Showing posts with label vedic cosmology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vedic cosmology. Show all posts

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Vedic cosmology- A lecture by Swami Vivekanad

There are two worlds, the microcosm, and the macrocosm, the internal and the external. We get truth from both of these by means of experience. The truth gathered from internal experience is psychology, metaphysics, and religion; from external experience, the physical sciences. Now a perfect truth should be in harmony with experiences in both these worlds. The microcosm must bear testimony to the macrocosm, and the macrocosm to the microcosm; physical truth must have its counterpart in the internal world, and the internal world must have its verification outside. Yet, as a rule, we find that many of these truths are in conflict. At one period of the world's history, the internals become supreme, and they begin to fight the externals. At the present time the externals, the physicists, have become supreme, and they have put down many claims of psychologists and
metaphysicians. So far as my knowledge goes, I find that the real, essential parts of psychology are in perfect accord with the essential parts of modern physical knowledge. It is not given to one individual to be great in every respect; it is not given to one race or nation to be equally strong in the research of all fields of knowledge. The modern European nations are very strong in their research of external physical knowledge, but they are not so strong in their study of the inner nature of man. On the other hand, the Orientals have not been very strong in their researches of the external physical world, but very strong in their researches of the internal. Therefore we find that Oriental physics and other sciences are not in accordance with Occidental Sciences; nor is Occidental psychology in harmony with Oriental psychology. The Oriental physicists have been routed by Occidental scientists. At the same time, each claims to rest on truth; and as we stated before, real truth in any field of knowledge will not contradict itself; the truths internal are in harmony with the truths external.

We all know the theories of the cosmos according to the modern astronomers and physicists; and at the same time we all know how woefully they undermine the theology of Europe, how these scientific discoveries that are made act as a bomb thrown at its stronghold; and we know how theologians have in all times attempted to put down these researches.

I want here to go over the psychological ideas of the Orientals about cosmology and all that pertains to it, and you will find how wonderfully they are in accordance with the latest discoveries of modern science; and where there is disharmony, you will find that it is modern science which lacks and not they. We all use the word nature. The old Sânkhya philosophers called it by two different names, Prakriti, which is very much the same as the word nature, and the more scientific name, Avyakta, undifferentiated, from which everything proceeds, such as atoms, molecules, and forces, mind, thought, and intelligence. It is startling to find that the philosophers and metaphysicians of India stated ages ago that mind is material. What are our present materialists trying to do, but to show that mind is as much a product of nature as the body? And so is thought, and, we shall find by and by, intelligence also: all issue from that nature which is called Avyakta, the undifferentiated. The Sankhyas define it as the equilibrium of three forces, one of which is called Sattva, another Rajas, and the third Tamas. Tamas, the lowest force, is that of attraction; a little higher is Rajas, that of repulsion; and the highest is the balance of these two, Sattva; so that when these two forces, attraction and repulsion, are held in perfect control by the Sattva there is no creation, no movement in the world. As soon as this equilibrium is lost, the balance is disturbed, and one of these forces gets stronger than the other, motion sets in, and creation begins. This state of things goes on cyclically, periodically. That is to say, there is a period of disturbance of the balance, when forces begin to combine and recombine, and things project outwards. At the same time, everything has a tendency to go back to the primal state of equilibrium, and the time comes when that total annihilation of all manifestation is reached. Again, after a period, the whole thing is disturbed, projected outwards, and again it slowly goes down — like waves. All motion, everything in this universe, can be likened to waves undergoing successive rise and fall. Some of these philosophers hold that the whole universe quiets down for a period. Others hold that this quieting down applies only to systems; that is to say, that while our system here, this solar system, will quiet down and go back into the undifferentiated state, millions of other systems will go the other way, and will project outwards. I should rather favour the second opinion, that this quieting down is not simultaneous over the whole of the universe, and that in different parts different things go on. But the principle remains the same, that all we see — that is, nature herself — is progressing in successive rises and falls. The one stage, falling down, going back to balance, the perfect equilibrium, is called Pralaya, the end of a cycle. The projection and the Pralaya of the universe have been compared by theistical writers in India to the outbreathing and inbreathing of God; God, as it were, breathes out the universe, and it comes into Him again. When it quiets down, what becomes of the universe? It exists, only in finer forms, in the form of cause, as it is called in the Sankhya philosophy. It does not get rid of causation, time, and space; they are there, only it comes to very fine and minute forms. Supposing that this whole universe begins to shrink, till every one of us becomes just a little molecule, we should not feel the change at all, because everything relating to us would be shrinking at the same time. The whole thing goes down, and again projects out, the cause brings out the effect, and so it goes on.

What we call matter in modern times was called by; the ancient psychologists Bhutas, the external elements. There is one element which, according to them, is eternal ; every other element is produced out of this one. It is called Âkâsha. It is somewhat similar to the idea of ether of the moderns, though not exactly similar. Along with this element, there is the primal energy called Prâna. Prana and Akasha combine and recombine and form the elements out of them. Then at the end of the Kalpa; everything subsides, and goes back to Akasha and Prana. There is in the Rig-Veda, the oldest human writing in existence, a beautiful passage describing creation, and it is most poetical — "When there was neither aught nor naught, when darkness was rolling over darkness, what existed?" and the answer is given, "It then existed without vibration". This Prana existed then, but there was no motion in it; Ânidavâtam means "existed without vibration". Vibration had stopped. Then when the Kalpa begins, after an immense interval, the Anidavatam (unvibrating atom) commences to vibrate, and blow after blow is given by Prana to Akasha. The atoms become condensed, and as they are condensed different elements are formed. We generally find these things very curiously translated; people do not go to the philosophers or the commentators for their translation, and have not the brains to understand them themselves. A silly man reads three letters of Sanskrit and translates a whole book. They translate the, elements as air, fire, and so on; if they would go to the commentators, they would find they do not mean air or anything of the sort.

The Akasha, acted upon by the repeated blows of Prana, produces Vâyu or vibrations. This Vayu vibrates, and the vibrations growing more and more rapid result in friction giving rise to heat, Tejas. Then this heat ends in liquefaction, Âpah. Then that liquid becomes solid. We had ether, and motion, then came heat, then it became liquefied, and then it condensed into gross matter; and it goes back in exactly the reverse way. The solid will be liquefied and will then be converted into a mass of heat, and that will slowly get back into motion; that motion will stop, and this Kalpa will be destroyed. Then, again it will come back and again dissolve into ether. Prana cannot work alone without the help of Akasha. All that we know in the form of motion, vibration, or thought is a modification of the Prana, and everything that we know in the shape of matter, either as form or as resistance, is a modification of the Akasha. The Prana cannot live alone, or act without a medium; when it is pure Prana, it has the Akasha itself to live in, and when it changes into forces of nature, say gravitation, or centrifugal force, it must have matter. You have never seen force without matter or matter without force; what we call force and matter are simply the gross manifestations of these same things, which, when superfine, are called Prana and Akasha. Prana you can call in English life, the vital force; but you must not restrict it to the life of man; at the same time you must not identify it with Spirit, Atman. So this goes on. Creation cannot have either a beginning or an end; it is an eternal on-going.

