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Hi Ashish! Hope you’re doing well.
Here, you say –
Each planet has to be treated as a combination of reality and virtual reality. What we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear on this planet is reality. But the things in the sky are virtual reality.
I am confused about how we distinguish between on this planet and in the sky. When I see an airplane flying in the sky, am I seeing reality or virtual reality?
When the mind sees an apple, there is a picture of apple inside the mind. That picture is different from the real apple. It is a representation of the apple, not the real apple. So, there is a real apple ‘outside’ the mind, and there is a virtual apple ‘inside’ the mind.
Mind is the “space” in which there is an apple representation. Inside this mind space, there is also a picture of the self, which is a self-portrait or your self-understanding. You always carry a picture of yourself, or how you view yourself. It is also a mental picture.
So, there is a real self and a real apple. And then there is a self-portrait and an apple representation. The latter two are “inside” the mind, and the former two are “outside”.
Just like that, the Earth is also a space like the mind. Inside the Earth-space there is a picture of the Earth, like a self-portrait. What you see as the Earth planet is this self-portrait. But the Earth space also includes everything else–the moon, sun, jupiter, galaxies, etc. these are the portraits of other things, just like mental picture of the apple.
So, now the big discrepancy arises. Modern cosmology is based on body-thinking, and Vedic cosmology is based on mind-thinking. In modern cosmology, if you see a star, then that is a real body. In Vedic cosmology, if you see a star, then it is a picture of the real thing, and not the real thing. That picture is influenced by earthly type of thinking.
For example, the real moon has heavenly living entities. But we cannot see those living entities by our eyes and minds. To us, that heavenly planet appears like desert, rocks, craters, etc. Even if you “go” to the picture moon, you will not find any living entities. Because factually you haven’t gone outside the Earth space. You are simply exploring the various pictures inside the Earth space. It is just like if you close your eyes and try to imagine everything with your mind, then your imagination is limited by the type of mind your have. Unless you change your mind, you cannot imagine something new.
In the blog post you mentioned, I have noted the use of domain names. There is a domain name called earth.universe. Inside this domain is another subdomain called moon.earth.universe. (Domains are always prepeended to the left rather than appended to the right). That moon that you see with your eyes is inside the earth, and it is not the real moon. The real moon is moon.universe. So, where is the issue? There is a moon.universe, and there is a moon.earth.universe. Similarly, the people on the moon planet see earth in a different way. For them, their picture of earth is called earth.moon.universe.
The mind can be expanded to accomodate everything that exists. All that exists in your mind can also exist outside, and whatever exists outside can also exist in your mind. So, each person’s mind can be as big as the entire universe. But right now it is shrivelled up into an insignificant thing.
Even the body carries representation of other things. When someone stares at you, a picture of their body is created inside your body. A sensitive person can feel that their privacy is invaded by the stare, because a picture of the person is inside your body. Their body is separate from your body, but a picture of their body is inside your body. So, if the mind is understood, then body is understood in a new way. But right now people cannot understand the mind, and therefore, they cannot understand even the body.
This is why meditation is prescribed. If we practice sense control, then we can understand the mind. Then by analogy you can understand the soul as all the senses and their experiences can fit inside the soul. Thereby the entire creation can fit in the soul. That type of expanded consciousness is called Brahman. So, our consciousness is a space, mind is a space, each of the senses is a space. Like that earth is also a space. If we understand ourselves first, then try to understand the world, it becomes very easy. In the West they try to do the reverse–first understand the world, and then try to understand the self, and they end up with neither self-understanding nor world-understanding.
Excellent explanation and analogies! Really wonderful Ashish. Even though you give the domain name analogy in that post, I really didn’t grasp the implications of it as you’ve laid out here.
So is it the case that even the earth that I’m seeing is virtual? I mean am I (in my undeveloped/limited mind or using modern scientific mindset) seeing earth (earth.universe) or earth’s self portrait (earth.earth.universe)? Because this would mean that not only have I not landed on the moon, I may not even have landed on earth!
What you are seeing is earth.sai.mentality.earth.universe.
A person on the moon sees the earth as earth.person.mentality.moon.universe.
