In the twenty-first century, humanity stands at the threshold of a vast civilizational transition.
Artificial intelligence has begun to learn human language, robots are taking over human labor, and algorithms are advancing rapidly into the domain of human judgment itself. The world is moving toward an age of civilization wholly unlike any before it.
Yet, ironically, the more sophisticated the technology becomes, the more humanity finds itself once again before the oldest questions of all. What is the human being? Where did the universe come from? What is consciousness, and does the human soul exist? And where is humanity meant to go?
It is precisely before these questions that humanity has begun, once more, to look back to the spirituality of the ancients.
The scriptures of Hinduism — the Vedas, the Rigveda, the Upanishads — are not mere religious texts. They are the record of a vast civilizational contemplation, an inquiry pursued over thousands of years into the cosmos and the human being, into existence and consciousness, into life and truth.
The cosmology within these Hindu scriptures bears a striking resemblance to the philosophy of cheon (heaven), ji (earth) and in (humanity) expressed in Korea's Cheonbugyeong. Both refuse to separate the human being from the cosmos, regarding humanity instead as part of a greater whole.
Even in today's age of AI, the powerful presence of young Indians across the global IT and AI industries may owe something to this deep philosophical tradition and its culture of abstract thought.
The Vedas and the Upanishads are not simply ancient scriptures. They are ancient questions cast toward the civilization of the future.
The Vedas: humanity's first questions, recording the breath of the cosmos
Veda, in Sanskrit, means "knowledge" or "enlightenment." It is regarded as among the oldest scriptures humanity has left behind. The Vedas are organized into four systems — the Rigveda, the Samaveda, the Yajurveda and the Atharvaveda — of which the oldest and most essential is the Rigveda.
The Rigveda is no mere anthology of myths. It is a philosophical inquiry into the cosmos and a poetic question directed at the origin of existence. Its famous hymn, the Nasadiya Sukta, is counted among the most profound cosmological questions in the history of human civilization.
"Then there was neither existence nor non-existence." — Rigveda
Remarkably, this line connects to modern cosmology, echoing the question physics asks today: what existed before the Big Bang? The ancient Indians did not see the universe as mere matter. They saw in it a vast order and mystery that the human being could never fully comprehend.
The Rigveda calls this Rta — the fundamental order that moves the cosmos. The motion of the sun, the turning of the seasons, the life and death of human beings: all exist within a single order.
This thought bears a curious resemblance to the Cheonbugyeong's line il-si-mu-si-il — "the One begins, yet the One has no beginning." All existence begins from the One, and that One existed before time itself. The ancient spirituality of the East, it turns out, spoke everywhere of the fundamental unity of the cosmos.
"Truth is one, though its names are many"
The Rigveda contains a line that resonates deeply even within the civilization of today.
"Truth is one. The wise call it by many names." — Rigveda 1.164.46
Within this brief sentence lies the tolerance and inclusiveness of human civilization.
The world holds countless religions and civilizations. They speak of different gods and explain truth in different ways.
Yet the Rigveda says their origin may be one.
This thought connects to the philosophy of the Korean thinker Yu Yeong-mo, known as Daseok, who said that "truth is one, though its prophets are many." He is celebrated as a pure Korean philosopher who reconciled all the religions of East and West into a single vision.
The Cheonbugyeong, too, explains the origin of the cosmos as the One. In the end, human civilizations have held different languages and religions, yet they have cast the same question beneath the same sky.
Today the world is shaken by collisions of religion and ideology, of peoples and nations. AI technology, too, connects human beings even as it divides them.
It is for this very reason that this line of the Rigveda grows more important still. What is needed is a civilizational vision that acknowledges difference while looking toward the fundamental One.
The Upanishads: discovering the cosmos within
If the Vedas sang of the order of the cosmos, the Upanishads explored the cosmos within the human being. The word Upanishad means "to sit near a teacher and hear the truth." Here Hindu philosophy moves beyond ritual and ceremony to begin asking after the very essence of human existence.
At the heart of the Upanishads lies the thought of Brahman and Atman. Brahman is the ultimate reality of the cosmos; Atman is the true self within the human being. And the Upanishads declare that the human soul and the essence of the cosmos are, in the end, one.
"Tat Tvam Asi. Thou art that." — Chandogya Upanishad
This line reveals the dignity of human existence in dramatic fashion. The human being is not a solitary thing severed from the cosmos, but a part of it.
The Cheonbugyeong's thought of heaven, earth and humanity likewise sees the human being as a life existing within the flow of heaven and earth. The ancient spirituality of the East did not regard humanity as a being that reigns over nature. It understood the human being as one that breathes together with the cosmos.
The Upanishads contain one of the oldest prayers of the human soul.
"Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to the eternal." — Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
This passage is no mere religious phrase. It is the eternal longing of human existence. Darkness means ignorance and greed, hatred and fear. Light means truth and love, and enlightenment.
Humanity today has built a civilization more abundant than any age before it. Yet it lives at the same time in deep anxiety and emptiness.
AI imitates human language, paints pictures and composes music. But it cannot fully account for the human soul and love, for suffering and hope. And so humanity begins, once more, to seek the spiritual. The Upanishads say there is a cosmic light within the human being — that the human being is not mere data, not a mechanical thing.
Another famous passage of the Rigveda reveals the essence of the communal spirit.
"Walk together. Speak together. Let your minds be as one." — Rigveda 10.191
Modern society, within a civilization of competition and speed, is steadily losing its sense of community. The age of AI, too, has raised productivity and efficiency, yet the severance between human beings has only deepened.
The Vedas, however, say that the human being is a connected being. The Cheonbugyeong likewise understands the human being as one that exists within relationship. Heaven, earth and humanity are not severed individuals but a circulating structure of life. In the end, the heart of the future civilization is likely to be not technology itself, but the human capacity for connection between one person and another.
Hindu scripture and India's age of AI
In the global AI and IT industries today, the presence of people of Indian origin is overwhelming. Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and countless others of Indian origin lead the global technology industry.
This cannot, of course, be explained by the influence of Hindu scripture alone. English-language education, a mathematics-centered schooling, an enormous demographic structure and a fiercely competitive system are all important factors.
Yet India's deep philosophical tradition is a background that can by no means be dismissed. Indian civilization has long explored existence and consciousness, logic and abstract thought. The numeral system and the concept of zero were developed within it as well.
The age of AI demands abstract thinking and a capacity for creative synthesis rather than rote memorization. And such capacities are likely bound up with the depth of philosophical contemplation.
What is striking is that Korea's Cheonbugyeong, too, emphasizes a cosmically integrative mode of thought. It sees the human being and nature, the cosmos and life, as a single circulating structure — an insight of considerable significance for the age of AI.
Technology can strengthen the human hand, but it cannot stand in for the human soul. In the end, the competitiveness of the future civilization is likely to rest not on technological power alone, but on the depth of human understanding.
The age of AI: humanity before the ancient questions once more
The Vedas and the Upanishads are scriptures of thousands of years ago, yet their questions remain astonishingly modern.
What is the human being? What is consciousness? Is the cosmos a mere machine, or a living order?
In the age of AI, humanity stands once again before the ancient questions. And the old scriptures of Hinduism speak quietly: that the human being is not severed from the cosmos, that life is bound together, that truth is one yet its expressions may be many.
The Cheonbugyeong tells the same story — that heaven, earth and humanity are not separate beings but exist within one vast flow of life. In-jung-cheon-ji-il, it says: within the human being, heaven and earth become one.
Perhaps what humanity must read again in the twenty-first century is not a faster manual for technology, but the ancient scriptures of the spirit, which once contemplated the human being and the cosmos together.
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