Hybrid unified theory

Nonlinear Analysis 67 (2007) 2769–2783 www.elsevier.com/locate/na

Hybrid unified theory V. Lakshmikantham Department of Mathematical Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA Received 20 March 2007; accepted 25 April 2007

Abstract We shall investigate, in this paper, theories related to mind, consciousness, life, evolution, existence, non-existence, cosmology, quantum fields, quantum jump, Big Bang, and higher reality. A hybrid unification between ancient and modern discoveries is discussed with a view to shedding some light on the existing theories and strengthening them. c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

MSC: 81V22; 81P05; 85A40; 92C20; 92C50; 91-02

1. Introduction If we assume nothing, no theory can be developed. Therefore, we accept the Vedic declaration ”That which exists is ONE”, scientists call it by various names. Ancient scientists, known as Rishis, described it using thousands of names. We shall be content in utilizing the following: namely, the Impersonal Being, the Absolute Reality, That ONE, and the Selftron, and show that our assumption is not vacuous. That part of Veda Samhitas known as Vedanta is the gist of the Vedas and contained in Upanishads which are the final parts of the Vedas. Concerning our Visible Universe, the Isopanishad proclaims the following: The invisible (the Impersonal Being) is infinite; the Visible Universe too is infinite. From the invisible Impersonal Being, the Visible Universe of infinite extension has manifested. The infinite Impersonal Being remains the same, even though the infinite Universe has manifested out of it. It should be stressed that this does not imply that the Visible Universe and Impersonal Being have become separate entities, rather the Universe is recognizable, yet it is still connected or a part of the Impersonal Being. It is naturally harder for us, in general, to understand the idea of Impersonal, for we are always clinging to the Personal. Impersonality includes all personalities, is the sum total of everything in the Universe, and is infinitely more besides. Let us mention that the true knowledge is defined by the ancient scientists as that which remains unchanged in the past, the present and the future. We know that an attempt to explain all concepts can hardly be called scientific. Some concepts require acceptance without explanation. Whatever we, the scientists, say is expressed in terms of limited and approximate descriptions, which are improved in successive steps. We progress from truth to truth, from lesser truth to higher truth, but never from error to truth. We view the truth, get as much of it as the circumstances permit, color it with our own feelings, understand it with our intellect, and grasp with our own minds. This makes the difference E-mail address: [email protected]. c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 0362-546X/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.na.2007.04.037

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between human beings and sometimes generates contradictory ideas. Nonetheless, we all belong to the same universal truth. New knowledge comes from inspiration and revelation and not from just rational thought. Different scientists describe their creative ability by various equivalent means using different language. Newton and Ramanujan, for example, credit their creative ability to the divine intervention. What we call the most correct, systematic, mathematical language of the present time, and the hazy, mystical, mythological language of the ancients differs in clarity. Clearly, the two approaches of thought, namely, ancient and modern, have their roots in different parts of human culture and tradition. It is important to realize that the root sounds of the mantric language employed in the Vedas cannot be put into words in any final manner. As an example, consider one of the words which we utilize later, namely, Agni, which is fire in the sense we normally employ. Agni is also translated as the God of Fire which is a personification of all fire. Agni is the energy of transformation that is essentially the energy of pure consciousness. Agni is whatever burns, penetrates, perceives, labors, creates, envisions, wills, aspires and ascends with force. Agni is symbolically a fire, for example, the way we speak of the fire of genius. Agni is fire but not simply a fire, even as seen by a fertile but primitive imagination. As the principle of light and energy in general, Agni is the sun by day, the moon by night, the fire in the home, the stars in the sky, and the wind in the atmosphere or lightning in the clouds. Whatever manifests as power, strength and spirit is Agni. Thus Agni represents heroic man, the swift stallion, the strong bull, or the soaring eagle. In terms of our faculties, Agni is wakeful awareness and mindfulness, the will to truth, consciousness, the state of seeing, the mind, the intelligence, listening, chanting and the voice. In short, Agni is whatever it is in us that manifests light, power and effulgence of the Impersonal Being. To render the word Agni only as fire is like calling the Milky Way, not a galaxy but a stream of milk [13]. There were many different schools of thought in ancient times as in modern times. Also, several ancient scientists were satisfied with an approximate understanding of Nature (Prakriti in Sanskrit), and described selected groups of phenomena, neglecting other phenomena, which in their opinion, were less important. The theory of the school of Mimamsakas, for example, concludes that the very performance of an act carries its result as action is always followed by reaction. The Universe has been in existence in time, without a beginning. There was no time at which it did not exist. Hence, do not worry about who created it. There is no necessity to give credit to the creator or God [13]. Like the modern scientist, the ancient scientist’s solution of the mystery of the Universe, from the analysis of the external world was as satisfactory as it could be. There have been attempts to catch a glimpse of the beyond, through which one can understand the Impersonal Being, by studying the external world. This has been a failure because the more we study the material world, even the little true knowledge we possess vanishes. The greatest of the ancient scientists are known as Rishis. According to Max Planck, Rishis were human beings in whom Nature’s Grace Absolute has chased away the eternal darkness of the mind, destroyed the natural perversity of the intellect, and driven away the last vestige of egoism and falsehood [16]. They realized that the knowledge to the highest or beyond must come only through internal search. They, therefore, were concerned with absolute knowledge involving an understanding of the totality of existence. They were interested, as Mundaka Upanishad questions, “What is it, which having been known, everything else becomes known?” They first perceived and realized, and then written down in Upanishads [28]. We must remember that until the present interpretation of the new physics even the word “transcendence”, for example, was seldom mentioned in the vocabulary of physics. The term was considered heretical. In modern physics, the Universe is experienced as a dynamic inseparable whole, which always includes the observer in an essential manner. In this experience, the traditional concepts of time and space of isolated objects, and of cause and effect, lose their meaning. Such an experience is very similar to that of ancient scientists. The only difference being they repeatedly insist that the ultimate reality can never be an object of reasoning or demonstrable knowledge. This is exactly what our scientist Max Planck observed [16], namely, “science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature, and that is because in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of Nature and therefore, part of the mystery we are trying to solve”. In view of the ideas of modern physics and the recent fruitful research in several disciplines, it appears that the time is almost ripe to have at least a hybrid interaction between the theories of modern and ancient scientists. We feel that this hybrid interplay discussed in this paper and in [9,14,15] has shed some light on the existing theories and improved the approximations.