We shall state another position of these old psychologists, which is that all gross things are the results of fine ones. Everything that is gross is composed of fine things, which they call the Tanmâtras, the fine particles. I smell a flower. To smell, something must come in contact with my nose; the flower is there, but I do not see it move towards me. That which comes from the flower and in contact with my nose is called the Tanmatra, fine molecules of that flower. So with heat, light and everything. These Tanmatras can again be subdivided into atoms. Different philosophers have different theories, and we know these are only theories. It is sufficient for our purpose to know that everything gross is composed of things that are very, very fine. We first get the gross elements which we feel externally, and then come the fine elements with which the nose, eyes, and ears come in contact. Ether waves touch my eyes; I cannot see them, yet I know they must come in contact with my eyes before I can see light.

Here are the eyes, but the eyes do not see. Take away the brain centre; the eyes will still be there, as also the picture of the outside world complete on the retinae; yet the eyes will not see. So the eyes are only a secondary instrument, not the organ of vision. The organ of vision is the nerve-centre in the brain. Likewise the nose is an instrument, and there is an organ behind it. The senses are simply the external instruments. It may be said that these different organs, Indriyas, as they are called in Sanskrit, are the real seats of perception.

It is necessary for the mind to be joined to an organ to perceive. It is a common experience that we do not hear the clock strike when we happen to be buried in study. Why? The ear was there, the sound was carried through it to the brain; yet it was not heard, because the mind did not attach itself to the organ of hearing.

There is a different organ for each different instrument. For, if one served for all, we should find that when the mind joined itself to it, all the senses would be equally active. But it is not so, as we have seen from the instance of the clock. If there was only one organ for all the instruments, the mind would see and hear at the same time, would see and hear and smell at the same time, and it would be impossible for it not to do all these at one and the same time. Therefore it is necessary that there should be a separate organ for each sense. This has been borne out by modern physiology. It is certainly possible for us to hear and see at the same time, but that is because the mind attaches itself partially to the two centres.

What are the organs made of? We see that the instruments — eyes, nose, and ears — are made of gross materials. The organs are also made of matter. Just as the body is composed of gross materials, and manufactures Prana into different gross forces, so the organs are composed of the fine elements, Akasha, Vayu, Tejas, etc., and manufacture Prana into the finer forces of perception. The organs, the Prana functions, the mind and the Buddhi combined, are called the finer body of man — the Linga or Sukshma Sharira. The Linga Sharira has a real form because everything material must have a form.

The mind is called the Manas, the Chitta in Vritti or vibrating, the unsettled state. If you throw a stone in a lake, first there will be vibration, and then resistance. For a moment the water will vibrate and then it will react on the stone. So when any impression comes on the Chitta, it first vibrates a little. That is called the Manas. The mind carries the impression farther in, and presents it to the determinative faculty, Buddhi, which reacts. Behind Buddhi is Ahamkâra, egoism, the self-consciousness which says, "I am". Behind Ahamkara is Mahat, intelligence, the highest form of nature's existence. Each one is the effect of the succeeding one. In the case of the lake, every blow that comes to it is from the external world, while in the case of the mind, the blow may come either from the external or the internal world. Behind the intelligence is the Self of man, the Purusha, the Atman, the pure, the perfect, who alone is the seer, and for whom is all this change.

Man looks on all these changes; he himself is never impure; but through what the Vedantists call Adhyâsa, by reflection, by implication, he seems to be impure. It is like the appearance of a crystal when a red or a blue flower is brought before it: the colour is reflected on it, but the crystal itself is pure. We shall take it for granted that there are many selves, and each self is pure and perfect; various kinds of gross and fine matter superimpose themselves on the self and make it multicoloured. Why does nature do all this? Nature is undergoing all these changes for the development of the soul; all this creation is for the benefit of the soul, so that it may be free. This immense book which we call the universe is stretched out before man so that he may read; and he discovers eventually that he is an omniscient and omnipotent being. I must here tell you that some of our best psychologists do not believe in God in the sense in which you believe in Him. The father of our psychology, Kapila, denies the existence of God. His idea is that a Personal God is quite unnecessary; nature itself is sufficient to work out the whole of creation. What is called the Design Theory, he knocked on the head, and said that a more childish theory was never advanced. But he admits a peculiar kind of God. He says we are all struggling to get free; and when we become free, we can, as it were, melt away into nature, only to come out at the beginning of the next cycle and be its ruler. We come out omniscient and omnipotent beings. In that sense we can be called Gods; you and I and the humblest beings can be Gods in different cycles. He says such a God will be temporal; but an eternal God, eternally omnipotent and ruler of the universe cannot be. If there was such a God, there would be this difficulty: He must be either a bound spirit or a free one. A God who is perfectly free would not create: there is no necessity for it. If He were bound, He would not create, because He could not: He would be powerless. In either case, there cannot be any omniscient or omnipotent eternal ruler. In our scriptures, wherever the word God is mentioned, he says, it means those human beings who have become free.

Kapila does not believe in the unity of all souls. His analysis, so far as it goes, is simply marvellous. He is the father of Indian thinkers; Buddhism and other systems are the outcome of his thought.

According to his psychology, all souls can regain their freedom and their natural rights, which are omnipotence and omniscience. But the question arises: Where is this bondage? Kapila says it is without beginning. But if it is without beginning, it must be without end, and we shall never be free. He says that though bondage is without beginning, it is not of that constant uniform character as the soul is. In other words, nature (the cause of bondage) is without beginning and end, but not in the same sense as soul, because nature has no individuality; it is like a river which gets a fresh body of water every moment; the sum total of these bodies of water is the river, but the river is not a constant quantity. Everything in nature is constantly changing, but the soul never changes; so, as nature is always changing, it is possible for the soul to come out of its bondage.

The whole of the universe is built upon the same plan as a part of it. So, just as I have a mind, there is a cosmic mind. As in the individual, so in the universal. There is the universal gross body; behind that, a universal fine body; behind that, a universal mind; behind that, a universal egoism, or consciousness; and behind that, a universal intelligence. And all this is in nature, the manifestation of nature, not outside of it.

We have the gross bodies from our parents, as also our consciousness. Strict heredity says my body is a part of my parents' bodies, the material of my consciousness and egoism is a part of my parents'. We can add to the little portion inherited from our parents by drawing upon the universal consciousness. There is an infinite storehouse of intelligence out of which we draw what we require; there is an infinite storehouse of mental force in the universe out of which we are drawing eternally; but the seed must come from the parents. Our theory is heredity coupled with reincarnation. By the law of heredity, the reincarnating soul receives from parents the material out of which to manufacture a man.

Some of the European philosophers have asserted that this world exists because I exist; and if I do not exist, the world will not exist. Sometimes it is stated thus: If all the people in the world were to die, and there were no more human beings, and no animals with powers of perception and intelligence, all these manifestations would disappear. But these European philosophers do not know the psychology of it, although they know the principle; modern philosophy has got only a glimpse of it. This becomes easy of understanding when looked at from the Sankhya point of view. According to Sankhya, it is impossible for anything to be, which has not as its material, some portion of my mind. I do not know this table as it is. An impression from it comes to the eyes, then to, the Indriya, and then to the mind; and the mind reacts, and that reaction is what I call the table. It is just the same as throwing a stone in a lake; the lake throws a wave towards the stone; this wave is what we know. What is external nobody knows; when I try to know it, it has to become that material which I furnish. I, with my own mind, have furnished the material for my eyes. There is something which is outside, which is only, the occasion, the suggestion, and upon that suggestion I project my mind; and it takes the form that I see. How do we all see the same things? Because we all have; similar parts of the cosmic mind. Those who have like minds will see like things, and those who have not will not see alike.
 

