Question on sanscrit name of cosmic gateways/doors to other dimensions

[Frodo]

 

Dear friends,

 

I would like to know the sanscrit definition, if available, of the places on planet earth, acting as gateways/doors to other lokas/realms/stars.

 

When I was in India four years ago, Atma-tattva dasa, disciple of Srila Prabhupada, told us that the Earthly Vedic literature, especially the all Puranas are full of references of places/locations, at least within Bharat-varsa/India, where sadhus lived and with their physical bodies could enter those 'gates/doors' which route to different realms.

 

I don't mean here references of sadhus/yogis/Vaishnava able with their 3rd eye, or astral trips, visiting other realms, but with the physical body.

 

Atma-tattva dasa, showed us, as far as I can remember at least two places in South India, where such gates exist, one routes to Naga-loka, the wonderful realm/galaxy of the snakes and one was in the jungle near to a waterfall, where apparently Kasyapa-Muni lived and is still living on a higher dimensional platform.

 

That lake was apparently used in previous yugas to enter in other realms, I don't know which one.

 

British scientists have tried to measure the depth of the lake to proof the non-existence of such a gateway. They had to stop their testings as no ground has been found, after 1000 meters of going down with their instruments.

 

I know that thousand of such stargate-like places exist on our earth, many in India, many outside of India on all continents.

 

Who can tell me the name of those stargate places. Maybe kshetra-lokas or something similar? Is anyone aware if someone has written books about those kind of things, from Vaishnava/Vedic authors or else?

 

I sense that in the near future many of those gaets will again be usable for humans. Some of them may have been temporarily de-activated by the devas, safety/precaution reasons as Kali Yuga and the asuras, but should be very soon re-activated.

 

As far as I know during the move from this physical platform to the other one, the physical body, flesh and bone, will automatically change to the frequency of the realm we are willing to visit. and is vibed accordingly, when returning back to our realm, the door is re-changing our body to the original frequency.

 

Those kind of things are not fantasy, this is real.

 

Thanks for any information.

 

Ciao,

Frodo

[Kulapavana]

I dont know sanskrit too much but I have run into description of gates to other dimensions in the Vedas. One of the best is presented in Markandeya Purana, where Naga king uses a special tool to open a portal to Earth to harass humans. I will try to find chapter and verse for you. Markandeya Purana uses the term "mutually inaccessible" to describe different dimensions of Jambu-dvipa, yet in the past ages there were ways to enter them.

[ancient_paztriot]

The point you just made could be a possible answer to many for soldiers or citizens of said king that we think are impossible… Some of the fantastic numbers we were talking about earlier.

[Frodo]

 

Kulapavana,

 

I am looking forward to get the verse from Markandeya Purana!

 

Thank you for your research, :-)

Frodo

[Guest guest]

gateways/doors to other lokas/realms/stars it is intillect. Universe create from intellect, then intellect is way for understanding. With intellect - dhyana person may go any place universe.

 

I am live in Kailasa - welcome. /images/graemlins/smile.gif We needs go in Kailasa and ten go in spiritual world.

[Kulapavana]

I finally had time to dig up these verses. Markandeya Purana, Canto 116, texts 19-20:

 

"Hidden within Patala, asura Kujrimbha cleaves the Earth with his magic staff Sunanda and makes DOORS OF EXIT for all the asuras to invade the Earth"

 

(from the Bibliotheca Indica translation)

 

as in other cases I remember, a special power must be used to open the door to other realms, and such doors are getting more difficult to open as time goes by towards Kali yuga. Once a door is opened anybody can enter, but these doors close with time or can be closed right away with the device used for opening them.

 

there are more references to this subject in other Puranas, Mahabharata and Ramayana.