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Fortunately, the theories of ancient scientists have begun to interest a significant number of people and the terms yoga, meditation, reincarnation, consciousness and karma, no longer are viewed with ridicule or suspicion, even within the scientific community. For example, David Bohm asserts “mind and matter are mutually enfolding projections of a higher reality, which is neither matter nor consciousness” [1]. 2. Mind and consciousness The mind is limited in the sense that it cannot go beyond certain limits, of time, space and causation. The mind is intimately connected with the brain, which changes every time the body changes. The body is not the real human being nor the mind, for the mind waxes and wanes. The body and the mind are continuously changing and are, in fact, only names of a series of changing phenomena, like the rivers whose waters are in a constant state of flux, yet present the appearance of unbroken streams. With every sense we have, there is first external instrument in the physical body and behind that there is the organ, and yet these are not sufficient. When the mind detaches itself from the organ, the organ may bring any news to it, but the mind will not receive it. When it attaches itself to the organ, then alone it is possible for the mind to receive the news. Even that does not explain the perception. One more factor is essential. There must be a reaction within and with this reaction comes the knowledge. The state of mind that reacts is known as intellect, called Buddhi in Sanskrit. But this does not complete the process either and will not be completed unless there is something permanent in the background, on which all the different impressions are projected. This something on which the mind is painting all these pictures, this something on which our sensations carried by the mind and intellect, are placed, grouped and formed into a unity, is what is known as Selftron, the Atma in Sanskrit [14,26]. When we move a finger, that apparently simple motion is the culmination of millions of unutterably complex chemical and electrical interactions, occurring within milliseconds in a neatly ordered sequence in our brain. The entire process of moving a finger is called the firing mechanism which starts in a region of the brain called the supplementary motor area. If the subject of the experiment did not actually move his finger at all, but merely thought about moving it, detectors in the experiment indicated that his supplementary motor area was firing, although the motor cortex of the brain, which controls the movement of the muscles themselves was not. Hence, Sir John Eccles, the Nobel Laureate [7], triumphantly said that the supplementary motor area is fired by intention. The mind is working on the brain and thought does cause brain cells to fire. The physiology of movement proves that we have freedom of will, that something outside of a purely mechanical process is involved in our actions. We have the mental ability to decide to act. If we do it at this elementary level, moving a finger, it follows that we can do it on more complex levels of human action and interaction. The external instruments are in the gross physical body of a human being but the mind and intellect are not. They are in the fine body, or the subtle body, known as Sukshma Sarira in Sanskrit, made up of fine particles. Beyond that is the Selftron, that is behind the mind. We know that there is something behind the mind because knowledge is self-illuminating and the basis of intelligence cannot belong to dull, dead matter. It is the intelligence that illuminates matter. Neither the body, nor the mind, not even the fine body is self-luminous. That which is self-luminous cannot decay. The luminosity of that which shines through the borrowed light comes and goes. The moon, for example, waxes and wanes since it shines through the borrowed light of the sun. Thus we see that all the powers of the gross body are borrowed from the mind, and the mind, the fine body, borrows its powers and luminosity from the Selftron. In reality, there is only one existence designated as the Impersonal Being, the Absolute Reality. Through the cosmic illusion known as Maya, the apparent multiplicity is created and the Impersonal Being appears as the individual Selftron and the Visible Universe. Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the Visible Universe but it is simply a statement of facts, as they exist. If we think that the shapes and structures, things and events, around us are realities of nature, instead of realizing that they are concepts of our measuring and categorizing minds, then this point of view of ours is known as Maya. It is the cosmic illusion of taking these concepts for reality, of confusing the map with the territory. As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the creative activity of the Impersonal Being, with reality, without perceiving the unity of the Impersonal Being underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of Maya [14, 26]. All objects are fictions, chimers of the mind. It is our left-brain hemisphere that tricks us into seeing sheep, trees, human beings and all the rest of our neatly compartmentalized world. We seek out stability with our reasoning faculty, and ignore flux. Through this classifying and simplifying approach we make sections through the stream of change,

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and we call these sections things. And yet a sheep is not a sheep. It is a temporary aggregation of subatomic particles which were once scattered across an interstellar cloud, and each of which remains within the process that is the sheep for only a brief period of time. That is the actual, irrefutable case. We slip so easily into the habit of assuming what we see and feel in our minds is what is actually going on outside ourselves, beyond the portal of the senses. Although we experience the world as a series of sensory objects, what actually comes to our senses is energy in the form of vibrations of different frequencies: very low frequencies for hearing and touch, higher frequencies for warmth, and still higher for vision. The radiations we pick up trigger neural codes that are made by the brain into a model of the external world. Then this model is given subjective value and, by the trick of the brain, projected outward to form the subjective world. That inner experience is what we habitually equate with external objectivity. But it is not objective. All of the perceived reality is a fiction [6]. Nature (Prakriti) is eight fold, namely earth (Bhumi), water (Aapa), fire (Agni), air (Vayu), space (Akasa), mind (Manas), intellect (Buddhi) and ego (Ahankara). The first five elements represent in the microcosm, the five sense organs by which the individual comes to experience and live in the world of sense objects. This list is nothing but the fine body and its vehicles of expression, namely, sense organs. These are the channels through which the world of stimuli reaches within. The inner point of focus of the five sense organs is called the mind. The impulses received by the mind are rationally classified and systematized into the knowledge of their perception by the intellect. In all these three levels, namely, sense reception, mental perception and intellectual assimilation, there is a continuous sense of I-ness, which is called the ego. This is the lower nature of the Selftron. The higher nature is the pure consciousness, the Absolute Reality. It is this entity that makes it possible for the body, mind and intellect, made up of mere materials to act as if they were in themselves so vitally sentient. It is the Selftron that maintains, nourishes and sustains all the possibilities in the manifestations of the world of plurality [2,14]. The Selftron is the only reality in the human body and is not material. Because it is immaterial, it cannot be a compound, and therefore, it does not obey the law of cause and effect. That which is immortal can have no beginning because everything with a beginning must have an end. It also follows that it must be formless, since there cannot be any form without matter. It must be all pervading because that which is formless cannot be confined in space. When the Selftron acts through the phenomenal Universe, its action is visible and is called Liftron, known as Prana in Sanskrit. We need to explain the word Prana. The ancient scientists refer to the anu (atom) and to the paramanu (finer electronic energies) but also prana which is the creative liftronic force. Modern scientists have identified the thought process with molecular changes in the brain and have been happy with this approximation. They did not like for a long time, the existence of consciousness behind the brain. However, because of the recent findings that human beings who have suffered removal of large parts of the brain retain their memory and are able to live intellectually proves that consciousness cannot be centered in the brain. The consciousness is now an active field of study. According to Schr¨odinger “consciousness affects all life, that the direction of evolution is governed by consciousness, but, most importantly, that there is only one consciousness” [18]. The school of Buddhists also denies the existence of the Selftron. They say that the world is itself sufficient and we need not ask for any background at all. There is no use in thinking of something as a support for this Universe. The school of dualists claims that there is no such thing as unchangeability in the Universe; it is all change and nothing but change. They admit that the Selftron exists but assert that the body, mind and the Selftron are three separate existences. We see therefore that not only do we have different schools of thought in modern times but also we had in ancient times. Buddhists are perfectly right to say that the whole Universe is a mass of change. But as long as we are separate from the Universe, as long as we stand back and look at something before us, as long as there are two things, the lookers on and the thing looked upon, it will appear always that the Universe is one of change. However, the truth is that there is both change and changelessness in this Universe. Those who see only motion never see absolute calm, and those who see absolute calm, for them motion has vanished. The dualists are also right in finding something behind all as a background which does not change. This is the Selftron. But the analysis that it is neither the body nor the mind, something separate from them both, but underlying them is wrong. It is not at the same time all these. We cannot observe change without there being something unchangeable. We can only conceive something changeable by knowing something which is not changeable, and this must also appear more changeable in comparison with something else which is less changeable and so on, until we are bound to admit that there must be something which never changes at all. The whole of this manifestation must