Friday, November 27, 2015

Hindu cosmology & Astronomy -Part 3

`Veda' means knowledge. And Yoga-
Patanjali Yoga Sutra 1:2
Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah
Yoga is the mastery of fluctuations of the mind.

For quite some time scholars believed that this knowledge amounted to no
more than speculations regarding the self; this is what we are still told in some schoolbook
accounts. New insights in archaeology, astronomy, history of science and Vedic scholarship
have shown that such a view is wrong. We now know that Vedic knowledge embraced physics,
mathematics, astronomy, logic, cognition and other disciplines. We find that Vedic science
is the earliest science that has come down to us.
Briefly, the Vedic texts present a tripartite and recursive world view. The universe is
viewed as three regions of earth, space, and sky with the corresponding entities of Agni,
Indra, and Vishve Devah (all gods).
Vedic Rishi and old education institutes alse read modern science but name was different.
These were Vedic science-
logic (nyaya) and physics (vaisheshika), cosmology (sankhya) and psychology
(yoga), and language (mimamsa) and reality (vedanta).
The Five Levels


In the Taittiriya Upanishad, the individual is represented in 5 levels that enclose the individual's self. These levels, shown in an ascending order, are:
The physical body (annamaya kosha)

Energy sheath (pranamaya kosha)


Mental sheath (manomaya kosha)


Intellect sheath (vijnanamaya kosha)


Emotion sheath (anandamaya kosha )




The emotion sheath, is innermost .
This is a recognition of the fact that eventually meaning is communicated by associations


The energy that underlies physical and mental processes is called prana.



Further description of above-
According to yogic theory & philosophy, a human being is comprised of 5 layers. These layers are called koshas, or sheath. Each layer is more subtle than the other.
The first is annamaya kosha, or literally mean ‘food sheath’ – it is the physical body: the bones, muscles, tissues, organs, bloods, etc. The grossest of the layers. It is made of the elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. It is on this layer the gateway to the external world, the five receiving senses and the five action sense are located, so it is through this layer that one is experiencing life.
koshainfographic
The second is pranamaya kosha, or the energy body, the prana layer. More subtle than the physical body, this layer not visible to the naked eye, but one can feel it. The chakras, or energy centers, are within this layer. Without prana, there is no life.
The third is manomaya kosha, the mind body. This is the mind that interacts with the inputs from the senses, carry out day to day operation of keeping oneself alive and well – eg if there’s a danger, move away – if there’s a reward, come closer. Manomaya kosha is full of emotions – a reaction to the input from the senses. It is key for survival.
The fourth is vijnanamaya kosha, sometimes called the higher mind. Also referred to as the ‘wisdom body’ – this is where awareness, insight, discernment, and consciousness located. Without awareness, one will be only reacting to whatever comes one’s way. With awareness, one can stop to only reacting and choose to response with intention.
The fifth is called anandamaya kosha, the bliss body. Sometimes also called the causal body. This is the innermost layer covering the essence – the soul, or spirit, or self, or atman. The unchanging eternal reality.
Using a computer as analogy, annamaya kosha is like the hardware. The receiving sense organs are keyboards, mouse, touchscreen, microphone. The action sense organs are the monitor, speaker, printer. Pranamaya kosha is like the electricity powering the computer – without plugging it into the electricity the computer can’t turn on. It’s the current that goes through the hardwares. Manomaya kosha is like the operating system – basic operation of the computer is controlled from here. Vijnanamaya kosha is like the more advanced software, with which the computer can interact in a more useful way, be productive, be of service. I can’t think yet of the parallel for anandamaya kosha in a computer… can you think of one? Although not yet complete, I think this computer analogy helps me understand more about the koshas.




The Structure of the Mind
The Sankhya system takes the mind as consisting of ¯ve components: manas, ahankara,
chitta(MEMORY BANK) buddhi, and atman. Again these categories parallel those of Figure ABOVE.
This mental complex surrounds the innermost aspect of consciousness which is called
atman, the self, brahman, or jiva.

In his famous paper on the origin of mathematics, Seidenberg (1978) concluded: Old-
Babylonia [1700 BC] got the theorem of Pythagoras from India.
Barend van Nooten (1993) has shown that binary numbers were known at the time of
Pingala's Chhandahshastra. Pingala, who lived around the early Frst century B.C.E., used
binary numbers to calssify Vedic Mantras.

The Puranas speak of countless universes, time  owing at different rates for different observers and so on.
Advanced Ancient Indian Science-
The Mahabharata speaks of an embryo being divided into one hundred parts each becoming, after maturation in a separate pot, a healthy baby; this is how the Kaurava brothers are born. There is also mention of an embryo, conceived in one womb, being transferred to the womb of another woman from where it is born; the transferred embryo is Balarama and this is how he is a brother to Krishna although he was born to Rohini and not to Devaki.


There is an ancient mention of space travellers wearing airtight suits in the epic Mahabharata which may be classi¯ed as an early form of science ¯ction. According to the well-known Sanskritist J.A.B. van Buitenen, in the accounts in Book 3 called The Razing of Saubha" and The War of the Yakshas":
the aerial city is nothing but an armed camp with fame-throwers and thundering cannon, no doubt a spaceship. The name of the demons is also revealing: they were Niv¹atakavacas, clad in airtight armor," which can hardly be anything but space suits. (van Buitenen, 1975, page 202)
Universes de¯ned recursively are described in the famous episode of Indra and the ants
in Brahmavaivarta Purana. Here Vishnu, in the guise of a boy, explains to Indra that
the ants he sees walking on the ground have all been Indras in their own solar systems in
different times! These Fights of imagination are to be traced to more than a straightforward
generalization of the motions of the planets into a cyclic universe.


Aryabhata


Aryabhata is the author of the first of the later siddhantas called Aryabhatiyam which
sketches his mathematical, planetary, and cosmic theories. This book is divided into four
chapters: (i) the astronomical constants and the sine table, (ii) mathematics required for
computations, (iii) division of time and rules for computing the longitudes of planets using
eccentrics and epicycles, (iv) the armillary sphere, rules relating to problems of trigonometry
and the computation of eclipses.
The parameters of Aryabhatiyam have, as their origin, the commencement of Kaliyuga
on Friday, 18th February, 3102 B.C.E. He wrote another book where the epoch is a bit
different.
Aryabhata took the earth to spin on its axis; this idea appears to have been his innovation.
He also considered the heavenly motions to go through a cycle of 4.32 billion years; here he
went with an older tradition, but he introduced a new scheme of subdivisions within this
great cycle. According to the historian Hugh Thurston, \Not only did Aryabhata believe
that the earth rotates, but there are glimmerings in his system (and other similar systems)
of a possible underlying theory in which the earth (and the planets) orbits the sun, rather
than the sun orbiting the earth. The evidence is that the basic planetary periods are relative
to the sun."