[gHari]

On the Astronomy link of the Kingdom of God website below we find a discussion touching the higher dimensional nature of reality defined in the Vedas. One example describes the meeting of Vyasadeva and Madhvacarya:<blockquote>As a final point, we note that the history of the Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya sheds some light on the higher dimensional nature of reality. In SB 1.4.15p Srila Prabhupada points out that Vyasadeva is residing in Samyaprasa in Badarikasrama. Many people in India make a pilgrimage to Badarikasrama every year, but it is not possible for an ordinary person to meet Vyasadeva. However, it is said that Madhvacarya met Vyasadeva there and took initiation from him. It was through this higher dimensional link that the Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya was passed down from Srila Vyasadeva to the recent line of acaryas. </blockquote>

 

[gHari]

Another chapter from that book referenced above in the link addresses some perhaps pertinent ideas:<blockquote>4.C. Higher-dimensional Travel

in the Vertical Direction

 

One aspect of our interpretation of the planetary distances in Table 8 is that the vertical dimension in Vedic cosmology is more than just a third coordinate axis, as understood in ordinary geometry. It also involves a higher-dimensional aspect that goes beyond the range of our senses. We can obtain one indication of this by considering the highest destination that one can reach within this universe by traveling in this vertical direction. This is the planetary system called Satyaloka, which is the abode of BrahmA, the secondary creator of the universe.

According to the BhAgavatam, Satyaloka is located near the top of the universal globe, in the direction of the north celestial pole. Since the earth is located near the center of this globe, this means that Satyaloka is about 2 billion miles from the earth. A spaceship traveling at 500 miles per hour (a moderate speed for a jet plane) could cover 2 billion miles in 457 years, and thus it would seem that it might be feasible for human beings to reach Satyaloka using mechanical technology.

Yet in SB 5.1.21p we read the remarkable statement that Satyaloka "is situated many millions and billions of years away." Similarly, SB 1.9.29p states that "even attempting to reach the highest planet will take millions of years at a speed of millions of miles per hour." And SB 2.2.23p completely rules out the possibility of going beyond Svargaloka or Janaloka by "mechanical or materialistic activities, either gross or subtle."

SB 5.1.21 describes the abode of BrahmA as being "indescribable by the endeavor of mundane mind or words." In the terminology adopted in this book, this means that to describe Satyaloka adequately, we would have to make use of higher-dimensional concepts that cannot be grasped by our present minds and senses. At the very least, this implies that our ordinary concepts of space and time might break down when applied to this region of the universe.

An interesting indication of the form this breakdown might take is given in the following story from the BhAgavatam:

Taking his own daughter, RevatI, KakudmI went to Lord BrahmA in Brahmaloka, which is transcendental to the three modes of material nature, and inquired about a husband for her. When KakudmI arrived there, Lord BrahmA was engaged in hearing musical performances by the Gandharvas and had not a moment to talk with him. Therefore KakudmI waited, and at the end of the musical performances … [he] submitted his long-standing desire.

After hearing his words, Lord BrahmA, who is most powerful, laughed loudly and said to KakudmI, "O King, all those whom you may have decided within the core of your heart to accept as your son-in-law have passed away in the course of time. Twenty-seven catur-yugas have already passed. Those upon whom you may have decided are now gone, and so are their sons, grandsons, and other descendants. You cannot even hear about their names" [sB 9.3.29–32].

Here we see that when one visits Satyaloka, one experiences a transformation of time reminiscent of the time dilation of Einstein's theory of relativity. King KakudmI and his daughter were evidently advanced yogIs who were able to travel to Satyaloka by nonmechanical means. Although for them the trip took only a short time, when they returned to the earth they found that millions of years had passed. We may then ask, Did the distance that they traveled seem like two billion miles to them? If so, then it might also be that from our perspective the distance was billions and billions of miles. Although this is merely a conjecture, it does indicate some of the things that are possible in a universe that is ultimately inconceivable by our mundane minds. (Note, by the way, that RevatI is the name of the star Zeta Piscium, which is used as the zero point for celestial longitudes in the jyotiSa zAstras.)