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have been in a state of unmanifestation, calm and silent, being the balance of opposing forces. This Universe is ever hurrying on to return to that state of equilibrium again [26,28]. 3. Inanimate and animate matter The boundary between inanimate and animate matter or living and non-living matter cannot be definitely fixed, although we are used to compartmentalizing them as different. The question is where do we draw the line between living and non-living matter. No one would question the statement that the human body is a living entity, consisting of countless cells, each of which is alive or that these cells join forces to form organs, which are also alive. Modern scientists agree that all living systems reproduce and use energy; they take in nutrients, process them, extract energy, and excrete waste products. One can easily observe this process at work in our fellow living beings. But is it also going on at the cellular level and at the planetary level? The conversion of energy or substances from one form to another in order to maintain the functioning of the organism is its metabolism. The earth absorbs sunlight and heat is radiated out into space as a waste product. Therefore, the earth has a metabolism and it is alive. Similarly, the Universe is alive too. Picture an astronomical phenomenon occurring on a more human time scale, and the idea of a living Universe becomes easier to envision and accept. Let us look at the evolution of a star by assuming that one billion years is equal to one minute. We see a cloud of hydrogen gas sucked into a compact core and then transformed into heavier atoms, cooked by the nuclear blaze at the stars center. The heavier atoms are excreted in the form of stellar winds or a violent stellar explosion. Similar to other living beings, stars also reproduce; their waste products are fed into other regions of space, where they become part of new contracting clouds destined to become stars, within which energy will be exchanged and still more waste products are excreted. Our speeded-up view of what happens in space reveals constant evolution and movement. These little life centers, these cells we call stars, are part of larger living organisms, the galaxies. The nucleus of a galaxy can be likened to a heart. We know that it pumps plasma, that is, hydrogen gas with some impurities, the nutrients, out into the surrounding veins; we call the spiral arms, streamers of intergalactic hydrogen that reach out and touch neighboring galaxies. Since our Universe is made up of living galaxies, it is certainly alive. To mitochondria and bacteria, the organism that is their host is as vast and mysterious as the Universe to us. Like the organelles, we may be part of some as yet incomprehensible living thing made up of organisms on all scales such as galaxies, gas clouds, star clusters, stars, planets, animals, cells and microorganisms. Thus from the biological view point, the earth and the Universe can rightly be considered as living beings and therefore we need to relocate the line between living and non-living [24]. More than a century ago, in 1899, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose began a comparative study of the curves of molecular reaction in inorganic substance and those in the living animal tissue. To his awe and surprise, the curves produced by slightly warmed magnetic oxide of iron showed striking resemblance to those of animal muscles. In both, response and recovery diminished with exertion, and the consequent fatigue could be removed by gentle massage or by exposure to a bath of warm water. Other metal components also reacted in similar ways. Bose who synthesized the teaching of his forefathers with the revelations of modern scientific research finds that every fiber in a green leaf, apparently sluggish mass of foliage, is infused with sensibility. Flowers and plants cease to be merely a few clustered petals, a few green leaves growing from a woody stem. They are man’s organic kin. Thus Bose’s research confirms not only vedantic teachings, but the deep, world wide philosophic conviction that beneath the chaotic, bewildering diversity of nature, there is underlying unity. At the close of one of his Royal Society addresses, after he had shown the complete similarity between the response of apparently dead metals, plants and animal muscles, Bose poetically uttered the conclusion at which he has arrived: “It was when I came upon the mute witness of these self made records and perceived in them one phase of a pervading unity that bears within it all things; the mote that quivers in ripples of light, the teeming life upon our earth, and the radiant suns that shine above us; it was then that I understood for the first time a little of that message proclaimed by my ancestors on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago. They who see but ONE in all the changing manifestations of this Universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth – unto none else, unto none else” [22]. According to ancient scientists, the five senses of perception are the means to take cognizance of the five gross elements, namely, space, air, fire, water, and earth (Akasa, Vayu, Agni, Aapa, and Bhumi, respectively in Sanskrit). The ear perceives the sound which is characteristic of space. The skin all over the body is endowed with the sense of

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touch which is peculiar to the air. The eye cognizes form which is revealed by the light of fire. The tongue experiences taste of things dissolved in water. But for the aid and agency of water nothing can be tasted. The nose can detect smell produced by the earth. The knowledge of the five instruments are thus recognized as the revealers of the five gross elements of which the Universe is constituted. In human beings and animals, the liftron works through these five senses. In lower forms, there is involution of senses from thought (sound), magnetic sensation (touch), photonic sensation (sight), electrical sensation (taste) in fluid medium, and molecular sensation or movement (smell), in that order. As the beings take lower and lower forms in the evolutionary scale, the sensations come down the scale, till at last the so called inert objects sense purely by smell or molecular movement. All this sensing in whatever levels of the evolutionary ladder the being may be stationed, is done by the reflection of the liftron. The liftron is the birth right of all forms including the space itself that we normally see as the etheric nothing, which also determines its life span. Without the liftron, they would be unintelligent and chaotic. We are told that between atomic disintegration and atomic birth, it takes 216,000 years and that is why we only see atomic disintegration and not its rebirth [2,28]. 4. Evolution and involution From the time the human beings appeared on this planet earth, they have been enjoying all the awe-inspiring, sublime and beautiful things including the celestial bodies. The whole mass of existence which we call Nature, Prakriti in Sanskrit, has been acting on our minds and thoughts all the time. The same questions have been raised several times, namely, What is this Visible Universe? Who projected it? Does it have a beginning or an end? What is the place of human beings in it? Etc. Many times various answers have been presented by several ancient and modern scientists. Looking around us we observe a continuous change. We put a seed in the ground and later find a seedling peeping out, which lifts itself slowly above the ground, and grows till it becomes a tree. Then it dies, leaving only a seed. The seed does not immediately become a tree, but has a period of a very fine unmanifested state. It has to work for some time beneath the soil. It breaks into pieces, degenerates and regeneration comes out of that degeneration. The bird springs from the egg, lives its life, and then dies, having produced eggs which are seeds of future birds. The child is born, grows into a human being, departs from the world through death. However, the subtle body made up of fine particles, lives on in an unmanifested state for some time and then takes the next embodiment, depending upon the resultant tendencies produced by its actions [15]. We know that the rotating clouds of hydrogen contract to form stars, heating up in the process until they become burning forces in the sky. When most of the hydrogen fuel is used up, stars expand and then contract again in the final gravitational collapse. This collapse turns the stars into invisible neutron stars. Then living sometime in that invisible state, the stars are formed again. Thus we see that the fine forms slowly come out and become grosser, until they reach their limit, and then go back to finer forms. This is what is known as evolution. It is an old idea, as old as human society [26]. Everyone is aware of the ape-origin of humans which is Darwin’s theory of evolution. He maintained that man had risen, though by slow and interrupted steps, from some primordial cell through the fish, the amphibians and the mammals to an old-world simian stem. From that point on, he held that the development of upright posture and large brain could bring enough modifications to produce the modern man. A Chinese scientist, Tsou Tse, in the sixth century B.C., has the following on evolution. All organizations originate from a simple species. This single species had undergone many gradual and continuous changes and then gave rise to all organisms of different forms. Such organisms were not differentiated immediately, but on the contrary, they acquired their differences through gradual change, generation after generation [5]. These theories of evolution are only partial truths. Darwin’s theory, for example, is not conclusive because a special aspect of the peculiarities of nature has been elevated to the level of a theory. It is a descriptive statement of that aspect, which was taken as a final truth. Recent discoveries in many branches of research are dispelling long held scientific opinion that the upward evolution of life and intelligence that produced human beings was an accidental process. The very existence of living matter is leading many scientists to acknowledge an inherent design in creation. A careful analysis suggests that even a mildly impressive living molecule is quite unlikely to form randomly. One intriguing observation that has bubbled up from physics is that the Universe seems calibrated for life’s existence. If the force of gravity were pushed upward a bit, stars would burn out faster, leaving little time for life to evolve on the planet circling them. If the relative masses of protons and neutrons were changed by a hair, stars might never be born, since the hydrogen they consume would

