influenced how the world was formed and developed. To use a modern organisational phrase, it was a type of co-creation.

And, the big thing that this co-creation accommodates is that problematic feature of conscious beings: freewill. The Vedanta view doesn’t allow us to blame God for the evil or suffering in the world. Rather, it suggests that we (and we have to include all living beings scattered throughout the universe, not just Radio 4 listeners) each effectively voted for a world in which we have the opportunity not to act perfectly, if we don’t want to. So, sometimes we do hurt others; and sometimes we find ourselves on the receiving end of their hurtful actions.

This is a creation story of responsibility. We may have each played an infinitesimal part in the creation of the entire cosmos – but, we have a highly significant role in the life we create and share with others now.

早上好。本周第四频道推出了一个气势恢宏的《思想史》新系列节目：一切是怎样起源的？昨天，Jessica Frazier为大家列出了几个不同传统起源的故事大纲，表明了过去几千年的许多思想仍与今天有着密切的关联。直至今天，我们仍在思考这个终极问题：宇宙形成之前是什么样子的？有什么东西存在还是什么都没有？

古代印度教《吠檀多经》就是以这个问题开始的，称在时间和空间之前存在的一切为“无实质宇宙”。

即使对今天的宇宙学家来说，这也是个大问题：原始形态是否包含对宇宙的外观和发展所需的一些信息。这些信息来自何处：来自混沌？还是来自此前的宇宙泄漏的信息的无限回归？

吠檀多辩称，有用的信息最有可能有感知源，“无实质宇宙”是有意识的能量最纯净的形态。物质是由过去的时间转化而来的。但是无意识宇宙在时间之前就已经存在，因此是无时间限制的，永恒的。

吠檀多作出了特别的断言：你就是无实质宇宙。这个想法是指每一个灵魂，居住在肉体内的生命力量，经历我们思想的所有想法和情绪的自我，是无实质宇宙的一个微小碎片。因此，灵魂就像“无实质宇宙”一样，也存在于宇宙之前，是永恒的。

这使得吠檀多的观点和其他许多宗教的起源论有所区别。与传统的上帝创造了世界，还创造了生活在世界上的人类的观点不同，吠檀多认为，我们的意识和渴望在宇宙形成之前就已经形成，影响了世界形成和发展的方式。用现代组织术语来说，就是某种形式的共同创造。

这种共同创造适应的是有意识的人的疑问属性：自由意志。吠檀多的观点不允许我们因为世界上的罪恶或苦难谴责上帝。而是建议我们（这里的我们包括散落在宇宙各处的生灵，不仅仅是我们的听众）每个人都有效地为我们有机会表现不完美的世界投票，如果我们不想表现完美的话。所以，有时我们会伤害他人，有时我们受到他人行为的伤害。

这是一个关于责任感起源的故事。我们或许都在整个宇宙起源的过程中发挥了微不足道的作用——但是我们在我们自己创造，并与他人分享的生活中发挥着至关重要的作用。