Between the earth and Satyaloka there is a standard path traversed after death by transcendentalists and highly elevated persons. This is called the uttarAyaNa path, and it is mentioned in the Bhagavad-gItA (8.24). A more detailed description of the various stages of this path is given in the VedAnta-sUtra commentary of Baladeva VidyAbhUSaNa:

(1) Archis, the Deva of light, (2) Dinam, the Deva of day, (3) Suklapaksam, the Deva of the Bright-fortnight, (4) UttarAyanam, the Deva of the northern progress of the sun, (5) Samvatsaram, the Deva of the year, (6) Devalokam, the world of the Devas (the same as VAyuloka, according to some), (7) VAyu, the world of VAyu, (8) Adityam, the world of the sun, (9) Chandram, the world of the moon, (10) Vidyut, the world of lightning, (11) VaruNam, the world of water, (12) Indram, the world of Indra, (13) PrajApati, the world of PrajApati, or of the four-faced BrahmA [VSB, p. 729].

Baladeva VidyAbhUSaNa comments that in this list, the various items refer not to landmarks on the path, but to various demigods who make arrangements for the passage of the soul (see BG 8.24p also). This indicates that higher-dimensional travel along the "vertical dimension" of the universe involves more than a simple ballistic trajectory of the kind followed by a rocket. It also involves the action of a hierarchy of beings, all of whom are inaccessible to our ordinary senses. The motion towards the north celestial pole is simply the three-dimensional aspect of this higher travel.

The descent of the Ganges River from the upper regions of the universe to the earth provides another interesting indication of the nature of travel along the vertical dimension in Vedic cosmology. According to the BhAgavatam, the Ganges consists of water from the KAraNa Ocean that entered the upper portion of the universe through a hole kicked in the universal covering by Lord VAmanadeva (SB 5.17.1). This water takes a thousand yugas to reach the planet Dhruvaloka, or the polestar, which is situated approximately 30 million miles above the sun. (Here the term yuga indicates a divya-yuga of 4,320,000 years.) Since the sun is situated vertically in the center of the universe (SB 5.20.43), this means that the Ganges covers a distance of some two billion miles in 4,320,000,000 years. Since this is a very slow rate of progress even for a very sluggish river, this may be another example of the transformation of time, and possibly of space, which occurs in the higher regions of the universe.

From Dhruvaloka the Ganges reaches the planets of the seven sages, and from there it is carried to the moon "through the spaceways of the demigods" in billions of celestial airplanes. From the moon it falls down (nipatati) to the top of Mount Meru, where it divides into four branches. Finally, one of these branches becomes the Ganges of India (SB 5.17.3–9).

Since the moon is continuously moving in its orbit, it is hard to see how the top of Mount Meru could always be directly underneath it in an ordinary geometric sense. It therefore seems that the descent of the Ganges from the moon to Mount Meru must involve physical principles that are presently unknown. Of course, as we have already pointed out, the final appearance of the Ganges in India also requires such principles, since we certainly do not see its descent from a higher region of the universe.

Thus our conclusion is that if we take the description of the descent of the Ganges seriously, then we must be prepared to view it in the context of principles that go beyond the framework of our familiar physical theories. We suggest that although these principles are not explicitly explained in the BhAgavatam and other Vedic texts in Western terms, they are nonetheless employed in these works in a consistent way. One example of this is SrIla PrabhupAda's statement in Light of the BhAgavata that "one has to cross MAnasa Lake and then Sumeru Mountain, and only then can one trace out the orbit of the moon" (LB, p. 48). This statement is consistent with one idea that emerges from the story of the Ganges: In some higher dimensional sense, the route from the earth to the moon passes through the region of Mount Meru in JambUdvIpa.

In SB 5.23.5 the celestial Ganges is identified with the Milky Way, and in SB 2.2.24 it is said that the Milky Way is a pathway that mystics follow through the heavens on their way to Satyaloka. It is interesting to note that similar ideas have traditionally been held in cultures around the world. Thus, both the Polynesians and various American Indian tribes maintained that the Milky Way is a pathway to heaven followed by the souls of the departed, and they also held that those souls who were not perfectly pure would eventually have to return to the earth (HM, p. 243).