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not exist. If, at the Big Bang, the initial conditions had been juggled, matter and energy would never have coagulated into galaxies, stars, planets or any other platforms stable enough for life as we know it. Many biologists have long believed that the coming of highly intelligent life was close to inevitable. The blind evolutionary process of natural selection and survival of the fittest that fashioned complex living creatures from the earth’s raw material cannot persist without organization of life [24]. The question is from what does this evolution come? Here is where the ancient scientists discovered one more thing, which we the modern scientists have yet to perceive clearly and that is involution. Every evolution pre-supposes an involution, because nothing can be evolved which is not already there, the sum total of energy in the Universe remaining the same throughout. Evolution does not come from nothing but comes out of the previous involution. The child is the human being involved and the human being is the child evolved. The seed is the tree involved and the tree is the seed evolved. All the possibilities of life are in the germ. From the lowest protoplasm to the most perfect human being, is really just one life, moving from one stage of evolution to another. In the beginning the whole of this Universe has to work similarly for a period, in that subtle form, unseen and unmanifested and out of that comes new projection. The entire period of one manifestation of this Universe, its going back to the finer form, remaining there for some time, and coming out again, is a grand cycle [26]. “What is it by knowing which this whole Universe will be known?” was one search by some ancient scientists of Vedanta school. They did not care for the particular but always searched for the general, rather universal. They postulate that this phenomenal Universe was resolved into material called Spactron, and force called Liftron (Akasa and Prana respectively in Sanskrit). All the things which are around us, and which we see, feel, touch, taste, are simply different manifestations of the Spactron. It is an all pervading and finer substance. All that which we call solids, liquids, or gases, figures, forms or bodies, the earth, sun, moon, planets, stars and galaxies, all of these are composed of the Spactron. All forms of energy in the Universe, all motion, attraction and even thoughts are different manifestations of Liftron. This Liftron, acting on the Spactron, creates the whole of the Universe. The next step is to resolve the Spactron and the Liftron into a still higher entity called Mahat, in Sanskrit, which is the Selftron, devoid of all formation but full of potentialities for infinite enfoldment. This Selftron manifested, changed, evolved itself into Spactron and Liftron. By the combination of these two, the entire Universe has been released. At the beginning of a cycle, Liftron sleeps figuratively speaking (or lays latent), in the infinite Spactron, which is motionless. Then by the action of Liftron, motion arises in Spactron and the Liftron begins to vibrate and out of this vibration come various celestial bodies, stars and solar systems with earth, plants, animals and human beings, and the manifestations of all the various forces and phenomena. Thus every manifestation of energy is Liftron and every manifestation of matter is Spactron. When the cycle ends, all matter transforms successively into finer forms and more uniform vibrations, and finally they all merge back into original Spactron. All attraction, repulsion and motion will slowly resolve into original Liftron. Then this Liftron will lay latent for a period to evolve again as before. This process of creation and dissolution goes on through eternity, that is, this entire process is both static and dynamic periodically, in cycles [26]. 5. Big Bang and Big Crunch Through the powerful telescopes, we observe our Universe in a ceaseless motion. One of the most important discoveries in modern astronomy is the fact that the Universe as a whole, with its millions of galaxies, is expanding. The analysis of the light received from distant galaxies has shown that the entire set of galaxies expands in a well orchestrated manner and the recession velocity of any galaxy is proportional to the galaxy’s distance. When we talk about an expanding Universe, it is in the framework of general relativity. To explain the expansion of the Universe, the microwave background radiation, and the cosmic abundance of helium, the Big Bang theory was developed. From the relation between the distance of a galaxy and its recession velocity, one can calculate the starting point of the expansion, which is the age of the Universe. Assuming that there has been no change in the rate of expansion, which is by no means certain, one arrives at an age of the order of 10,000 million years. The cosmologists believe that the Universe came into being as a highly dynamic event between 10,000 and 20,000 million years ago, when its total mass exploded out of a small primeval fireball. According to the Big Bang model, the moment of the Big Bang marked the beginning of the Universe and the starting of space and time. Stephen Hawking [11] states that the Big Bang, like the Black Hole, must have a singularity, which is a point in space–time at which the space–time curvature becomes infinite, namely, a condition of infinite density and zero

