1. Self Development In The Context of Spirituality and a Practical Approach
G L Bajaj, Delhi
This course designed by
Facilitator –
Class 7 – Theories of Life
Speaker -
Date –

2. Opening Welcome Recap on last session – Schools of Meditation
Introduction to the topic – Theories of Life
Introduce the speaker
The Facilitator starts the program – welcoming all, recap the last session quickly and introducing the current topic and speaker

3. THOERIES OF LIFE The speaker takes over.
Please become familiar with all theories of life that you want to talk about …. But drive the discussion towards evolution of morphological to metaphysical… Evolution of consciousness… What is the difference between extra ordinary people like Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus, Mother Teresa, various Gurus of caliber and ourselves…
Reading material - on internet and read a lot of them

4. Theory of Origin of Life
Theory of Special Creation
Theory of Spontaneous Generation
Theory of Catastrophism
Cosmozoic Theory (Theory of Panspermia)
Theory of Chemical Evolution
There are many theories of creation of life.. How life was formed here on earth.. Please go thru’ them quickly. But we will deal more with the theories of human life as it relates to our life and its purpose.
Theory of Special Creation: According to this theory, all the different forms of life that occur today on planet earth, have been created by God, the almighty. This idea is found in the ancient scriptures of almost every religion. According to Hindu mythology, Lord Brahma, the God of Creation, created the living world in accordance to his wish. According to the Christian belief, God created this universe, plants, animals and human beings in about six natural days. The Sikh mythology says that all forms of life including human beings came into being with a single word of God. Special creation theory believes that the things have not undergone any significant change since their creation.
The theory of Special Creation was purely a religious concept, acceptable only on the basis of faith. It has no scientific basis.
Theory of Spontaneous Generation
This theory assumed that living organisms could arise suddenly and spontaneously from any kind of non-living matter. One of the firm believers in spontaneous generation was Aristotle, the Greek philosopher ( BC). He believed that dead leaves falling from a tree into a pond would transform into fishes and those falling on soil would transform into worms and insects. He also held that some insects develop from morning dew and rotting manure. Egyptians believed that mud of the Nile river could spontaneously give rise to many forms of life. The idea of spontaneous generation was popular almost till seventeenth century. Many scientists like Descartes, Galileo and Helmont supported this idea. In fact, Von Helmont went to the extent stating that he had prepared a 'soup' from which he could spontaneously generate rats! The 'soup' consisted of a dirty cloth soaked in water with a handful of wheat grains. Helmont stated that if human sweat is added as an 'active principle' to this, in just 17 days, it could generate rats!
The theory of Spontaneous Generation was disproved in the course of time due to the experiment conducted by Fransisco Redi, (1665), Spallanzani (1765) and later by Louis Pasteur (1864) in his famous Swan neck experiment. This theory was disapproved, as scientists gave definite proof that life comes from pre-existing life.
Theory of Catastrophism
It is simply a modification of the theory of Special Creation. It states that there have been several creations of life by God, each preceded by a catastrophe resulting from some kind of geological disturbance. According to this theory, since each catastrophe completely destroyed the existing life, each new creation consisted of life form different from that of previous ones.
A French scientist Georges Cuvier ( ) and Orbigney (1802 to 1837) were the main supporters of this theory.
Cosmozoic Theory (Theory of Panspermia)
According to this theory, life has reached this planet Earth from other heavenly bodies such as meteorites, in the form of highly resistance spores of some organisms. This idea was proposed by Richter in 1865 and supported by Arrhenius (1908) and other contemporary scientists. The theory did not gain any support. This theory lacks evidence, hence it was discarded.
Theory of Chemical Evolution
This theory is also known as Materialistic Theory or Physico-chemical Theory. According this theory, Origin of life on earth is the result of a slow and gradual process of chemical evolution that probably occurred about 3.8 billion years ago. This theory was proposed independently by two scientists - A.I.Oparin, a Russian scientist in 1923 and J.B.S Haldane, an English scientist, in 1928.According to this theory, Spontaneous generation of life, under the present environmental conditions is not possible.
Earth's surface and atmosphere during the first billion years of existence, were radically different from that of today's conditions.
The primitive earth's atmosphere was a reducing type of atmosphere and not oxidising type.
The first life arose from a collection of chemical substances through a progressive series of chemical reactions.
Solar radiation, heat radiated by earth and lighting must have been the chief energy source for these chemical reactions.
Extra reading for the speaker to understand the concepts more:
Since the beginning of time, humans have questioned their existence and many different theories concerning the physical world have been popularized. One such theory is the creation theory. It asserts that humans, as well as the rest of the natural world, were created by one or more supernatural beings or gods. For instance, Genesis, a book of the Bible, is one such theory, telling the story of God creating the world and the first humans in seven days. It is important to understand that Biblical creationism is not the only theory of creation, however; humans do have other theories regarding the creation of life by a supreme being.
Different types of creationism can be found under this heading. One type is young Earth creationism, asserting that only 10,000 years or less have passed since God created the Earth. Young Earth creationism takes Biblical creationism literally and opposes scientific forms of dating the Earth, such as radiometric dating. It also opposes evolutionary concepts; however, it does not negate such concepts as natural selection or mutation.
The Omphalos hypothesis theorizes that God created the Earth in its mature form. This hypothesis asserts that scientific evidence used to date the Earth, such as growth rings on trees, is unreliable. Those who believe this state that growth rings and other presumed evidence of the Earth’s age were placed here by God at the time of creation.
Old Earth creation theory asserts that God did create the universe, but includes the idea that Genesis is not a literal description of its creation. This branch of creationism accepts scientific dating of the Earth and the physical universe, but questions evolution theory. It can be separated into three different categories: gap, day age, and progressive creationism. Each category accepts God as the creator of the physical universe, but supports different views concerning the processes involved in creating the world as we know it.
Though creation theory is often discussed in terms of the Hebrew or Christian Bible, other religions have their own ideas about creationism. For example, the Vedas, the oldest texts of Hinduism, assert that living beings are part of a cycle of creation and destruction that began millions of years ago. Based on this theory, the existence of humans and the rest of the physical world is eternal. Hinduism does not support the concept of evolution, as Hindus believe humans have been unchanged since the beginning of time.
There are so many newer theories.. String theory, wave theory, quantum physics… Now researches are into metaphysics

