Prajna: 12 Universal Wrong Conceptions: 8. Creation and Destruction

«Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.» ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Manon, Ballerina".

Taxonomy of Existence

8. Creation and Destruction

It is intuitively clear that every event has an origin and a destiny. What is not so simple to grasp is that, in many of the norms by which life unfolds, and in almost all existences, origin and destiny remain unknown to consciousness.

Two moments are necessary for an event to occur—for it to become existence or to return to non-existence: the moment of arising (origin) and the moment of cessation (destiny). It is an axiom that every existence or inexistence arises from a set (perhaps infinite) of prior causes and subsequent effects that generate it, which, through transformations and motion, become new causes called consequences, new conditions, and new effects. Antecedent causes, submitted to transformations and movements that we call effects, give rise to further consequent causes.

By direct observation of Reality, it is possible to perceive that each real event (objective or subjective) or new cause is preceded by an uncountable or infinite chain of earlier causes linked by transformations and effects.

Hence the intuitive impression that the One (Uno) must have had a Unique Origin (1I), and that the Material and Immaterial Universes share this Origin—an ancient pulse of cosmic motion—and will each have a Destiny after immense cycles of movement have unfolded. At every moment of Reality, new events are born into existence, while old and past ones dissolve back into Emptiness. Through this process, the Uno creates and destroys Itself, a concept as ancient as human consciousness itself. Yet, due to our limited scale and intelligence, these ideas remain under perpetual observation and reflection.

• Cause: the set of material and immaterial conditions fulfilled within, at the boundary, and beyond Non-Existence, collapsing through destructive interferences or excesses of energy, forcing transformations between the two domains, and giving rise to a new set of satisfied or possible conditions.

• Effect: the process of transformation itself—the perpetual rhythm between existence and non-existence: ...< exists < does not exist < exists <... immersed in the Void after dissolution and before rebirth.

Consequently, it is reasonable to infer that any existence (and possibly non-existence) unfolds within an interval of type [0, 1], where 0 represents the event of Beginning and 1 the event of End.

"[...] [...]"

Creation and Destruction as Universal Rhythm

Throughout the myths of the world, this rhythmic unity of Creation and Destruction has been expressed in countless forms.

• In Hindu cosmology, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva embody the triune pulse of manifestation, preservation, and dissolution—the infinite heartbeat of Being.

• In Greek myth, the cycle unfolds from Chaos through Gaia and Uranus giving birth to Titans, gods, and mortals, followed by cataclysms that renew the cosmos.

• In the Norse Edda, Ragnarok closes one world only for another to arise from its ashes.

• In Egypt, Osiris dies and is resurrected by Isis, symbolizing the eternal return of life through decay.

• In Mesoamerican cosmologies, the Five Suns represent successive creations and destructions of the world—each age consumed by its own imbalance.

• The same principle lives in Chinese thought through Yin and Yang, in the ever-revolving harmony of opposing yet complementary forces, and in the myth of Pangu, whose death gives birth to the living cosmos.

• Across Africa, Dogon cosmology tells of Amma, whose creative motion brought forth both order and disorder, light and darkness, the seed and the void; while Yoruba myths speak of Olodumare and the Orishas fashioning and reshaping the world from primordial chaos.

• Among Indigenous Australians, the Dreamtime is not merely a past creation but an ongoing cycle of continual renewal, where ancestral beings sing worlds into existence and withdraw them again into silence.

Throughout the myths of the world, this rhythmic unity between arising and dissolving has been seen as the secret pulse of existence. Birth and death, expansion and contraction, dawn and dusk — all obey the same invisible law: creation unfolds, not to persist, but to transform.

Ancient cosmologies already intuited this principle. The Indian and Egyptian traditions, as well as the wisdom literature of Judaism (Ecclesiastes), spoke of the Eternal Return — the idea that the universe and all existence move through infinite cycles of recurrence. Worlds arise, vanish, and arise again, repeating themselves in a vast rhythm of self-similarity, through endless time or infinite space.

The Pythagoreans and Stoics later embraced this doctrine, seeing in it a rational order that binds fate and freedom.

When the Christian worldview expanded through the West, this notion of recurrence gave way to a linear view of time — one creation, one fall, one redemption, one end. Yet even within this vision, the story of Genesis carries a deep symbolic resonance. The Creation Story of the Hebrew and Christian traditions narrates that God created the universe and life through supernatural act — in “seven days” that, for many, are not literal units of time but metaphorical days of manifestation, symbolic of the unfolding of existence from the unmanifest source.