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volume. The laws of science breakdown at a singularity. It was at such a point or state that the Universe has originated. Thus the Big Bang singularity was the beginning of the Universe as well as the beginning of time. When it began it had zero size and infinite heat. A second later, it had grown exponentially and its temperature had dropped to about ten thousand degrees centigrade or about a thousand times the temperature at the center of our sun but no more than the temperature in a hydrogen bomb explosion. For a few million years the Universe cooled and expanded and so on, the theory goes. This singularity is supposed to have ended with the Big Bang after which the normal laws of science would apply. If the whole Universe re-collapsed, there must be another state of infinite density in the future, the Big Crunch, which would be an end of time. Astronomers do not know what preceded the Big Bang and what is at the end of it either. The so-called Big Crunch is yet to come, if at all. In the computation of the age of the Universe and the corresponding Big Bang theory, it is assumed that there has been no change in the rate of expansion of galaxies and that the outermost galaxies are traveling at more than the speed of light. However, as observed very recently, the Universe is clumsy, irregular relative to the distribution of galaxies, which is diametrically opposite to earlier assumptions. Furthermore, we are not clear about the known and not yet known phenomenal Universe. The notion of dark matter is questionable because at the time of observation, the previously effulgent celestial bodies of the Universe could be in the invisible form. For example, our sun and the entire solar system was in invisible state two billion years ago. Anyone observing from outside our little world would find it as dark matter. Similarly, we may be observing the galaxies as they used to be in their earlier birth or in their death, so to speak. Moreover, the Big Bang model is not much help in the explanation of the so-called Big Crunch either. What was before the Big Bang and after the Big Crunch is unknown. The theory of the Big Bang and its conclusions are therefore partially true. Since there is no matter that we can see or know, hidden away in the black holes or in hot invisible gas between galaxies, the Universe will hold gravitationally and partake of a succession of cycles (Yugas in Sanskrit), expansion followed by contraction, universe upon universe, cosmos without an end. According to ancient astronomers, the present Universe has been in existence a little more than 155.52×1012 years. Long before the start of the Big Bang, the Selftron remained in equilibrium, in which everything lay latent. Then there was an impulse of desire to release the phenomenal Universe. This existential urge created an outburst of heat from which Mahat was evolved. Recall that Mahat is the same Selftron devoid of all formation but full of potentialities for infinite enfoldment. The Spactron and the Liftron were released from Mahat, which resulted in an explosive outpouring of great heat and looked like an abrupt leap of the Big Bang. A concise description of what possibly must have happened after the Big Bang, can be seen in Sagan [19]. At the end of the cycle, all matter transforms into vibrations and condenses into the Spactron. Similarly, all forces merge into Liftron and the two dissolve into Mahat, which becomes enfolded into the Selftron. In this process, a great amount of cold is generated and the entire phenomena may be considered as the Big Crunch. The Big Bang and the Big Crunch seem to appear as sudden events, only in the sense that the lift of a seedling and the fall of a ripe fruit appear sudden, although they are continuous processes. A simple example may illustrate the total process. Consider a spider which has its web hidden in its stomach. Without any force, it brings out the web with its own power, for its own sake. At some stage, it swallows its web. Though the processes are seen separately, they are one. Thus the spider is always one like the Selftron. In order to know more details of the theory of astronomical cycles relative to the time scales of our Universe, we need to consider our baby Universe in which we live. This is discussed in the next section. 6. Sristi and Laya Sristi is the word employed for what we call evolution or creation by the ancient scientists. Sristi means to release and does not imply to create something out of nothing as the word creation connotes. Thus Sristi means bringing into existence what has been latent in the Selftron (the Impersonal Being). This phenomenal Universe is released by a continuous process and is a crystallization of the unmanifest dormant names, forms, and qualities into their manifest forms of existence. That which is called manifest is available either for the perception or for the understanding of the intellect. That which is not available for any one of these instruments of cognition, feeling or understanding is considered unmanifest. This Visible Universe emanated from and recedes into the Selftron in an everlasting process and lives through a time period of 311.04 × 1012 mean solar years known as the grand cycle and then dissolves into unmanifest state, in which it remains in equilibrium for the same period and then manifests into the phenomenal Universe again. We

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learn that this process of Sristi and Laya have followed one another since endless time. Laya means the process of involution. The present Universe has been in existence for 155.52 × 1012 plus 1.972949109 × 109 solar years up to 2007. To learn how the time period of the Universe is arrived by the ancient astronomers, we need to learn about our little baby Universe where we live. Let us therefore concern ourselves next with the present formation of our little baby Universe or world, known in Sanskrit as Brahmanda, which is a huge egg-shaped ellipsoid containing our solar system. Geocentrically speaking, our earth is in the center of our Brahmanda, the distance east to west through the equator to the boundary of the Brahmanda is about 15 billion miles, whereas the distance from north to south is approximately 21 billion miles. Our Brahmanda with its solar system is located in the stellar system called the Milky Way, or simply the galaxy and makes one revolution around the galaxy in 306.72 × 106 mean solar years. There are 21 × 1063 Brahmandas in the Universe showing the immense vastness of the Universe. Each Brahmanda has its own time scale or life period. Our Brahmanda’s life is 4.32 × 109 years. By the end of this time, the sun becomes an invisible star but still the entire Brahmanda goes around the galaxy. This period of 4.32 billion years is known as Kalpa, in Sanskrit, a cycle, which is the minimum time when all planets make an integral number of revolutions, together with the apogees or aphelia and orbital nodes. They all will be in conjunction at the zero degree of Aries. Since, by this time, most of the hydrogen fuel is used up by the sun, the gravitational pull makes it absorb the entire planetary system with a gigantic explosion and become an invisible star. After 4.32 billion years of this invisible state, the collected rotating clouds of hydrogen gas by the invisible sun contract, and heat up in the process until they become a burning fire. They still continue to rotate ejecting material which spirals outward and condenses into planets, which circle around the sun. The smallest cycle, known as Kali Era, is 432,000 years at the start of which all the planets including the sun and the moon make an integral number of revolutions and are in conjunction at zero degree Aries. Presently we are in Kali Era which started in 3102 BC, February 20th at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 30 seconds with the conjunction and thus 5108 years are completed from the start of Kali Era. The French Astronomer, La Kalie did verify this astronomical fact. In fact, from the present Kalpa our Brahmanda has completed 1.972949109 × 109 years and our Universe is 155.52 × 1012 plus 1.972949109 × 109 years old, as already mentioned. The foregoing figures are relative to our solar time scale on earth. If, for example, humans are living above earth’s North Pole, then for them our six months will be one day time or equivalently our one year is one night and day. As a result, if we measure in this time scale, the above figures need to be divided by 360. As another example, if humans live outside of our Brahmanda in the Universe, our Kalpa, that is, 4.32 billion years will be one day time for them since our solar system will exist for that much time. Hence a day for them will be 8.64 billion years and with respect to such a time measure, the age of the Universe would be one hundred years and presently its age would be fifty years and less than six hours in the first day. In fact, all manifested forms and shapes of existence in the Universe have birth and death, so to speak, at allocated times, including the entire Universe. We also learn that it took 360,000 years after our Brahmanda was formed, for the vegetable life to start, which needed 12,960,000 years to develop fully. It then took 3,744,000 years for the actual creation of human life. Thus a total of 17,064,000 years were required before the existing type of life began on our earth after our baby Universe was formed [13,21,25]. 7. Infinite void and infinite light The physicists begin their inquiry into the essential nature of things by studying the material world. Penetrating into an ever deeper realm of matter, they have become aware of the essential unity of all things and events. Furthermore, they have also learned that they themselves and their consciousness are an integral part of this unity. They arrive at this conclusion starting from the external world but their observations take place in realms of atomic and subatomic worlds that are inaccessible to the ordinary senses. They have developed a four dimensional space–time formalism which implies concepts and observations belonging to different categories in the ordinary three dimensional world. The multidimensional experiences transcend the sensory world and are therefore almost impossible to express in ordinary language. The modern physics shows us, at the macroscopic level, that material objects are not distinct entities, but are inseparably linked to their environment. Their properties can only be understood in terms of their interaction with the rest of the world. According to Mach’s principle, this interaction reaches out to the Universe at large, to the distant