That Aryabhata was aware of the relativity of motion is clear from this passage in his
book,Just as a man in a boat sees the trees on the bank move in the opposite direction, so
an observer on the equator sees the stationary stars as moving precisely toward the west."


Varahamihira
Varahamihira (died 587) lived in Ujjain and he wrote three important books: Panchasiddhan-
tika, Brihat Samhita, and Brihat Jataka. The ¯rst is a summary of  five early astronomical
systems including the Surya Siddhanta. (Incidently, the modern Surya Siddhanta is different
in many details from this ancient one.) Another system described by him, the Paitamaha
Siddhanta, appears to have many similarities with the ancient Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha.
Brihat Samhita is a compilataion of an assortment of topics that provides interesting
details of the beliefs of those times. Brihat Jataka is a book on astrology which appears to
be considerably influenced by Greek astrology.




Brahmagupta
Brahmagupta of Bhilamala in Rajasthan, who was born in 598, wrote his masterpiece,
Brahmasphuta Siddhanta, in 628. His school, which was a rival to that of Aryabhata, has
been very influential in western and northern India. Brahmagupta's work was translated into
Arabic in 771 or 773 at Baghdad and it became famous in the Arabic world as Sindhind.
One of Brahmagupta's chief contributions is the solution of a certain second order inde-
terminate equation which is of great significance in number theory.
Another of his books, the Khandakhadyaka, remained a popular handbook for astronomical computations for centuries.
Bhaskara
Bhaskara (born 1114), who was from the Karnataka region, was an outstanding mathemati-
cian and astronomer. Amongst his mathematical contributions is the concept of di®erentials.
He was the author of Siddhanta Shiromani, a book in four parts: (i) Lilavati on arithmetic,
(ii) Bijaganita on algebra, (iii) Ganitadhyaya, (iv) Goladhyaya on astronomy. He epicyclic-
eccentric theories of planetary motions are more developed than in the earlier siddhantas.
Subsequent to Bhaskara we see a °ourishing tradition of mathematics and astronomy
in Kerala which saw itself as a successor to the school of Aryabhata.


Madhava
Madhava (c. 1340-1425) developed a procedure to determine the positions of the moon every
36 minutes. He also provided methods to estimate the motions of the planets. He gave power
series expansions for trigonometric functions, and for pi correct to eleven decimal places.
Nilakantha Somayaji
Nilakantha (c. 1444-1545) was a very prolific scholar who wrote several works on astronomy.
It appears that Nilakantha found the correct formulation for the equation of the center of
the planets and his model must be considered a true heliocentric model of the solar system.
He also improved upon the power series techniques of Madhava.


The methods developed by the Kerala mathematicians were far ahead of the European


mathematics of the day.
7 Concepts of space, time, and matter
Yoga-Vasishtha (YV) is an ancient Indian text, over 29,000 verses long, traditionally attributed to Valmiki, author of the epic Ramayana- Of which some random translations are given here from
book done by Venkatesananda (1984).


Time
² Time cannot be analyzed... Time uses two balls known as the sun and the moon for


its pastime. [16]
² The world is like a potter's wheel: the wheel looks as if it stands still, though it revolves


at a terrific speed. [18]
² Just as space does not have a fixed span, time does not have a fixed span either. Just


as the world and its creation are mere appearances, a moment and an epoch are also

imaginary. [55]
² Infinite consciousness held in itself the notion of a unit of time equal to one-millionth


of the twinkling of an eye: and from this evolved the time-scale right up to an epoch

consisting of several revolutions of the four ages, which is the life-span of one cosmic

creation. Infinite consciousness itself is uninvolved in these, for it is devoid of rising

and setting (which are essential to all time-scales), and it devoid of a beginning, middle

and end. [72]
Space
² There are three types of space|the psychological space, the physical space and the


in¯nite space of consciousness. [52]
The in¯nite space of individed consciousness is that which exists in all, inside and

outside... The ¯nite space of divided consciousness is that which created divisions of

time, which pervades all beings... The physical space is that in which the elements

exist. The latter two are not independent of the ¯rst. [96]
² Other universes. On the slopes of a far-distant mountain range there is a solid rock


within which I dwell. The world within this rock is just like yours: it has its own

inhabitants, ...the sun and the moon and all the rest of it. I have been in it for

countless aeons. [402]
² The entire universe is contained in a subatomic partice, and the three worlds exist


within one strand of hair. [404]
Matter
² In every atom there are worlds within worlds. [55]

² (There are) countless universes, diverse in composition and space-time structure... In


every one of them there are continents and mountains, villages and cities inhabited by

people who have their time-space and life-span. [401-2]
Experience
² Direct experience alone is the basis for all proofs... That substratum is the experiencing


intelligence which itself becomes the experiencer, the act of experiencing, and the

experience. [36]
² Everyone has two bodies, the one physical and the other mental. The physical body


is insentient and seeks its own destruction; the mind is ¯nite but orderly. [124]
² I have carefully investigated, I have observed everything from the tips of my toes to the


top of my head, and I have not found anything of which I could say, `This I am.' Who

is `I'? I am the all-pervading consciousness which is itself not an object of knowledge or

knowing and is free from self-hood. I am that which is indivisible, which has no name,

which does not undergo change, which is beyond all concepts of unity and diversity,

which is beyond measure. [214]
² I remember that once upon a time there was nothing on this earth, neither trees and


plants, nor even mountains. For a period of eleven thousand years the earth was

covered by lava. In those days there was neither day nor night below the polar region:

for in the rest of the earth neither the sun nor the moon shone. Only one half of the

polar region was illumined.

Then demons ruled the earth. They were deluded, powerful and prosperous, and the

earth was their playground.

Apart from the polar region the rest of the earth was covered with water. And then

for a very long time the whole earth was covered with forests, except the polar region.

Then there arose great mountains, but without any human inhabitants. For a period

of ten thousand years the earth was covered with the corpses of the demons. [280]
Mind
² The same in¯nite self conceives within itself the duality of oneself and the other. [39]

² Thought is mind, there is no distinction between the two. [41]

² The body can neither enjoy nor su®er. It is the mind alone that experiences. [109-110]

² The mind has no body, no support and no form; yet by this mind is everything con-


sumed in this world. This is indeed a great mystery. He who says that he is destroyed

by the mind which has no substantiality at all, says in e®ect that his head was smashed

by the lotus petal... The hero who is able to destroy a real enemy standing in front of

him is himself destroyed by this mind which is [non-material].
² The intelligence which is other than self-knowledge is what constitutes the mind. [175]


Complementarity
² The absolute alone exists now and for ever. When one thinks of it as a void, it is




because of the feeling one has that it is not void; when one thinks of it as not-void, it


is because there is a feeling that it is void. [46]
² All fundamental elements continued to act on one another|as experiencer and experience|




and the entire creation came into being like ripples on the surface of the ocean. And,


they are interwoven and mixed up so e®ectively that they cannot be extricated from


one another till the cosmic dissolution. [48]
Consciousness


² The entire universe is forever the same as the consciousness that dwells in every atom.


[41]
² The ¯ve elements are the seed fo which the world is the tree; and the eternal conscious-


ness if the seed of the elements. [48]
² Cosmic consciousness alone exists now and ever; in it are no worlds, no created beings.


