By G Venkatesh
‘Thermodynamics’ – the word itself evokes images of entropy and chaos (heat and disorderly motion). However, it is a science which looks for the elusive order in the chaos its name evokes. There is classical thermodynamics – the macroscopic sister to statistical thermodynamics which is the bottom-up approach to understanding the behaviour of systems (studying the parts with the expectation of understanding the whole). While the classical is a mere approximation (better than not able to describe at all), the statistical is a mere prediction (something close, but not exactly).
During a period of intense and painful introspection in a coffee shop in Karlstad, Sweden, an idea perhaps floating around in the realm above the astral, settled on yours sincerely.
Picture a closed cylinder filled with ‘ideal’ gas. Students of thermodynamics often befriend the ‘ideal’ gas ideally, even though this friend is just an illusion. The gas is composed of numerous molecules, which are moving around at random, colliding with each other and with the walls of the cylinder. Indeed, over any period of time, all the molecules do not suffer the same number of collisions with others, or for that matter, do not ‘bang’ into the inner wall of the cylinder to be ricocheted back into the pack, at identical frequencies.
If the cylinder is opened for a short period of time, and then closed, some gas would leak out. Of course, while all molecules may look alike, what they experience within the cylinder is never the same for all of them. Some molecules would leak out into ‘freedom’. That seamlessly brings us to our analogy with souls on Earth.
Now, replace the small cylinder with our planet Earth. And the gas molecules with individual human souls. Pause for a minute and you would perhaps be able to visualise. Souls trapped in human bodies wander about on Earth, interacting with others (analogous to the collisions among molecules), supposedly reaping the rewards of their karma, repeatedly. Let us assume that the law of action and reaction holds good, indisputably, the reaction in this case being from the universe or God. Just as one defines the quality of energy as ‘exergy’, if one conceives a property which represents the qualities (degrees) of good deeds, bad deeds, rewards and punishments, and labels the same as ‘exergy’ then, it must follow that:
- Exergy (Good deeds) = Exergy (Rewards)
- Exergy (Bad deeds) = Exergy (Punishments).
In other words, the higher the quality of a good deed, the better the reward, and the graver the bad deed, the more serious the punishment. Now, does this apply to every individual soul during its sojourn on earth in a specific bodily envelope? Does one find a perfect correlation? Definitely not. After all, the equations used to understand the state and behaviour of gases, do not apply to every single molecule, do they? We tend to easily tide over this impasse, just as we do in thermodynamics, by theorising that:
3. Σ Exergy (Good deeds) = Σ Exergy (Rewards)
4. Σ Exergy (Bad deeds) = Σ Exergy (Punishments)
If someone wishes to know the time period over which these summations apply, one will say that this would be the entire length of time humankind will walk on Terra Firma, and for all the reincarnations of all the souls.
Indeed, I or you will not be able to test this in any way, just as we would never be able to summarily and conclusively prove that there is life after death, while we are walking around on Earth. Further, how does one define the quality factor of good deeds and rewards, punishments and bad deeds? Who decides? So, that is that! We then turn to the Bible or the Gita or the Koran or the Zend Avesta or the Guru Granth Sahib or the Torah or any other religious text just as we refer to textbooks of thermodynamics for those equations.
For generalisations. To simplify and pretend that we understand everything, or to be humble enough to admit that we do not. To calm our minds and believe that our turn would come. We would never know where we are placed in the queue to receive rewards or accept punishments. After all, like those molecules inside the cylinder, we are tossed about here and there, and find ourselves at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong set of ‘molecules’ around us. ‘My turn would come’, implies being in the right place, at the right time, with the right people. They give this a name – divine timing. Is it random? I do not know. Neither do you.
Which souls (molecules) would ‘leave deceitful knaves for the higher and better society of gods and goddesses’ (from a play referred to by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay called ‘Heroism’ in The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson) and when, none knows. Surely, the equations (1) and (2) will never hold true for you when the time comes for you to ascend to the astral realm. You may either have been very fortunate or extremely unfortunate; may have got a fair-enough deal, or may have been scapegoated ever and anon. You would need to return to help equations (3) and (4) to manifest themselves at the fag end of the human race – perhaps at the Big Crunch or much before that….again, just as the gas molecules which are ‘freed’ may be brought down by rain again to the terrestrial hydrosphere, to cycle back and forth.
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G Venkatesh (50) is a Chennai-born, Mumbai-bred ‘global citizen’ who currently serves as Associate Professor at Karlstad University in Sweden. He has published 4 volumes of poetry and 4 e-textbooks, inter alia.
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