Miscellany 01

By RE CASTEL

This miscellany is a presentation of the LDS poem "If You Could Hie To Kolob" and the "Hymn of Creation" from the Rig-Veda with minor commentaries.

William W. Phelps, a prominent member of the LDS Church, wrote this poem in the 1800s:

If You Could Hie To Kolob

If you could hie to Kolob
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward
With that same speed to fly,
D'ye think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?

Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation
Where Gods and matter end?
Methinks the Spirit whispers,
"No man has found 'pure space',
Nor seen the outside curtains,
Where nothing has a place."

The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
There is no end to race.

There is no end to virtue;
There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom;
There is no end to light;
There is no end to union;
There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood;
There is no end to truth.

There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above;
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.

Although the above poem is not descriptive of the very fundamental components in the existence, it nonetheless describes the eternal and infinite nature of the existence and the general manner of the occurrences in the existence.

Bold articulations and questions regarding the fundamental existence are found in the Hymn of Creation from the Rig-Veda as brought into the English by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, London, Penguin, 1981.

The Rig-Veda is scientifically among the oldest known Indo-European texts and the Hymn of Creation is among the oldest descriptions of a creation 'myth'. Professor Doniger's translation is probably the most true to the meanings conveyed in the original text – both in the ideas expressed and the equivocal tone of expression. The hymn's fundamental suggestions are evident.

The first part of the Creation Hymn proceeds as follows–

Then was neither non-existence nor existence: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered it, and where? And what gave shelter? Was there an unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there anything immortal: no sign was there, the Day's and Night's divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminate chaos. All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of Warmth was born that One.

The above is about the existential aspects. The hymn suggests that a fundamental thing was the One Thing that breathlessly breathed – the All that was indiscriminate chaos – which was void and formless and which was at first concealed in the darkness.

The idea of the One Thing that breathed by its own nature is very similar to the idea of the fundamentally existing motion advanced in the present treatise (on kinematic relativity) as the underlying principle of the chaos – the undifferentiated average-zero motion of motions.

There are no explicit allusions to the fundamental realities that we call time and space. But, noting the then and there, these are evidently tacitly assumed in the hymn.

Subsequently, the hymn surprises us with the idea that the primal One was born by the great power of another fundamental reality called Warmth.

The next part of the hymn is interesting because of its suggestions regarding the organizational or creative aspects. The hymn proceeds as follows–

Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the kinship of existence with non-existence.

Transversely [across the universe] was their dividing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.

Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?

He the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows it not.

The hymn suggests fundamental principles that are delineated by a virtual dividing line, which are evidently (1) the raw chaos (apparently the non-existence) that was not yet organized and (2) the begetters and mighty forces (apparently the existence) apart from the chaos and apparently already a cosmos. As intimated in the hymn, the primal creative reality is that which is called Desire whose origin is not given clearly in the hymn.

Now, the idea of the Desire is in close harmony with the idea of gravitation defined in the treatise (on kinematic relativity) as the fundamental principle underlying the idea that "motions cling to motions." The idea of the Desire is in striking accord with the scriptural "intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence … truth embraceth truth … light cleaveth unto light…"

Among the ideas presented in the hymn which are remarkable are that regarding the begetters and mighty forces that agree with the idea of "parent gods" and the idea of gravitational "cosmic seed masses."

A striking intimation in the hymn is in the statement and query "The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?", which is evidently an intimation about a fundamental existence before each god became a god. We are therefore confronted with the suggestion that even the gods are ignorant of the very origin of fundamental existence. But the last statement "He the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows it not" is rather equivocal.

The hymn's articulations regarding the fundamental principles, though bold, are in general rather inconclusive. Thus, we find mere speculations or suppositions – in fact, merely the categorical questions – regarding what the fundamental principles are. The tenor in the hymn is mainly the appeal for answers.