That consciousness re°ected in itself appears to be creation. [49]
² This consciousness is not knowable: when it wishes to become the knowable, it is known


as the universe. Mind, intellect, egotism, the ¯ve great elements, and the world|all

these innumerable names and forms are all consciousness alone. [50]
² The world exists because consciousness is, and the world is the body of consciousness.

There is no division, no di®erence, no distinction. Hence the universe can be said


to be both real and unreal: real because of the reality of consciousness which is its

own reality, and unreal because the universe does not exist as universe, independent of
consciousness. [50]

² Consciousness is pure, eternal and in¯nite: it does not arise nor cease to be. It is ever


there in the moving and unmoving creatures, in the sky, on the mountain and in ¯re

and air. [67]
² Millions of universes appear in the in¯nite consciousness like specks of dust in a beam
of light. In one small atom all the three worlds appear to be, with all their components

like space, time, action, substance, day and night. [120]
² The universe exists in in¯nte consciousness. In¯nite consciousness is unmanifest,


though omnipresent, even as space, though existing everywhere, is manifest. [141]
² The manifestation of the omnipotence of in¯nite consciousness enters into an alliance


with time, space and causation. Thence arise in¯nite names and forms. [145]
² The Lord who is in¯nite consciousness is the silent but alert witness of this cosmic


dance. He is not di®erent from the dancer (the cosmic natural order) and the dance

(the happenings). [296]



Might then one accept the claim of Srinivasa Ramanujan that his theorems were revealed to him in his dreams by the goddess Namagiri? This claim, so persistently made by Ramanujan, has generally been dismissed by his biographers (see, for example, Kanigel, 1991). Were Ramanujan's astonishing discoveries instrumented by the autonomously creative potential of consciousness, represented by him by the image of Namagiri? If that be the case then the marvellous imagination shown in Yoga-Vasishtha and other Indian texts becomes easier to comprehend.









Is nature and animals, human all are molecule- Yes partly with consciousness.
ET (1)ET (2)ET (3)ET (4)ET (6)

ET (5)
ET (7)
ET (8)

H
H2O[C10H16O13N5P2]NCE10HE10OE10NE9PE8
SE8CaE8KE6ClE6NaE6MgE6FeE5SiE4MnE2CoE2

CE27HE27OE27NE26PE25SE24CaE25KE24ClE24NaE24MgE24FeE23FE23ZnE22SiE22CuE21
BE21IE20SnE20MnE20SeE20
CrE20NiE20MoE19CoE19VE18
13.7 BYASeconds after Bang13.2 BYA4.4 BYA4.1 BYA3.9 BYA45 MYA150,000 Year Ago












References
Sarma, K.V. 1985. A survey of source materials. Indian Journal of History of Science


20.1-20.
Staal, F. 1988. Universals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Venkatesananda, S. (tr.), 1984. The Concise Yoga V¹asis. t.ha. Albany: State University of


New York Press.
Barrow, J. 1992. Pi in the Sky. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brown, J.W. 1994. Morphogenesis and mental process. Development and Psychopathology.


6.551-563.
van Buitenen, J.A.B. 1975. The Mah¹abh¹arata, vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago


Press.

Chapple, C. 1984. Introduction and bibliography in Venkatesananda (1984).
Dasgupta, S. 1975 (1932). A History of Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Feuerstein, G., S. Kak and D. Frawley, 1995. In Search of the Cradle of Civilization.
Wheaton: Quest Books.

Filliozat, J. 1970. The expansion of Indian medicine abroad. In Lokesh Chandra (ed.)
India's Contributions to World Thought and Culture. Madras: Vivekananda Memorial


Committee. 67-70.

Francfort, H.-P. 1992. Evidence for Harappan irrigation system in Haryana and Rajasthan.
Eastern Anthropologist. 45.87-103.

Frawley, D. 1994. Planets in the Vedic literature. Indian Journal of History of Science.


29.495-506.
Kak, S. 1986. The Nature of Physical Reality. New York: Peter Lang.

1987. The Paninian approach to natural language processing. Intl. Journal of

Approximate Reasoning. 1.117-130.

1990. Kalidasa and the Agnimitra problem. Journal of the Oriental Institute 40.51-


54.
1994a. The Astronomical Code of the R.

gveda. New Delhi: Aditya.

1994b. The evolution of writing in India. Indian Journal of History of Science.


28.375-388.
1994c. India at Century's End. New Delhi: VOI.

1995a. The astronomy of the age of geometric altars. Quarterly Journal of the Royal

Astronomical Society. 36.385-396.

1995b. From Vedic science to Ved¹anta. The Adyar Library Bulletin. 59.1-36.

1996a. Knowledge of planets in the third millennium B.C. Quarterly Journal of the

Royal Astronomical Society. 37.709-715.


1996b. Re°ections in clouded mirrors: selfhood in animals and machines. In Pri-
bram, K.H. and J. King (eds.) Learning as Self-Organization. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence


Erlbaum.
Kanigel, R. 1991. The Man Who Knew In¯nity: A Life of the Mathematical Genius,

Ramanujan. New York: C. Scribner's.

Kulaichev, A.P. 1984. µSriyantra and its mathematical properties. Indian Journal of History

of Science 19.279-292.
McClain, E.G. 1978. The Myth of Invariance. Boulder: Shambhala.

Sarma, K.V. 1985. A survey of source materials. Indian Journal of History of Science



20.1-20.
Seidenberg, A. 1978. The origin of mathematics. Archive for History of Exact Sciences.



18.301-342.
Sengupta, P.C. 1947. Ancient Indian Chronology. Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press.

Staal, F. 1988. Universals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

van Nooten, B. 1993. Binary numbers in Indian antiquity. Journal of Indian Philosophy.



21.31-50.
Venkatesananda, S. (tr.), 1984. The Concise Yoga V¹asis. t.ha. Albany: State University of




New York Press.










Thursday, November 26, 2015

Hindu Cosmology -Part 2

Hindu Cosmology upholds the idea that creation is timeless, having no beginning in time. Each creation is preceded by dissolution and each dissolution is followed by creation. The whole cosmos exists in two states - the unmanifested or undifferentiated state and the manifested or differentiated state. This has been going on eternally. There are many universes - all follow the same rhythm, creation and dissolution (the systole and diastole of the cosmic heart). According to the Bhagavad Gita this srishti (creation) and pralaya (dissolution) recur at a period of 1,000 mahayuga or 4.32 billion years or 4,320 million years:
For a thousand ages lasts One day of Brahma, And for a thousand ages one such night;
This knowing, men will know (what is meant by) day and night.
At the day's dawning all things manifest; Spring forth from the Unmanifest;
And then at nightfall they dissolve again, In (that same mystery) surnamed "Unmanifest."
brahmakalpa.jpg

Introduction

The Rig Veda describes the origin of the universe as:
"Then was not non-existence nor existence: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water? Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever. Darkness there was at first concealed in darkness this. All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit. Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent. Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder. Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The devas are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being? He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not" - (Rig Veda 10.129.1-7)

Structure of the universe

The Yugas

  • Satya or Krta (1,728,000 years): Satya means "truth"; the age is also known as Krta, "action," i.e., the age in which the people did unquestioningly what their benevolent elders told them.
  • Treta (1,296,000 years): Treta means "three," the third age, counting backwards from the present: also the age in which the feelings and forces of good are as three parts, and those of evil as one; also the age in which people were specially "protected," trayate, by their elders.
  • Dva-para (864,000 years): Dva-para means "two-sided," hence doubt also.
  • Kali (432,000 years) which rotates in succession. Kali means "discord," "struggle".
And all of these add to 4,320,000 years. Now, these four yugas, taken together, constitute one Mahayuga. One thousand Mahayugas are one day of Brahma. Brahma's one day is one Kalpa. So one day of Brahma will be 432 crores or 4,320 million years or 4.32 billion years. A similar expanse of time will make His one night, and that is another Kalpa. Our wildest imagination staggers in conceiving Brahma's life-span. This is the expansive view of time. No other culture had this unique vision of the infinity of time as well as the infinity of space.
From  veda.wikidot.com
vedic mathematics 

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Cosmology of India and Tachyons



Mundakopanishad is associated with the Atharvaveda.It describes about Tachyons (particles that travel faster than light), Ultra-Violet band, Infra-Red band, Nuclear Energy and Black Holes in the space.