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stars and galaxies. The basic unity of the cosmos manifests itself, not only in the world of the very small but also in the world of the very large. The subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurements. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the Universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated basic building blocks, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between various parts. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. Physicists experience the four dimensional space–time world through the abstract mathematical formalism of their theories, but their visual imagination, like everybody else’s, is limited to the three dimensional world of senses. Since our language and thought patterns have evolved in the three dimensional world, we find it extremely hard to deal with the four dimensional reality of relativistic physics. In modern physics, mass is no longer associated with a material substance, and therefore, particles are not seen as consisting of any basic stuff, but as bundles of energy. Since energy is associated with activity, with processes, the implication is that the nature of subatomic particles is intrinsically dynamic. These particles can only be conceived in relativistic terms, that is, in terms of a framework where space and time are fused into a four dimensional continuum. Subatomic particles are dynamic patterns which have a space aspect and a time aspect. Their space aspect makes them appear as objects of certain mass, their time aspect as processes involving the equivalent energy. In quantum theory, we do not speak about a particle’s trajectory when we say that the particle is also a wave. What we mean is that the wave pattern as a whole is a manifestation of the particle. The introduction of probability waves, resolves the paradox of particles being waves by putting in a totally new context. But that leads to another pair of fundamentally opposite concepts of existence and non-existence. This pair of opposites is transcended by the atomic reality. Being a probability pattern, the particle has tendencies to exist in various places and thus manifests a strange kind of physical reality between existence and non-existence. We cannot describe, therefore, the state of the particle in terms of fixed concepts. The particle is not present at a definite place, nor is it absent. It does not change its position, nor does it remain at rest. The concept of a quantum field, that is a field which can take the form of quanta or particles, is a new concept, which has been extended to describe all subatomic particles and their interactions, each type of particle corresponding to a different field. The quantum field is seen as the fundamental physical entity, a continuous medium that is present everywhere in space. Particles are merely local condensations of the field; concentrations of energy which come and go, thereby losing their individual character and dissolving into the underlying field. This underlying activity is the only reality and all its phenomenal manifestations are seen as transitory. Thus the quantum field theory is a well defined concept which only accounts for some of the physical phenomena, namely, inert matter and hence it is only a partial truth. When physicists began to study the quantum theory of fields, they discovered that a vacuum or void is not inert and featureless, but alive with throbbing energy and vitality. A real particle such as an electron must always be viewed against this background. The virtual particles can come into being spontaneously out of the void and vanish again into the void. According to field theory, events of this kind happen all the time. Thus the void or physical vacuum is far from empty. It contains unlimited numbers of particles which come into being and vanish without end. It contains the potentiality of all forms of the particle world. These forms are not independent physical entities but merely transient manifestations of the underlying infinite void. Thus the infinite void is a truly living void, pulsating in endless rhythms of creation and destruction [4]. The reality of the quantum field theory cannot be identified with the Absolute Reality of the ancient scientists. The difficulty is that it is, as pointed out earlier, an incomplete generalization since we have taken only one of the facts of nature and that is inert matter. We have left out the other side, namely the living matter. If we penetrate into the living matter, we will find infinite light or effulgence. The infinite void and infinite light cannot be conceived as mutually exclusive opposites, but only two aspects of the same reality, which coexist. However, the scientific exploration of inert and living matter requires different approaches. The perception of Absolute Reality depends on awareness of oneness of all animate and inanimate life, the interdependence of their multiple manifestations, and their cycles of change and transformation. The silencing of the mind that is, shifting the awareness from the rational to the intuitive mode is achieved by concentrating one’s attention to a single item. The human mind can be trained and disciplined to focus its powers enough to exercise control over the sensory perceptions. One can go even further in silencing or controlling the mind, intelligence and ego, in addition to the senses thereby realizing the Universe in higher dimensional spaces to

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get a glimpse of infinite effulgence. Ancient scientists suggest that it is possible for some individuals to go to infinite dimensions and merge with the Impersonal Being or equivalently the Selftron. Our immediate reaction may be that it is impossible. However, recently the definition of space has been modified. There is a growing acknowledgement among some physicists world wide, including several Nobel Laureates, that the Universe may actually exist in higher dimensional space. Light, in fact, can be explained as vibrations in the fifth dimension. Higher dimensional space, instead of being empty, actually becomes the central actor in the drama of nature [12]. The question whether the mind is of higher dimension is not considered by many physicists. However, in complex biological and computational systems, mind is a fundamental process in its own right, as widespread and deeply embedded in nature as light or electricity. Mind is, in a word, elemental, and it interacts with matter at an equally elemental level, at the level of the emergence of individual quantum events. What mathematics seems to say is that, between observations, the world exists not as a solid actuality but only as shimmering waves of possibility. Whenever it is looked at, the atom stops vibrating and objectifies one of its many possibilities. Whenever some one chooses to look at it, the atom ceases its fuzzy dance and seems to freeze into a tiny object with definite attributes, only to dissolve once more into a quivering pool of possibilities as soon as the observer withdraws his attention from it. This apparent observer-induced change in an atom’s mode of existence is called the collapse of the wave function or simply the quantum jump [10]. John Von Neumann addressed the problem that something new must be added to the collapse of the wave function, something that is capable of turning quantum possibilities into definite actualities. Searching his mind for an appropriate actually existing nonphysical entity that could collapse the wave function, Von Neumann reluctantly concluded that the only known entity fit for this was consciousness. In his interpretation, the world remains everywhere in a state of pure possibilities except where some conscious mind decides to promote a portion of the world from its actual state of indefiniteness into a condition of actual existence. By itself the physical world is not fully real but takes shape only as a result of the acts of numerous centers of consciousness. Ironically this conclusion comes not from an ancient mystic but from one of the world’s most practical mathematicians deducing the logical consequences of a highly successful and purely materialistic model of the world. It is therefore clear that the use of our own nervous system as instruments of experiments allows us to interact with not only the material level of existence but also non-material (living matter) levels. This should be a part of the scientific training of the future [23]. Through meditation, one can also get the important habit-altering brain change. Over the years, we develop circuits and channels of thought in our brain. These are physical pathways which control the way we think, and habits become so fixed that they turn into rigid wiring. In other words, the circuits or channels become so deeply ingrained it is almost impossible to transform them. Scientific research has shown that electrical activity between left and right sides of the brain becomes coordinated during certain kinds of meditation or prayer. Through these processes, the mind definitely becomes more capable of being altered and having its capabilities maximized. When we are in a state of enhanced left–right hemispheric communication, plasticity of cognition occurs, in which we actually change the way we view the world. When we change our patterns of thinking and acting, the brain cells begin to establish additional connections or new wirings. These new connections then communicate in fresh ways with other cells, and before long, the pathways that kept the phobias or other habits are replaced or altered and therefore changed actions and a changed life will follow. The implications are exciting and even staggering. It is interesting to know that approximately one hundred billion nerve cells in the brain have a total number of possible connections of the order 25 × 1030 [3]. The physical benefits of meditation have recently been well documented by medical researchers. It tends to lower, for example, or normalize blood pressure, pulse rate, and the levels of stress hormones in the blood. In short, meditation reduces the wear and tear on both body and mind, helping people to live longer and better. It has also been found recently that no technique of extreme physiological treatment may be expected to provide a cure for chronic pain unless the patient commits to a systematic inner change in thoughts and behavior. As a result of this discovery, pain specialists are beginning to recognize the great practical utility of the science of yoga and meditation in dealing with the physical and mental causes of chronic pain. To learn self-control requires will power and training in the right thinking, right attitudes, right activity, the very things one learns from the disciplines of yoga [20]. Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively towards a single object and sustain that direction without distractions. The mind serves the dual purpose. It serves the perceiver (the Selftron) by presenting the external to it. It also reflects or presents the perceiver to itself for its own enlightenment. When the mind is free from the clouds that prevent perception, all is known and there is nothing more to be known. When the highest purpose of life is achieved the three basic qualities, behavior, attitude, and expression, do not excite responses in the mind. That is