The ancient Egyptians apparently regarded the Nile as an earthly continuation of the Milky Way (HM, p. 260), an idea they may have imported from an original homeland in India. (SrIla PrabhupAda indicates in SB 2.7.22p that according to the MahAbhArata, the kings of ancient Egypt were driven there from India by ParazurAma.)

The Chinese also had the idea that the Milky Way is a celestial river that descends to the earth. Their account is as follows: "The celestial river divides into two branches near the North Pole and goes from there to the South Pole. One of its arms passes by the lunar mansion Nan-teou (lambda Sagittarii), and the other by the lunar mansion Toung-tsing (Gemini). The river is the celestial water, flowing across the heavens and falling under the earth" (HM, p. 260).

 

4.D. The Environs of the Earth

According to the BhAgavatam, the seven lower planetary systems have the same width and breadth as BhU-maNDala, and they lie beneath BhU-maNDala in successive strata separated by intervals of 80,000 miles (SB 5.24.7). Since the diameter of BhU-maNDala is four billion miles, it follows that the complete system consisting of BhU-maNDala and the seven lower worlds can be visualized as a relatively thin disc, comparable to a stack of eight circular sheets of paper. As with BhU-maNDala, this means that the major part of the seven lower worlds lies many millions of miles away from us in what we regard as outer space. Also, the geometric projection of these lower worlds on the celestial sphere is nearly the same as the projection of BhU-maNDala.

Traditionally, people in cultures throughout the world have spoken of subterranean realms, and the lower planetary systems described in Vedic literature also have a subterranean aspect. Thus the BhAgavatam points out that the rays of the sun cannot reach the bila-svarga (SB 5.24.11), and in the MahAbhArata there are accounts of people traveling to these regions by entering tunnels leading down into the earth. Also, the astronomical siddhAntas place the lower worlds in the "concave strata of the earth."

The BhAgavatam's description of the dimensions of the lower worlds indeed suggests that these worlds constitute a subterranean stratum of BhU-maNDala as a whole. According to this idea, this lower region does lie below our feet, and due to the vast extent of BhU-maNDala, it also lies in outer space. Both of these locations, however, are simply three-dimensional projections (or aspects) of the actual, higher-dimensional position of the lower planetary systems. We could not reach NAgaloka, for example, by tunneling into the earth using ordinary three-dimensional methods. But we could do so if our tunneling was accompanied by movement along a higher dimension.

Some 240,000 miles below the lowest of the seven lower worlds, GarbhodakazAyI ViSNu lies on Ananta-zeSa on the surface of the Garbhodaka Ocean (SB 5.25.1). As we have already noted, even Lord BrahmA was unable to see GarbhodakazAyI ViSNu when he tried to trace out the origin of the lotus from which he himself had taken birth. It is therefore to be expected that this scene must lie beyond the range of ordinary human sense perception.

However, since the Garbhodaka Ocean is almost directly beneath the plane of BhU-maNDala, one can imagine that all points on the celestial sphere south of the projection of BhU-maNDala should correspond to this ocean. This amounts to a simple, three-dimensional visualization of an essentially higher-dimensional situation. Our thesis in this book is that in the Vedic civilization, the relationship between higher-dimensional realms and the visible firmament was visualized in this way. (In Section 3.b.3 we have noted the existence of ancient traditions that are consistent with this idea.)

According to the BhAgavatam, as we move up from the earth's surface, we ultimately reach a point where clouds and wind are no longer found. This is the beginning of antarikSa, or outer space. At an altitude of 800 miles above the base of antarikSa are the abodes of the RAkSasas, YakSas, and PizAcas, and at a still higher altitude are the realms of the Siddhas, CAraNas, and VidyAdharas (SB 5.24.4–6). For comparison, the highest clouds are about 50 miles up according to modern observations, and the American and Russian manned orbital flights range in altitude from about 100 to 900 miles above the earth (MSF, pp. 534–36). The various types of beings mentioned in these verses are known in Vedic literature for their great mystic powers, and they clearly operate on a level that is inaccessible to ordinary human senses. The RAkSasas, of course, are particularly known for their inimical nature and their ability to create various kinds of illusions.

