The Multiverse and Infinite Universes Are Just
Escapism From the Mess We’ve Created Here on Earth
Humans have made a mess of Earth, and now they want to
escape from it. Perhaps that is why we are so fascinated by talk of the
multiverse and an infinite number of universes.
You can’t smile at the neighbour next door. You can’t lend a
helping hand to a person struggling on the street. You can’t even leave a tree
or shrub alone. Yet, somehow, you want to be part of a multiverse and explore
an infinite number of universes.
Humans who cannot take care of their own home are busy
talking about other universes. They cannot properly rescue a human being
trapped in a hole here on Earth, yet they are ready to venture into a black
hole.
Maybe before we start searching for other universes, we
should learn how to take care of the one we already have.
The Neighbor We Cannot Smile At
Here is a species that cannot say good morning to the person
living behind the next wall, yet insists on debating whether there are infinite
copies of itself doing better in a parallel timeline. Humans have not learned
to lend a shoulder to a stranger on the street, but they are fully prepared to
colonize a version of Mars that exists only in a slideshow. This is not
curiosity. This is avoidance dressed up in a lab coat.
Can't Save a Tree, Wants to Save the Multiverse
Ask a person to leave one shrub alone, just one, and watch
the excuses arrive faster than the receipts for the new SUV. Yet mention
infinite universes and suddenly everyone becomes a philosopher-scientist, ready
to discuss branching timelines over coffee. A civilization that bulldozes a
forest for a parking lot has no business romanticizing the birth of new
galaxies. Charity, as they say, begins at home. Apparently escapism does too.
The Hole and the Black Hole
A man stuck in a well on the outskirts of a village waits
hours for rescue while news channels argue about funding priorities. Meanwhile,
the same species pours billions into imagining what happens at the edge of a
black hole. We cannot organize a rescue team for a hole in the ground but are
mentally prepared to be swallowed whole by one in space. The irony writes
itself; humans just refuse to read it.
What the Old Texts Already Knew
This is not new territory for Hindu thought. The concept of
Brahmanda, countless universes existing and dissolving in cycles, was described
long before telescopes existed. The Bhagavata Purana narrates the encounter of
the sage Narada with Bhagavan Krishna, where Narada is shown, in a moment, the
illusion of an entire lifetime, a marriage, children, a flood, grief, all
within what turns out to be seconds of real time. When Narada returns, shaken,
Krishna simply smiles. The lesson was never about the scale of illusion. It was
about the sage forgetting his purpose the instant he entered it. Maya,
illusion, does not need another galaxy to operate. It works perfectly well
right here, in the space between a person and their own doorstep.
The Actual Lesson
Multiplying universes does not multiply responsibility.
Dharma, one's duty, was always meant to be practiced in the smallest unit
first, the home, the neighbor, the tree outside the window. The Isha Upanishad
speaks of seeing the self in all beings and all beings in the self. That
teaching does not require another dimension. It requires eye contact with the
person next door.
Modern Relevance
Streaming platforms, comic franchises and physics podcasts have turned the multiverse into entertainment, and there is nothing wrong with imagination. The problem begins when imagination becomes a substitute for maintenance. Fix the one universe you are renting before you apply for a lease on infinite others.