Modern readings often reconcile this with science: the “days” become epochs; the divine act, a poetic expression of cosmic genesis. Still, literal creationism persists, denying the scientific age of the Earth and the processes of evolution, holding instead that the world was formed less than ten thousand years ago by divine will. This contrast — between the mythic-symbolic and the literal-dogmatic — reveals again humanity’s dual tendency: to mythologize for meaning, and to absolutize myths into doctrines.

In the philosophy of Nietzsche, the Eternal Return reappears as a test of affirmation: if every moment of one’s life were to repeat infinitely, could one still love fate (amor fati)? Here, creation and destruction merge not only as cosmological cycles but as psychological truth — the courage to embrace recurrence without resistance, to will one’s destiny eternally.

Thus, from cyclical cosmologies to linear theologies, from ancient myth to existential philosophy, humanity contemplates the same fundamental rhythm: all things arise, endure, and return. To understand creation is to accept destruction; to love the dawn, one must not fear the dusk.

Modern cosmology, too, mirrors this ancient insight: the Big Bang and cosmic expansion may culminate in the Great Collapse or eternal dissipation, yet in either case, creation and destruction are one continuous process of transformation. Even physics whispers the same law—energy never dies; it only changes form.

Philosophically, Heraclitus foresaw this unity in panta rhei (“everything flows”), while Buddhism perceives impermanence (“anicca”) as the very nature of existence—the arising and ceasing of all phenomena.

From ancient eschatologies to scientific cosmologies, every system, mythic or rational, converges on the same recognition: there is no absolute creation or absolute destruction—only transformation.

Across the world’s great past and present civilizations, creation and destruction are not separate themes but two faces of a single cycle. In Mesopotamia, the goddess Tiamat is slain and from her body the cosmos is formed. MythBeasts+1 Among the Aztecs and Maya, the universe moves through successive eras of creation and destruction, the famed “Five Suns”. Wikipedia+1 In Hindu cosmology, creation (via Brahma) and destruction (via Shiva) share the same divine cycle. Paths of Learning+1 These myths remind us: what begins must end; what ends gives rise to beginning. Creation and Destruction are the twin breaths of the same cosmic rhythm.

Why origin and destiny often remain hidden

Because the chain of causes is usually vast and multi-layered (biological, cultural, psychological, physical, historical), consciousness typically perceives only a narrow segment. Human scale, limited instruments, and cognitive shortcuts reduce complexity to manageable narratives: a short list of “reasons” that are often insufficient. This induced ignorance produces political, personal, and collective errors — the famous “turkey problem” of being surprised by rare, high-impact events that lie outside the day-to-day sample of experience.

To act wisely is to cultivate humility about origins and outcomes: the sensible policy is to account for deep causal networks, to prefer robustness over fragile optimization, and to remember that what looks like permanence often hides contingent support.

However, most human beings do not truly understand the nature of this duality. They see Creation and Destruction as opposites—independent forces with rigid moral tones: Creation as good, Destruction as evil. Yet, deeper comprehension reveals them to be interdependent, neutral, and cyclical. Destruction clears the field for renewal, while creation consumes what was before. They are two faces of one coin, inseparable and simultaneous, the same pulse vibrating through existence.

The destruction of something old—a structure, an idea, a self—is often the necessary prelude to the birth of something new. A forest burns so that the earth may breathe again. A star collapses to seed new worlds. In human terms, transformation demands the dissolution of past identities, attachments, and illusions. To create a wiser self, the ego must first be undone.

From dawn till dusk / 夜明けから夕暮れまで

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4

From about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean region played host to a complex cosmopolitan and globalized world-system. It may have been this very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. When the end came, the civilized and international world of the Mediterranean regions came to a dramatic halt in a vast area stretching from Greece and Italy in the west to Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia in the east. Large empires and small kingdoms collapsed rapidly. With their end came the world’s first recorded Dark Ages. It was not until centuries later that a new cultural renaissance emerged in Greece and the other affected areas, setting the stage for the evolution of Western society as we know it today. Professor Eric H. Cline of The George Washington University will explore why the Bronze Age came to an end and whether the collapse of those ancient civilizations might hold some warnings for our current society.

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