4.E. Eclipses</blockquote>

[gHari]

Roughly speaking, by the "dimensionality" of space we mean the degree of access to other places that is possible at any given place for a conscious observer. This degree of access depends on the sensory arrangement of the observer, and thus we conceive of space as being relative to the consciousness of living beings.

KRSNa has full access to all locations at once, and thus for KRSNa, space has the highest possible dimensionality. It is therefore possible for KRSNa to appear in any location at will without having to travel, as we see in the story of KRSNa's appearance in the womb of UttarA to save MahArAja ParIkSit. Another way of expressing this feature of KRSNa is to say that He is all-pervading.

For embodied beings in the material world, different levels of spatial access are possible, depending on their karmic status and corresponding sensory constitution. According to the Vedic literature, there are 400,000 species in this universe having humanlike form, and many of these have levels of sensory power superior to that of ordinary human beings of our modern civilization. These include, for example, the KiMpuruSas, who are endowed with "mystic powers by which one can disappear immediately from another's vision and appear again in a different form" (SB 4.18.20).

These humanlike species all have their countries and dwelling places, even though these may not be visible or accessible to us. Indeed, our thesis is that many regions of the earth, or BhU-maNDala, are not accessible to ordinary human senses. These regions are actually part of our immediate environment, but we can reach them only through higher-dimensional travel.

 

....

 

5.B. The Link with Traditional Lore

When the reports of UFOs are surveyed broadly, they are seen to resemble stories from traditional folklore that have been recounted in cultures all over the world since time immemorial. Jacques Vallee illustrates this point with the following story from ninth-century France:

One day, among other instances, it chanced at Lyons that three men and a woman were seen descending from these aerial ships. The entire city gathered about them, crying out they were magicians and were sent by Grimaldus, Duke of Beneventum, Charlemagne's enemy, to destroy the French harvests. In vain the four innocents sought to vindicate themselves by saying that they were their own country-folk, and had been carried away a short time since by miraculous men who had shown them unheard of marvels, and had desired to give them an account of what they had seen. The frenzied populace … were on the point of casting them into the fire, when the worthy Agobard, Bishop of Lyons,… having heard the accusations of the people and the defense of the accused, gravely pronounced that both one and the other were false [JV, p. 19].

The story refers to the "miraculous men" as sylphs, a class of beings thought by Paracelsus to inhabit the earth's atmosphere and to have the power of appearing or disappearing at will before humans.

In medieval folklore, such beings were thought to coexist with ordinary humans in this world and to inhabit invisible abodes, sometimes associated with lakes, mountains, or subterranean regions (EW). They were thought to interact with people in ways that were sometimes beneficial, sometimes sinister, and sometimes mischievous or trivial. Similar patterns of interaction are to be seen in the UFO literature.

According to the Vedic literature, interactions of this kind occur between humans and a variety of near-human beings, including YakSas, KiMpuruSas , RAkSasas, VidyAdharas, and Gandharvas. These beings occupy BhU-maNDala, the lower planetary systems, and the upper system of Bhuvarloka. They are to be distinguished from the demigods and RSis of Svargaloka and the higher planetary systems ranging up to Brahmaloka.

Such beings are frequently described in the Vedic literature as possessing aerial vehicles called vimAnas. This is illustrated in the story of SAlva from SrImad-BhAgavatam. There it is described that a king named SAlva engaged in severe austerities to please Lord Siva and thereby obtain an airplane that could be used to attack KRSNa's city of DvArakA. Lord Siva granted the benediction and arranged for the airplane to be manufactured by the demon Maya DAnava, an inhabitant of the lower planetary system of TalAtala in bila-svarga. The airplane is described as follows:

But still the airplane occupied by SAlva was very mysterious. It was so extraordinary that sometimes many airplanes would appear to be in the sky, and sometimes there were apparently none. Sometimes the plane was visible and sometimes not visible, and the warriors of the Yadu dynasty were puzzled about the whereabouts of the peculiar airplane. Sometimes they would see the airplane on the ground, sometimes flying in the sky, sometimes resting on the peak of a hill, and sometimes floating on the water. The wonderful airplane flew in the sky like a whirling firebrand--it was not steady even for a moment [KB, p. 649].