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freedom. In other words, the perceiver is no longer colored by the mind or the mind has complete identity with the Selftron [17]. 8. Phenomenon and noumenon There are two principles of knowledge. The first one is that we can know by referring the particular to the general and the general to the universal. The second is that anything, of which the explanation is sought, is to be explained, as far as possible, from its own nature. Taking up the first principle we see that all our knowledge really consists of classifications leading to higher levels of refinement. When something happens once, for example, we are dissatisfied but when the same thing happens again and again, we call it a natural law. This implies that from the particular we deduce the general. The generalization of the personal God is another example. The personal God was called the sum total of all consciousness, which is an incomplete generalization. This is because we take only one side of the facts of nature, the consciousness, and generalize it as personal God. But we left out the other side of nature, namely, the inert nature and hence it is a defective generalization. There is another deficiency about the personal God, which relates to the second principle. If God is the creator of the Universe, who has nothing to do with nature, and if nature is said to be the outcome of the command of that God and to have been produced from nothing, then it is a very unscientific theory. In fact, the theory of personal God implies that he is endowed with the qualities of human beings enhanced very much, who by his will created the Universe out of nothing and yet is separate from it. The discussion about substance and qualities is very old. On a higher plane, the fight about substance and qualities takes the form of the fight about phenomenon and noumenon. There is the phenomenal world, the Universe of continuous change, and there is something beyond which does not change, and the duality of existence, noumenon and phenomenon, some scientists hold to be real, while other scientists claim that we have no right to admit the two, for what all we see, feel, and think is only phenomenon. We have no right, according to some schools of thought, like the Buddhist school, to assert there is anything beyond the phenomenon, and apparently there has been no answer to this. According to the school of Vedanta or Advaita, one thing alone exists, and that one thing is either phenomenon or noumenon. It is not true that there are two, something changing, and, in and through that, something which does not change. But it is one and the same thing which appears as changing and is in reality unchangeable. We have, for example, come to think of the body, mind and Selftron as separate, but really there is only one and that one appears through these various forms. Take the well known example of the rope appearing as the snake. Some people, in the dark or for some other reason, mistake a rope for a snake, but when knowledge comes, the snake vanishes and it is found to be a rope. By this illustration, we see that when the snake exists in the mind, the rope has vanished, and when the rope exists, the snake has gone. When we see only the phenomenon around us, the noumenon is vanished, but when we see the noumenon, the unchangeable, it naturally follows that the phenomenon has vanished. We can now understand the position of the realist and the idealist. The realist sees the phenomenon only, and the idealist looks at the noumenon. For the genuine idealists, who have truly acquired that power of perception, whereby they can get away from the ideas of change, the changeful Universe has vanished for them, and they have the right to say that it is all delusion and there is no change. The realists, on the other hand, look at the changeful phenomenon and for them the unchangeable does not exist, and they have the right to conclude that the phenomenon alone is real. Out of this discussion, we find that the personal God is not sufficient; we have to reach something higher, that is, to the idea of the Impersonal. It is the only logical step we can take, since the Impersonal is a much higher generalization. Only the Impersonal can be infinite, the personal is limited. This generalization does not imply that the Personal God is destroyed, nor the personal human being is lost. The Advaita idea is not the destruction of the individual or the Personal God, but their vindication. We cannot prove the existence of the individual, for example, except by referring to the universal and proving that the individual is really the universal. The thought of the individual as separate from everything else is not tenable. When we apply the second principle, we are led to a still bolder idea which is more difficult to understand. It is nothing less than the Impersonal Being, the highest generalization is in ourselves and we are That. The Chandogya Upanished declares by saying “That which is the subtle cause of all these things, of it are all the things that are made, that is All; that is the Truth, Thou art That”. We are the Impersonal Being. That God for whom we searched all over the Universe has been all the time within ourselves. The human beings we now know, are manifestations of that