5. Videos on Origin of Life
(Evolution timeline 60 sec video)
Big Bang & Birth of the Earth
(4 minutes)
Pl watch these videos… and choose both or one of them to fit your narration.
Comments on the video like “Hope you enjoyed the video?, Now lets look at the two new school of thoughts in the next slide.”

6. Creationism vs. Evolutionism
Two distinct groups of theories
Each category has several versions
How about the possibility of God creating the life to evolve?
Yoga and meditation talks about evolution of consciousness
By now we recognize that there two schools of thought 1. Creationism 2. Evolutionism. Each of them have several variation to the main concept.
Theory of special creation and theory of spontaneous generation are related to Creationism. Theory of Catastrophism, Cosmozoic Theory (Theory of Panspermia) and Theory of Chemical Evolution are related to Evolutionism
Can you visualize or imagine the possibility that there is some truth in both the theories. If so, why not say “God has created the creation to evolve” This is what is yoga and meditation are trying to do – to Introduce the idea of evolution of consciousness.

7. theories of living
Draw distinction between theories of origin of life and theories trying to explain why we live our lives the way we do… theory of living tries to explain the cause and effect of our desires, our tendencies, our action, reaction and fruit of action… how to create one’s own destiny vs living it… etc.

8. Theory of LIVING
Theory of Karma
Theory of Fate
Theory of Impressions

9. Theory of Karma
A Video
(12 LAWS OF KARMA – 5 MIN)
TRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS VIDEO.. TRANSLATE (in the language the students are comfortable with) …. YOU MAY CUT THIS OFF ANY TIME…

10. Theory of Fate Fatalism All is written Nothing can be changes
Runs counter to will and determination
Creates Laziness

11. Theory of Impressions Sow a Thought reap an action
Sow an action reap a habit
Sow a habit reap a destiny
Our personality is sum of our impressions.
Deeper impressions make the personalities stronger… they are called Samskaras
Story of Karna – good or bad karma
Give an example of identical twins… they come out of same parents, same environment, culture and religion… yet when they grow up they become different people… so what causes the difference… it may be simply called karma or impressions..or Samskara.
Speaker to spend some more time on this. This is a theory which does not assign any value judgment like good or bad karma etc.
The story of Karna at the time of his death – impression of his good deeds. Renounce the fruits of his good actions

12. MORPHOLOGICAL TO METAPHYSICAL
EVOLUTION –
MORPHOLOGICAL TO METAPHYSICAL
Tendencies
Transformation
Choices we
make ?
Morphological means evolution of the physical form e.g from apes to humans.
Metaphysical means evolution of consciousness – animal human to human human to divine human.. Speaker to elaborate on this.
Past we cannot change, present is the opportunity to make better choices to transform the future.
If we make choices due to past tendencies our destiny is fate.. Unchangeable. Fixed. If we make decisions in the present deliberately, mindfully, with a pure heart and calm mind, the destiny is in our hands and we can go towards a desired goal of peace and harmony… it is a transformed state of being or consciousness. Such as getting the higher consciousness of an angel…. To become Godlike .. Both in knowledge and compassion
… So, what do we make out of the present?
Past
Future
Present

13. Question So what do you think we should do in the present?
How can these theories be relevant to us?
Try to get the audience involved…

14. Synthesis
Creationism (Religious basis) and Evolutionism (Scientific basis) have to be synthesized to continue to explore the Truth
Spirituality based on rationality
Intuition and Analysis
Faith and Rationality
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind” - Einstein
Extension of evolutionary theory into metaphysical existence
Natural conclusion to the discussion had in the previous slide.
Conclude by quoting Einstein… “There comes a point in our thinking we say good bye to Rationality and embrace intuition”
THIS IS A GREAT CONCLUSION IF THE SPEAKER CAN SIMPLY BRING THEM ALL TOGETHER.

15. Practical Session 20 minutes of meditation
The facilitator takes over – thanking the speaker
Ask students to Write how they felt during meditation in their diaries
Note: There are two groups in the class by now – one who have started meditation and the ones who have not. The satsangh will be for those who have started and other will just close their eyes and sit in the class.

16. In Closing Sum up the session Next week – ‘Natural Path’
Summarizes the session.
Suggest books from the list of books sent already, if needed.