We can compare the appearance and disappearance of SAlva's airplane with the "blinking on and off" of the UFO observed by the crew of the RB-47. The observers on the RB-47 also noted that their UFO sometimes generated two signals with different bearings on their electronic monitoring equipment.

We have argued that the domain of Maya DAnava can be reached only by higher-dimensional travel, and we suggest that even today, people of this earth may be interacting with beings originating from higher-dimensional regions of the universe. In Vedic times, people in general could directly see such phenomena as SAlva's airplane. But they presumably had little direct access to Maya DAnava's abode and could learn of the existence of such places only through hearing from higher authority. It can be suggested that we might be in a similar situation today.

In the BhAgavatam it is described that the inhabitants of Maya DAnava's abode have excellent material facilities, including cities with beautiful architecture and attractive gardens. There is no fear of the passage of time there because the distinction between day and night does not exist. The inhabitants are highly atheistic and materialistic. They are expert in various mystic powers and are free from disease and old age. However, they must all meet eventual death in accordance with the strict arrangement of the Supreme Personality of Godhead (SB 5.24.10–14).

The Vedic literature describes the universe as having a hierarchical organization, with a graded series of domains occupied by beings with different levels of consciousness. As we described in Section 4.a, these domains can be divided into the lower, middle, and upper worlds, whose inhabitants are characterized by the respective modes of ignorance, passion, and goodness. Beyond the material world lies the transcendental domain of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, which is characterized by pure goodness (vizuddha-sattva).

Given this hierarchical structure, one would expect interactions between humans and higher beings to be characterized by a variety of psychological modes, ranging from ignorance up to pure goodness. This seems to be the case, and it is interesting to note that cases of interaction on an apparently higher, sattvic level provide some of the best-attested evidence for the existence of higher beings and realms.

 

5.C. The Events at Fatima

An example of interaction with higher beings on a sattvic level is provided by the events that occurred in 1917 in Fatima, Portugal. These events centered on a series of revelations made to three children named Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta by a divine personage whom they understood to be the Virgin Mary. The revelations occurred on the 13th of the month for six successive months in a natural amphitheater called the Cova da Iria, near the town of Fatima. Here we will not be concerned with the theological content of the revelations (which, as far as it goes, is compatible with the philosophy of KRSNa consciousness), but will focus on the evidence they provide for the existence of higher-dimensional realms.

The revelations were made in the presence of the three children and a large throng of onlookers, which increased greatly from month to month as news spread. The actual visions of the beautiful divine personage could be seen only by the three children, and so our knowledge of these visions is limited to their testimony. However, during the revelations there occurred related phenomena that were witnessed by large numbers of people.

These phenomena included the appearance of a glowing, globe-shaped vehicle and the occurrence of a shower of rose petals that vanished upon touching the ground. One witness, Mgr. J. Quaresma, described the appearance of the globe on July 13, 1917, as follows:

To my surprise, I see clearly and distinctly a globe of light advancing from east to west, gliding slowly and majestically through the air.… Suddenly the globe with its extraordinary light vanished, but near us a little girl of about ten continues to cry joyfully, "I still see it! I still see it! Now it is going down!" [FJ, p. 46].

He reports that after the events,

My friend, full of enthusiasm, went from group to group … asking people what they had seen. The persons asked came from the most varied social classes and all unanimously affirmed the reality of the phenomena which we ourselves had observed [FJ, p. 47].

During one of the revelations, the child Lucia had requested that a miracle be shown so that people who could not see the divine lady would believe in the reality of what was happening. She was told that this would occur on the 13th of October, and she immediately communicated this to others.

