Were Ancient Gods Our Future Selves?

Hindu scriptures mention advanced beings, what we call Gods, and the technologies they brought: Vimanas (spaceship-like flying crafts), sophisticated weapons like the Brahmastra, concepts of spacetime, consciousness, and much more. Does this mean we ancient Hindus were technologically advanced and that all the knowledge and remnants of that technology were lost due to a massive natural calamity?

Being a Hindu myself, it gives me pride and comfort to believe that we had advanced technology thousands of years ago. But being a rational human being, it's hard to digest those theories.

I absolutely believe we had great knowledge about ourselves and how to live life efficiently. It’s also possible that these stories were exaggerated to teach us life lessons, because we were too naive (and still are) to take direct lessons unless they are sold as stories involving higher energies.

For example, people might have gone berserk killing each other if it wasn’t told to us through stories that “God is watching us” and that we will be held accountable for every action after death. Religion, as I like to think, is a great invention to civilize people. Somehow, over time, we brought religion down to violence, hatred, and division.

There are many theories about the advanced technology we might have had in ancient times. Some believe aliens brought the technology, some believe Gods did, and some believe humans were actually advanced for that time. To each their own. There is absolutely no way to prove anything, and we can interpret anything we want with our wild imaginations, just as others did in the past.

Sometimes I wonder, what if it was our future selves who discovered the ability to time travel and taught us advanced technologies to help humanity progress faster and in the right direction? Eventually, the knowledge may have been lost in translation, like a giant cosmic game of Chinese whispers.

Now, naturally, a few questions arise:

1. Why did they travel to ancient times and not to our present time, where we have the capacity to understand advanced technology?

In response, I like to think our future selves might not have liked how we turned out to be and wanted to guide us from the beginning. Maybe we’re already too far off the path to be changed now.

2. Why aren’t they coming back, if they were able to time travel once?

Probably because when they arrived earlier, they changed events which led to their own destruction. Like, if I went back in time and killed my grandfather, I wouldn't exist now.

(Let me know if you have any other questions, I’d love to find answers with my wild imagination at 2 AM.)

I would even go as far as to think that the black and white magics mentioned in the Upanishads were techniques to talk to our future selves and invite them when needed. That could explain the reincarnations of Gods in different Yugas. All the original knowledge shared might have been lost in translation over centuries, and we might not be able to use it as intended anymore.

I am creating these theories in my head to satisfy my curiosity because the existing theories aren’t totally fulfilling for the kind of thoughts I have. For me, it’s not about proving any specific theory, it’s about answering the questions I have about my existence.

Final Thoughts

What I’ve concluded is this: We are growing exponentially outward, but inward, we are still stuck in the Stone Age. Without inward growth, outward growth leads to destruction.

We are smart enough to build nuclear weapons and dumb enough to use them on ourselves. We are intelligent enough to understand the order of the universe, but we haven’t figured out how to live with each other in harmony. We’ve built telescopes to look far into the universe but are afraid to look inward.

Don’t get so lost looking outward that you forget to look inward completely.