In short, earth provides many mentalities, which are mentality.earth.universe. Then sai has a particular mentality which is sai.mentality.earth.universe. In that mentality, there is a picture of the earth, and that picture is earth.sai.mentality.earth.universe.
So, the earth you are seeing is real — because the real earth is on the path to the root. And it is not real because the picture of earth is colored by sai, and only one of the ways to see earth.
That “being on earth” is simply that earth is on the path to the root. The person on moon sees earth differently — earth.person.mentality.moon.universe. Since earth is not on the path to the root, therefore, it is not earthly vision, but is the vision of earth.
So, seeing earth closely and being on earth are two different things. A person on moon can see earth closely without being on earth. What we have right now is earthly vision of earth, limited to a particular subset of the earth vision.
The earth is described as a cow and dharma is described as a bull. That cow and that bull also appear in the vision of some people but since it is not appearing in our vision, therefore, our vision is not the only vision. There are other visions, which are all visions of earth, and they are possible on earth so they are earthly.
With this, you can say “earth” is three things– an object, which is a collection of all possible experiences, some of these experiences are about the earth (or parts of it).
You can also think of a book and author. The book is in the author’s mind, and the author’s name is inside the book. What you see is always the book, and you read the author’s name on it. Even if you meet the author, you don’t see the mind, but only the body, which is another book.
As long as we see the body, rather than the mind, we don’t see reality; we are seeing an appearance of that reality–a portrait, picture, symbol, etc. This philosophy is then taken to many levels from mind to intellect to ego, and many levels like that. Each of these is an appearance of reality. Finally, there is a soul. When we see that soul, that is reality, and everything else is appearance.
So, are you seeing the real earth? No. Until you see the soul–the earth person–you are seeing an appearance, which is one of many possible appearances, and hence not the earth. What you are seeing is part of earth, but not the earth. The whole is separate from the parts, but the parts are dependent on the whole. So, your vision of earth is part of the earth, but it is not earth.
Just like a cow is a mammal but mammal is not cow. A cow is part of mammal, the cow is produced from mammal, but the cow is a mammal and the mammal is not the cow. So, your vision is just like the cow–produced by mammal, part of mammal, and yet not the mammal.
So, spirituality is established purely on logical necessity if matter is conceptual. Only spiritual vision is the vision of the reality as it is, everything else is an illusion, appearance, reflection, portrait.
Another way to understand this is through declensions in Sanskrit.
The fifth declension is from — we are produced from earth.
The sixth declension is of — we are properties of earth, therefore our vision is earthly.
The seventh declension is in — we are in the earth or we are part of the earth.
This is summarized by saying that the earth is the whole, our body was previously in the earth, then manifest from the earth, and thereafter, we are properties of the earth.
Since we are manifest from earth, and we are properties of earth, therefore, our vision of moon is not the real moon; it is an earthly vision. Similarly, our vision of a car is also an earthly vision of car. That car is also in the earth, of the earth, and from the earth. Since the car is of the earth and from the earth, therefore, these types of cars don’t exist in other places.
It may be interesting to you that there is no declension for on — e.g., that car is on the earth. Physical thinking is on and semantic thinking is in, of, and from. The human body is not on the earth. It is in the earth, from the earth, and of the earth. Everybody is thinking that the human body is on the earth. And all Vedic cosmology is trying to change is on to of, from, and in.
When we say that human body is in the earth, then earth is a space. When we say that the human body is from the earth, then earth is an object. And when we say that the human body is of the earth, then earth is a dimension. So, earth is three things–an object, a space, and a dimension.
That object (from) is three-dimensional, space (in) is two-dimensional, and dimension (of) is one-dimensional. So, this is confusing because the same thing is one, two, and three dimensional. As the dimensions reduce, we can say that it is partially true, but not the whole truth.
At the present, because our our bodily conditioning, we are used to materialistic ideas (e.g., that the body is on the earth). People even say things like — “you were always on my mind” — as if there is a seat called the “mind” and the person is sitting on that seat.
Like that, even when we talk about inverted trees, the fruit is not on the branch (that is physical thinking). The fruit is in the branch, of the branch, and from the branch. Since fruit of the branch and from the branch are relatively easier, the entire issue boils down to in vs. on. The fruit is in the branch, not on the branch. We are in the earth and not on the earth.