On this date it is estimated that a crowd of some 70,000 people congregated in the vicinity of the Cova da Iria in anticipation of the predicted miracle. The day was overcast and rainy, and the crowd huddled under umbrellas in the midst of a sea of mud. Suddenly, the clouds parted, and an astonishing solar display began to unfold. We will describe this in the words of some of the witnesses.

Dr. Formigao, a professor at the seminary at Santarem:

As if like a bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its zenith appeared in all its splendour. It began to revolve vertiginously on its axis, like the most magnificent firewheel that could be imagined, taking on all the colours of the rainbow and sending forth multi-coloured flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect. This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times, lasted for about ten minutes. The immense multitude, overcome by the evidence of such a tremendous prodigy, threw themselves on their knees [FJ, p. 63].

Dr. Joseph Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University:

The sun's disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body, for it spun round on itself in a mad whirl, when suddenly a clamour was heard from all the people. The sun, whirling, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was terrible [FJ, p. 62].

Similar testimony was given by large numbers of people, both from the crowd at the Cova da Iria and from a surrounding area measuring about 20 by 30 miles. The presence of confirming witnesses over such a large area suggests that the phenomena cannot be explained as the result of crowd hysteria. The absence of reports from a wider area and the complete absence of reports from scientific observatories suggest that the phenomena were local to the region of Fatima. It would seem either that remarkable atmospheric phenomena were arranged by an intelligent agency at a time announced specifically in advance, or that coordinated hallucinations in thousands of people were similarly arranged at this time. By either interpretation, it is hard to fit these phenomena into the framework of modern science. They do, however, fit naturally into the multidimensional, hierarchical cosmos of the Vedic literature.

At this point we should briefly summarize the conclusions of this chapter. The Vedic literature maintains that we live in a hierarchically structured universe occupied by 400,000 species of humanlike form and some 8,000,000 nonhuman species. These living beings inhabit a graded system of worlds such as BhU-maNDala, which possess variegated geographical features. The thesis of this book is that these worlds are literally real, even though they are almost entirely inaccessible to ordinary human senses. We have tried to relate this idea to modern mathematical thought by describing the universe as a multidimensional system.

We can ask, If this description of the universe is correct, then is there anything that humans could expect to observe that would tend to corroborate it? First of all, we could not expect to readily see the demigods, for human beings generally do not have the karmic qualifications required for this. (See Section 6.c.1.) This means that we also cannot expect to gain access to the regions where the demigods are active, such as the slopes of Mount Meru, since this would surely entail being able to see the demigods themselves.

We might expect to interact with beings lower than the demigods but slightly higher than ourselves in the cosmic hierarchy. However, since these beings are higher than ourselves, we could not expect to fully control these interactions. We might expect that they would have access to us but that we would not have access to them or their abodes.

The beings between humans and demigods range from powerful types of ghosts to demonic entities such as YakSas and RAkSasas, and to more attractive beings such as VidyAdharas, CAraNas, Siddhas, and Gandharvas. Interactions with these various beings might take various forms, depending on their own interests and on our level of consciousness. These interactions are likely to involve mystic powers, since these beings are all well-endowed with such powers. They must involve higher-dimensional transformations, because the abodes of these beings are invisible to our senses. They may also involve remarkable flying machines, since such machines are often ascribed to these beings in the Vedic literature.

We propose that these ideas about what we might expect to see in the Vedic universe are consistent with the evidence provided by psychical phenomena, UFO reports, folklore, and reports of miracles. This broad body of evidence is consistent with the Vedic world picture. However, none of this evidence is compatible with modern science, and all of it is rejected by the scientific community. We suggest that the Vedic world view is broadly supported by empirical evidence, but this evidence can never be respectable until the Vedic world view itself is restored to a respectable status.

[Frodo]

 

gHari,

 

Thanks a lot for all interesting information you have provided. I have found other valid information on your website too! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

In love,

Frodo