MundakopanishadMundakopanishad might have derived its name from ‘munda‘ (shaven head of a monk).It has three chapters and each chapter is divided into sub chapters which are called “Khanda“. In total this Upanishad has 64 Mantras.This Upanishad divides all knowledge into two categories. The knowledge that leads to Self Realization is called Para Vidya (Great or Divine Knowledge) and everything else is called Apara Vidya or Knowledge of Material world (wordly knowledge).Another important feature of this upanishad is its lauding of Sarva Karma Sannyasa or Renouncement of All Action. Thus encourages the opinion that monkhood is good way for attaining self-realization.

In 1st chapter, 2nd section, it has a mantra which describes seven flickering tongues of the fire(light/energy).Those are Kaali (black one), Karaali (terrific one), Manojava (swift as the mind), Sulohita (the deep red), Sudhumravarna (the smoke-coloured), Sphulligini (sparkling) and the Viswa-Rupi or the Viswaruchi (having all forms).Whoever performs his Karmas (Agnihotra etc.), when these flames are shining and in proper time, then these oblations lead him through the rays of the sun to where the one lord of the Deva dwells.

The properties described for Manojava are same as for Tachyon, which travels faster than light and its speed is equal to that of human mind.In modern science, Tachyon, (pron.: /ˈtæki.ɒn/) (term in use since 1967) is a hypothetical faster-than-light particle.In the 1967 paper that coined the term, Gerald Feinberg proposed that tachyonic particles could be quanta of a quantum field with negative squared mass.The descriptions of Sulohita is similar to Infra-red rays, of Sudhumravarna is similar to ultra-violet rays, Sphulligini same as nuclear energy and Viswaruchi same as Black Hole in space that can absorb everything.



Cosmos and Indian explanation

In Hinduism, the philosophy of dharma is extensively described in hundreds of scriptures and in the writing of our Jagadgurus and great Saints.

"The Cosmic wisdom contained in Bhagvat Gita is so universal in nature that the efficacy of it can never be denied by any Human Being... be one a follower of Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Jaina, Hindu or any other Faith. Albert Einstein in one of his memoirs expressed deep anguish of his inability to grasp in time the fundamental truths expressed in Bhagwad Gita Summary Live. By the time Albert Einstein came to understand the basics of Bhagvad Gita as a scientist of the highest order ... time had ripened for him to leave the mortal frame (Normally scientists do not tend to believe in anything which does not support itself by proofs).

Bhagvad Gita talks not of proofs but of absolute Faith in the system of God... like the smell of a flower which can only be felt but never seen. He carried with him the bitterness of having awakened towards bhagavat Gita a bit too late. He left a word for those who follow... the total scientific community of the World combined can never outright discard Bhagvad Gita as the foremost of all sacred Scriptures... as most Spiritual phenomenon do not offer proof but can be felt and experienced if logically followed to the end-click here

The Brihadaranyak Upanishad (2/4/10) states that the prime scriptures of the Hindu religion or Sanatan Dharma, which are the Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas, Upanishads, along with the Sanskrit language and its vocabulary and grammar, plus all the scriptural verses or mantras - are all manifested by supreme God on this earth. They are apourushey, Divine, and not the product of a human mind.
A material human intellect doesn't have the capacity to decipher the deeper Divine meanings of these sacred writings. The Upanishads advise that if you are a seeker of God, the proper method of studying them is through a God realized Saint directly or through his writings.The Divine knowledge of Sanatan Dharma exists eternally, and has been on this earth since its inception.

Before I start something to say about hindu theory and modern science I would like to quote some beautiful lines from vedas which really have great and deep meaning-

“Truth can not be suppressed and always is the ultimate victor."
-the Yajur Veda

"When the family is ruined,
the timeless laws of family duty perish;
and when duty is lost,
Chaos overwhelms the family."
-Bhagavad-gita 1:40

"You must learn to endure fleeting things
they come and go!"
-Bhagavad-gita 2:14

"Life and death, joy and sorrow, gain and loss; These dualities cannot be avoided. Learn to accept what you cannot change."
-the Ramayana(book 2)

"Do not be led by others,
awaken your own mind,
amass your own experience,
and decide for yourself your own path."
-The Atharva Veda


“One should, perform karma with nonchalance
without expecting the benefits because
sooner of later one shall definitely gets the fruits. ”
-The Rig Veda


On this Earth do I stand,
Unvanquished, unslain, unhurt.
Set me, O Earth, amidst the nourishing strength
That emanates from thy body.
The Earth is my mother,
her child am I!
-the Atharva Veda

According to Vedic chronology, the earth is 155 trillion years old, we do not have technology or even theory to explain these scientific laws mentioned in VEDAS, even we do not have have the capacity to properly understand and grasp the Divinity in these scriptural writings.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Ancient Indian Cosmology -history


by Come Carpentier de GourdonJune 2011
from ExopoliticsJournal Website
About the Author
Come Carpentier De Gourdon is currently the Convener of the Editorial Board of the World Affairs Journal, a quarterly publication dedicated to international issues, sponsored by the Kapur Surya Foundation (a co-sponsor of the “World Public Forum for Dialogue of Civilisations”) New Delhi, India. He has been associated with various businesses and not-for-profit organizations. They include the Nuclear Disarmament Forum and the Foundation for Global Dialog, Zug, Switzerland (in 2001-2002), the Tissot Economic Foundation of Neuchatel, Switzerland (1991-2000), the Global Commission to Finance the United Nations (from 1994 to date), the FEGAWERK Group of Companies, Switzerland (1991-1999), the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BUSCO, Paris, France, 1994-1995), Planet India Ltd. of New Delhi, India (from 1995 to date), the Conference of World Affairs of the University of Colorado in Boulder, USA(1985 to 1988), Orbit Productions, Washington D.C., USA (1987 to 1989), the Together Foundation for Global Unity of Caracas, Venezuela and Boulder, Colorado (1990-1992) and the Swiss Academy of Technical and Engineering Sciences (SATW)(1992-1993) among others. He is the author of numerous papers including a presentation at the 2006 World Public Forum on "The Case for Exopolitics: Ushering in a Cosmic Dialogue." His website is: http://www.comecarpentier.com/

Abstract

Indian mythological and historical literature, written over the course of well over three to four thousand years, contains a number of fairly detailed references to and descriptions of non-human, “semi-divine” living beings and of various visible and invisible realms which in some cases appear to be located in other dimensions of reality or in parallel universes.
There are also accounts and reports of aircraft and space faring vehicles, as well as of very powerful weapons of war capable of bringing about massive destruction over very large areas.
Those vehicles and tools are used by both deities and human beings according to those stories.
On the other hand, contemporary scientific evidence and official conclusions in various countries point out that extremely advanced spacecraft and humanoid but seemingly non-human (probably “trans-dimensional”) beings are active on our planet and in outer space.
This paper establishes a connection between those separate findings and suggests that an updated and expanded vision of the structure of the universe is required as the present, classical cosmology is inadequate to account for many observations.