The only time on is used is when we talk about soul and body. The body is on the soul, not in the soul. But the body is in the mind, of the mind, and from the mind. So, all the confusion is about just two words — what is in and what is on. The material energy produces things within itself, but the material energy is outside the soul. That within means that it is also of and from.
Spiritual body is in the soul, of the soul, and from the soul, whereas the material body is on the soul.
The meaning of spiritual body “in the soul” is that the spiritual body is present in the soul but hidden or unmanifest right now. When the body is manifest, then it is from the soul. And when the body is manifest, then it is the body of the soul, and therefore, it is a true, eternal, and real body. The body on the soul is not the real body. The body in, of, and from the soul is the real body.
The principles of cosmology are the same principles as that of soul and body. If just understand soul and body relationship, then we can understand everything else. Similarly, if we just understand matter, and how it manifests things from within itself, then we can understand how the soul can manifest its body that lies within itself, but is currently unmanifest.
Everything is a property of Krishna, it was earlier in Krishna (and it still is), and it is from Krishna.
Krishna’s clothes, jewelry, or peacock feather are not on Krishna.
They are in Krishna (part of Krishna), manifest from Krishna, and properties of Krishna.
Therefore, Krishna’s jewelry, clothes, or peacock feather are not material adornments. A material adornment is on but a spiritual adornment is in, of, and from. We can also meditate like this and realize the same thing.
In this way, we can meditate on God, or matter, or the soul, and one meditation will give us understanding of the others.
Some day, we may be able to define all the rules of using on, of, from, and in. And then we can convert all philosophy into a logical-mathematical system of description and reasoning. It is not impossible, but there are many things to do before that, so we have to do that first.
This is all so mind-blowing. One quickly runs out of adjectives to describe just how unbelievable this feels. Almost every other critic of science talks about stuff which seems plausible because they seem to implicitly accept most of the philosophical foundations underpinning modern science while suggesting modifications in certain areas. But your work is literally ground-breaking in that sense. And I hope to more consistently study it rather than sporadically as I’ve been so far.
Actually I started reading Mystic Universe once again (it was too dense for me the first time. So I put it down and read Godel’s mistake instead) and it is making a lot of sense.
You explicate the growing from metaphor there and it makes a lot of sense now. Why a mango is different from an apple and why it is difficult to change a mango to an apple.
Similarly, why an Indian is different from an American (because they literally grew from different places) and why it is not sufficient just to move to America to become an American. The Americans can easily spot that you’re not a native(which clearly suggests there is such a thing as being American, but something we can’t capture in current Science) and few (if any) immigrants actually become American despite staying there for a long time.
So what is the way to make a mango into an apple? Or an American into an Indian? Is the only way to grow from the right branch or the right land?
The soul can move from one branch to another. The branch of the apple doesn’t have to produce a mango. This is because the mango or the apple is a covering of the soul. Just like the soul reincarnates into another body, similarly, the soul can change the body. That change of body is changing one’s desires and way of thinking. Then everything changes automatically.
“My work” is not my work. I have completely plagiarized everything from Vedic texts, and Prabhupada’s teachings. My credit is that I’m plagiarizing everything honestly, without changing it. Every word is very important, and if we keep that honesty, then we can understand everything. But the credit goes to the Vedic tradition, the spiritual master, and my credit is honest copying.
The amazement, if anything, is already in the Vedic texts. But we have to be able to understand and appreciate that amazing knowledge. Then we can also apply that knowledge amazingly. So, yes, you have to make the effort to study systematically, and then give this knowledge to others.
If we just take and don’t give, then after some time the knowledge also stops. Just like money grows in an economy by circulation, as each person adds some value, similarly, knowledge grows in the knowledge ecosystem if we circulate and each person adds their insights into it. Previously, the knowledge was circulating and growing, and when the circulation stopped then the growth stopped, and when the knowledgeable person dies, then the knowledge is lost. But if we circulate the knowledge, then it will not die, and it will grow, and more people will be benefitted from it. That will grow the knowledge ecosystem, increase the pace of growth, and circulation. So, it is our responsibility to learn, advance, and circulate, and these can be done simultaneously.
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