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Impersonal Reality. To understand the personal we have to refer to the Impersonal. The particular must be referred to the general and the Impersonal is the true Selftron. As manifested beings we appear to be separate but our reality is ONE and the less we think of ourselves as separate from That ONE, the better for us. The more we think of ourselves as separate from the whole, the more miserable we become. Just as there are millions of people who believe in the personal Creator, there have also been thousands of brightest minds in this world who have felt that such ideas were not sufficient for them and wanted something higher and remained outside of such theories. This implies we need a theory large enough to take in all various views. There must be some independent authority, and that cannot be any one book, but something that is universal and what is more universal than intuitive reasoning? What we want is progress, development and realization. The only power is in realization and that lies in ourselves and comes from thinking. The glory of the human beings is that they are thinking beings. We have to understand the Impersonal for it is in and through That alone that the other concepts can be explained. As an example, let us take the Personal God, who is the highest reading of the Impersonal that can be reached by the human intellect; and what is the Universe but various readings of the Impersonal Being or the Absolute? This Universe in itself is the Absolute, the Unchangeable, the noumenon and the reading there of constitutes the phenomenon. We find that all phenomena are finite, and every phenomenon that we can see, feel or think is finite, limited by our knowledge. The Personal God, as we conceive of Him, is in fact a phenomenon. Whatever is real in the Universe is that Impersonal being, and the forms and names are given by our intellects. We as personalized, differentiated human beings forget our reality and the teaching of the Advaita is not that we must give up these differentiations, but that we must learn to understand what they are. We are in reality that Infinite Being and our personalities represent so many channels through which this Infinite Reality is manifesting itself, and the whole mass of changes that we call evolution are brought about by the Selftron trying to manifest more and more of its infinite energy. We cannot stop anywhere on this side of the Infinite and our power and wisdom cannot but grow into the Infinite. We have not yet realized the Infinite power and wisdom. All the knowledge that we have in this world is within us and nothing is outside. The gigantic intellect and the infinite energy lie coiled up in the protoplasmic cell, the energy is in the cell, potentially no doubt, but still there. It may seem like a paradox but it is true. The whole is the Absolute and within it every particle is in a constant state of flux and change. It is unchangeable and changeable at the same time, impersonal and personal in one. Thus we see that instead of doing away with the Personal and the relative, the Impersonal explains it to the full satisfaction of our own intuitive reason. When we shall get rid of our minds, our little personalities, we shall become one with it. This is what is meant by “Thou art That” [26, 28]. 9. Conclusion The infinite power of love existed in the hearts of those great ancient scientists, Rishis. They knew that all human beings must have their own paths, but the paths are not the goal. All paths are only steps towards the Truth (That ONE), and are not the Truth itself. However, they were aware that the human society should grow and went on applying their techniques by leading them upwards, step by step. Such were the writers of the Upanishads [28]. The sound is defined as vibration. At the level of the subatomic world, all matter is the same. But objects appear differently to the eyes because energy produces vibrations of different frequencies at various points. Vibrations create sound and conversely, if sound is to result, vibrations should be created. Since vibrations of different frequencies occur in the flood-stream of energy, the explanation of modern scientists, for the creation of the Universe, and the pronouncement of ancient scientists that the creation resulted from the life-breath of Impersonal Being, are mutually in agreement. The passage of breath through the various pulse-nerve centers creates vibrations which are responsible for the health of beings or lack of it. The breathing is nothing but the regulation of the vibrations within us. All matter, whether animate or inanimate, emanates from the Impersonal Being, multiplies itself and manifests in various forms, and gets transformed or disappears. The different vibrations necessary for such mutations should naturally be caused in the substance called Impersonal Being. If the origin of phenomenal existence is traceable to vibrations and sound, then it stands to reason that the same vibrations and sound can correct the erring forces of nature and cleanse the mind of improper thoughts.

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The mind is capable of having two states based on two distinct tendencies. These are distraction and attention. However, at any moment only one state prevails and this state influences the individual’s behavior, attitude and expressions. The silencing or restraint of senses occurs when the mind is able to remain in the chosen direction and the senses disregard different objects around them and faithfully follow the direction of the mind. Then the senses are mastered or silenced and the mental activities form an uninterrupted flow only in relation to this object. This state is known as Samadhi. Soon nothing except comprehension of the object is evident, which is as if the individual has lost his own identity. This is the complete integration with the object of understanding and nothing is beyond reach. This state is more intricate than Samadhi according to Patanjali Yogasutra [17]. Mikhael Aivanhov, a Bulgarian, who lived in France, expresses a similar idea in a modern way. When we live in a state of harmony our inner forces react and reject impurities. Harmony should be our first thought or intention and our last. Harmony is the opposite of stress, hectic activity, restlessness, competitiveness, unease and the myriad other conditions that characterize the modern psyche and culture. We cannot be loving and compassionate, for instance without being attuned to the higher reality. In harmony, we transcend the ego, and our body-mind becomes a conduit for the higher reality. Harmonize everything within ourselves, and we will become capable of acting with such wisdom, such depth, such intelligence, that we will wonder “How did we do it?” [8]. Another approach of describing a similar situation is as follows. Our deeper understanding leads to another kind of power, a power that loves life in every form as it appears, a power that does not judge what it encounters, a power that perceives meaningfulness and purpose in the smallest details upon the earth. This is authentic power. When we align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with the highest part of ourselves, we are filled with enthusiasm, purpose and meaning. Life is rich and full. No matter how many different ways we describe, we have only one method of acquiring true knowledge. From the lowest mortal to the highest Rishis, all have to employ the same method, the method of concentration. In doing anything, the stronger the power of concentration, the better the outcome. This is the one key that opens the gates of nature, and lets out the floods of light. That is why Patanjali defines yoga as the cessation of thought waves of the mind and provides the processes of several levels to attain concentration suitable for our various temperaments and purposes [17]. Ancient scientists rightly attached great importance to the various temperaments or inheritance that constitutes the natural inequality of individuals. These inequalities are due to the eternal recurrence of rhythmic character of the world process, which is explained by the theory of reincarnation. Accordingly, they explained their theories in several ways in order to reach the human beings of different temperaments. Thus we see, for example, that the process of creation (Sristi) and dissolution (Laya) has been described in many ways [13]. The following is an approximate translation of Rig Veda’s description of the situation before the present creation (Sristi) of the Universe, which loses a good deal of poetic beauty in translation. “Existence or non-existence was not then. That ONE breathed in the infinite vacuum by itself. Other than that there was nothing. In the beginning there was gloom hidden in gloom. All that existed then was infinite void and formless. From that voidness emerged through the might of the heat of austerity, the desire, the first seed of mind arose in That. There was a bond of existence in non-existence. Who knows the truth? Who will pronounce it, whence this birth, whence this Sristi arose? Whether it created itself or whether, it is not? That ONE, who looks upon it, surely knows or may be knows not” (Rig Veda, X, 129, 1–7) [27]. References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

David Bohm, Wholeness and Implicate Order, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1980. Bhagavad Gita. Herbert Benson, Your Maximum Mind, Random House, New York, 1981. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, third ed., Shambhala, Boston, 1991. R.N. Chopra, Spiritual Peregrinations, Bharateeya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1994. David Darling, Equations of Eternity: Speculations, Consciousness, Meaning and Mathematical Rules that Orchestrate the Cosmos, Hyperion, New York, 1993. Sir John Eccles, Dallas Time-Herald, Report, 1983. Georg Feuerstein, Innerwork, Outerwork: The Spiritual Perspective of Michaul Aivonhov, The Quest, Winter, 1990, pp. 82–86. T. Gnana Bhaskar, Danny Kovach, V. Lakshmikantham, The hybrid set theory, Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems (doi:10.1016/j.nahs.2006.09.001). Nick Herbert, Elemental Mind: Human Consciousness and the New Physics, Penguin Books, New York, 1993.

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