When Ancient Wisdom Finally Made Sense to Me

“In an infinite universe, even the impossible becomes inevitable.”

Recently, I found myself thinking about something deeply unsettling — or rather, something that should have been unsettling, but strangely wasn’t.

Growing up, I had heard the ideas of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita countless times:

• the universe is ananta (infinite)
• the soul cannot be destroyed
• life repeats itself through countless births, and moksha is liberation from this cycle 

For most of my life, these ideas felt poetic but abstract — meaningful, yet distant. I accepted them culturally, not intellectually.

That changed while I was thinking about π — an irrational number whose digits extend infinitely — a subtle realization emerged. 

If π truly extends without bound, then every finite numerical sequence must exist somewhere within it. Not because those sequences were placed there intentionally, but because infinity combined with structure makes their existence inevitable.

For most of us, π remains a geometric constant — the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. But viewed differently, it becomes a model of how infinity behaves: finite definitions unfolding into limitless configurations.

This argument does not rely on π being formally proven to contain every possible pattern, but on the deeper principle that infinity, when constrained by rules, inevitably gives rise to repetition and meaning.

The hypothesis that follows, emerged simply by pursuing that question to its logical end.

Infinity changes everything

If the universe is truly infinite — not just large, but infinite in space and time — then something remarkable follows.

Every physical form we see is nothing more than a particular spatial arrangement of atoms.

And in an infinite universe, every possible arrangement must eventually repeat.

Stars, planets, organisms, brains — all configurations recur.

In such a universe:

Birth is not a unique event

Death is not an end

Identity is not tied to a specific body

It becomes natural — almost inevitable — that consciousness moves through forms.

Not mystically but statistically.

Reincarnation as a consequence of infinity

Seen through this lens, reincarnation no longer feels symbolic.

If the soul (or conscious identity) is indestructible, as the Gita states, then it must continue associating with whatever configurations can host awareness — from simple life forms to complex human minds.

The soul, then, is not a structure that moves through bodies, but an invariant capacity for experience that repeatedly couples to changing physical forms.

The cycle of birth and death isn’t punishment or reward.

It’s the inevitable traversal of an infinite configuration space.

Human birth is considered divine not because it is rare — but because it is the only form capable of recognizing this cycle and seeking an exit from it.

Two layers of reality

This is where my own hypothesis comes into focus.

Reality appears to split into two layers:

1. Existence

Timeless — Static — Complete

All possible configurations already exist — superposed, unchanging, eternal.

(This is what I refer to as the HDR.)

2. Experience

Sequential — Entropic — Narrative-driven

Here, events unfold, identities form, memories accumulate, and time appears to flow.

You don’t live in Existence.

You experience 'Experience' — while being grounded in Existence.

That’s why:

The universe never truly “evolved”

The Big Bang never “happened”

You were never truly “born”

Those are narrative structures — valid within Experience, meaningless within Existence.

Yet your experience is undeniably real.

Moksha — redefined

Moksha, then, is not escaping the universe.

It is escaping the narrative illusion — the belief that you are bound to sequential becoming.

Liberation isn’t going somewhere else.

It’s recognizing what you were always part of.

Why this didn’t feel unsettling?

Strangely, none of this disturbed me.

What once sounded mystical finally felt coherent.

Ideas I had heard since childhood didn’t change — my lens did.

What tradition preserved symbolically, intuition reconstructed logically.

And perhaps that’s the quiet beauty of it: ancient insights waiting patiently for the moment our understanding catches up.

A final thought

We are tiny — a speck on a speck in an endless cosmos.

Perhaps our curiosity is not an accident.

Perhaps it is how a timeless universe briefly learns what it feels like to experience itself.

And maybe that’s enough.

                                                                                                               ~ Nagarjuna Reddy W