Introduction

Myths and legends are not accepted as factually real according to the methods, criteria and notions of science.
They are regarded either as imaginary stories designed to provide ritual and moral teachings as well as cultural entertainment to society; or as fictionalized and symbolic accounts of ancient events, whose original character and circumstances were partly forgotten.
The Euhemerist school of thought (named after the 4th century Greek mythographer Euhemerus, in line with the Skeptic approach of the Cyrenian philosophers) regards gods and super-natural beings as latter-day depictions of historical human figures who were, in the course of centuries or millennia, invested with divine or heroic supra-human attributes.

Though there is evidence that those socio-historical interpretations are justified in many if not all cases, there is also ground for considering another way of reading those stories, without prejudice to the previously described exegeses. That would be the open-minded, objective method which looks at the descriptions and events reported in mythology and sees how they might relate to current or recent events for which we have scientifically admissible proof.
Erich von Daniken is perhaps the best known researcher and author to have carried out this task though inevitably, many of his interpretations, which are so bold as to be on the outer fringe of speculation, have been met by controversy and often outright dismissal among mainstream scholars.

Given that myths and legends are known to be legible at various levels, from the literal to the psychological and metaphysical, not to forget the historical dimension, we will not be doing a disservice to this ancient lore by accepting it in principle, as a bona fide account of actual happenings even though obviously, literary embellishments and inevitable inaccuracies were inserted in the course of time.
What are the factors that make it worthwhile and even necessary to take this factual, unprejudiced view?

Firstly, the Indian traditional systems of cosmogony, metaphysics and cosmology took shape over many centuries, if not millennia and were held to be factual and accurate in several civilizations within the greater Indian area of influence. They are still respected and influential in the country, adjoining areas and increasingly, in regions of the world where various aspects of Hindu-Buddhist culture such as yoga and religious practices are becoming known and followed.
On the other hand recent scientific discoveries tend to support some of the conclusions and observations recorded in many of the Indian philosophical and technical texts.

Secondly, many repeatedly observed and scientifically confirmed phenomena do not find a satisfactory explanation according to the current scientific principles and theories while they are accounted for in the traditional Indian cosmology.
Therefore, it may be useful or even necessary to revisit the cosmos depicted by the Vedic and Puranic texts in order to make sense of some enigmatic aspects of the universal reality that confronts us.

Space and Time
“Modern” science evolved under the influence of materialistic rationality which drew its principles partly from Medieval Theologian William of Occam’s “razor.
An effect of that attitude is that (western) scientific astronomy for one started from the lowest common denominator in terms of its assumptions about space and time and initially discarded the ancient Indian chronologies which were it regarded as outlandishly implausible, especially when compared with the Hebrew Biblical records that placed the creation of the Universe a mere six millennia ago (4004 BC).

In the nineteenth century, astronomers were still very timid in their cosmological estimates and only a few visionaries like astronomer Camille Flammarion dared to depict the universe as being possibly infinite or at least inconceivably large. Only reluctantly did his successors admit that the Milky Way was a galaxy containing billions of stars and it took even longer to realize that it was just one of a huge number of similar or larger galaxies.
Time scales did not expand easily either in the minds of scientists.
Therefore the orders of magnitudes of,
  • devavatsaras
  • caturyugas
  • devavatsaras
  • mahayugas
  • manvantaras
  • kalpas,
...of Indian Scriptures, encompassing trillions of solar years remained practically beyond their intellectual grasp until the advances made in telescopy and astrophysical observation in the first half of the twentieth century gradually reconciled them with the fact that the universe is not only larger than we imagine but also possibly larger than we can imagine or measure.

In the light of science the Biblical record about the cosmos being made in six days by God a few thousand years ago appears comparatively primitive and, contrary to the theory of linear human progress, ancient civilizations founded on cosmological myths similar to those of India, China, Africa or the Americas may be said to have regressed intellectually when they adopted the “science” that came together with christianity.
There is evidence that many of the texts compiled and assembled in the Torah or Old Testament are derived from much older sources and held a symbolic meaning which was mostly lost when a literal interpretation was promoted.

The estimates provided by contemporary astronomy for the age and size of the cosmos and of its galaxies and stars are now broadly congruent with the numbers found in Indian scriptures. On the other hand the theories of creation and matter expounded in them are still outside the pale of the current scientific worldview which describes them as “mystical visions” or unproven speculations though it cannot actually disprove them.
Yet the fact that some “mythological” annals are uncannily accurate or at least plausible in their mathematical evaluations should prompt physicists to take a closer look at the “Indic” descriptions of the structure of reality.

It can be said in a few lines that the various schools of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain physics teach that there are several parallel fields of reality within our universe, made up of different substances; or, more accurately, of the same substance at different density levels. The underlying stuff, from where all originates, is undefinable, but is generally called Brahman or Prakrti, that can be defined as the original ground of consciousness.
We may detect it in what contemporary astrophysics calls the dark matter of the cosmos which seems to make up some 96% of the total.

From that initial substrate a number of realms emerge, first the causal (karana), then the subtle (suksma) and finally the physical or gross (sthula) field of matter, made up of the combinations of the five basic elements - actually “states of the energy field” that we define as ether, fire, air, water and earth - in varying degrees.
Therefore, what we can experience and observe according to our scientific methods is all or mostly in this particular world of matter, called Bhu which is surrounded and pervaded by thirteen other lokas (the greek word logos is derived from the same root, as is the latin locus: place), in descending order six higher planes:
  • Satya
  • Jana
  • Mahar
  • Svara (the heaven of the devas or shining ones)
  • Bhuva and seven lower ones, netherworlds, sometimes improperly described as hells:
    • Atala
    • Vitala
    • Sutala
    • Talatala
    • Rasatala
    • Mahatala
    • Patala
Those “concentric” spheres may be regarded as geographic locations situated above or below the surface of Earth or even as physical continents; but these names generally seem to other levels of existence, not topographically removed from ours, but parallel to it, deployed in extra-sensory dimensions that exist beyond the three and half we live in (with time as a half-dimension since we cannot physically reverse it at our level of reality).
Some Buddhist Scriptures, based on the same cosmological system, refer to countless worlds that compose the “chiliocosms” or galaxies spread throughout space.
Man is said to have come into the flesh in this world (the kamadhatu or realm of desire) from the higher sphere of the Abhasvara devas (pure light gods). All those planes many of which are invisible and imperceptible to “ordinary humans” are held to be as thriving with life as our own.
They contain their own elements, plants and animals, including some similar in shape and behavior to humans.
The parallel worlds are in constant contact with ours because, unlike us, most of their denizens are aware of our existence, can observe us and indeed intrude into our space-time, usually “below the radar” of our conscious awareness.
Naturally, especially as long as they remain in their respective spheres, they escape all criteria of scientific detection since the latter are formulated on the assumption that only perceptible and quantifiable creation exists.
However, certain humans can also accede to those other worlds, either due to special gifts and powers or through intensive psychic and spiritual training or magical practices but they thereby automatically violate the rules of the scientific game, set in the age of Enlightenment, so that their experiences are ignored as being invalid by definition.

Revealingly, the criteria of proof that are generally upheld by scientific methodology are not deemed sufficient in cases which violate the laws of nature as defined by “science”.
In this attitude, the “knowledge establishment” remains faithful to the dogma:
Non potest sicut non est: it can’t be, therefore it is not, or in a milder version “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.
The spatial map of the cosmos we have just outlined is reflected in a chronological order that we have already alluded.
Each cycle of life is said to be divided into four ages of decreasing duration and virtue: the Satya or Kriti, Treta, Dwapara and Kali yugas. As Creation drifts or outflows farther away from its source, its purity decreases and its light wanes.
The actual duration of the yugas, which it interpreted diversely depending upon the sources being consulted, is less important than the notion that as the age declines, spiritual power fades and technology becomes increasingly prevalent and sophisticated.
Since we are in the age of Kali that we entered more than five thousand years ago, our spiritual and psychic faculties are said to have dwindled to a mere shadow of their original power, we are witnessing the rise of advanced technologies that enable us to venture always deeper into outer space and visit other planetary bodies.

The Puranic scriptures say that while in the Satya Yuga, humans had all the gifts that we now regard as supernatural.
In the Treta Yuga they had to use mantras (or verbal formulas) to access those powers, or control their Vimanas (flying vehicles) and also their weapons (astras and shastras) because war had become a fact of life then. In the Dvapara Yuga, they needed yantras (magical signs and drawings).
Science and technology are mentioned and even described but they are regarded as crutches built by degenerating mankind in order to make up for the loss of natural faculties.

In the Kali Yuga, predictably machines (kritakas) must be built and operated with metals and other material substances and propelled by physical energy generated by burning or otherwise harnessing material substances.
Mantras, Tantras and Yantras do still exist, although many were reportedly lost, but since their power lies at the invisible or at least mathematically unquantifiable levels of spiritual and psychic existence, they are not deemed relevant by our technocratic and intellectual leaderships. The power of our technologies is hence, paradoxically, rooted in our limitations as a species which is described as being a shadow of its glorious original self.

After reporting uncritically what is alleged in those scriptures, we may point out that similar accounts of evolution are found in many other sacred and ancient texts throughout the world.
There is a hoary, quasi-universal tradition behind the belief that modern mankind is the descending incarnation of much higher life forms, not the result of a long and gradual linear progression as the modern Theory of Evolution (TOE) holds.

Other major implications of the Indian traditional history of the world are that the material means for conveying knowledge and for record keeping, such as writing and, more recently, taping or filming were not needed in earlier times since oral or telepathic communication and memorization were far superior methods for the acquisition and preservation of information and above all wisdom.
Thus the progress made in those areas does not denote a rise from barbarity to true humanity but constitutes instead an imperfect substitute for the lost powers and abilities of our remote ancestors or predecessors on this planet.
The extraordinary quality and depth of the remaining Vedic texts, apparently consigned to memory in an oral form for untold centuries, seem to confirm the refinement and elevation of the civilization which preserved them with flawless precision down to our days.
The contention that they originated in a highly evolved culture endowed with now lost spiritual and cognitive techniques is hence plausible and it finds an echo in Plato’s doctrine who describes the invention of writing as an effect of the loss of primeval wisdom.

Other Worlds and Their Inhabitants
Contrary to modern humans, the other creatures described throughout Indian ancient and medieval literature, have not declined but remained in their original condition, with all the powers and attributes assigned to them.
Although they may have made themselves more discreet, perhaps simply because our growing physical “density” has robbed us of most of our extra-sensorial means of perception. As said earlier, the materialistic, skeptical or agnostic mindset that Western societies have exported all over the planet in the last two or three centuries has played a major role in deporting all traditional lore to the “no man’s land” of primitive legends or ethnic fiction.

However since the origins, Indian texts record that human beings mixed and mingled with the various gods, genii and “demons” (in the greek, ambiguous or “good” sense of the term) and often inter-married with them, giving birth to hybrid beings.
Some highly meritorious and gifted men and women became gods and rose into the higher heavens while others were semi-demonic and moved freely between various worlds. Certain super-natural creatures are said to descend from apparently human ancestors, like the rakshasas who were begotten by the great Vedic Rishi Pulastya.
The latter is identified as one of the stars in the Big Dipper constellation (Pheida in modern astronomy) and hence his own nature is both earthly and celestial, as are the other six demiurgic rishis of Indian cosmology. The Dipper or Great Bear points to the North Pole or cosmic axis where Vedic cosmology locates the holy Meru mountain, the home of the gods.
There lies the origin of the famed “Indo-Aryan” arctic symbolism adopted in certain esoteric circles of 19th and early 20th century Europe.

The sciences of yoga and tantra are known to give their advanced practitioners the ability to explore other dimensions and to dwell at least temporarily in them, depending upon the level of mastery achieved in the techniques. Thus, those parallel universes may be closed to most ordinary humans but are not so mysterious to those who know the teachings of the seers.
Among the beings who live in them, some of the closest to humans are the,
  • pitris
  • pisacha
  • bhutas
  • yakshas
  • nagas
  • gandharvas
  • kinnaras
  • ganas
  • rakshasas
  • asuras
  • garudas
  • suparnas
  • vidyadharas
  • devas,
...in no particular order.
Though not all of them are described precisely, there are enough references to them in the Vedic and Puranic texts as well as in the Ramayana, Mahabharata and in later texts to form a fairly complete image of what they represent.

Many scholars have concluded that those apparently super-natural creatures are in fact totemic characterizations of various tribal populations and foreign nations but, aside from that naturalistic interpretation, we should also look at the possibility that they are or were in fact really in existence, as many current observations might well confirm.
The pitris are among the closest to living humans. Like the greek Manes they are the souls of the dead ancestors and they inhabit the astral dimension. Pisachas and Bhutas are akin to the ghosts or spirits of western lore and sometimes have the characteristics of goblins.
Yakshas are usually protective village spirits and often act as guardian deities of underground treasures, groves or springs. Their monarch Kubera, who also rules over the gandharvas is the god of wealth and metal and he is the “emperor” of the Northern or polar quarter.

The yaksha kingdom, said to lie around Mount Kailasa in the Western Himalayas, is called Alaka and is rich in gold.
In that same region are the Garudas, mythical eagle-men or flying humanoids, said to have white faces, golden bodies and large red wings, who hail from Hiranmaya and who are rather similar to the Suparnas, also human faced and winged.
The Nagas, often situated in the same broad region - and whose subterranean abode (the Patala) is said in Tibet to be reachable through a secret opening located under the homonymous temple-palace of Lhasa (the Potala) - are described as serpents or dragons but can assume human forms and like several of those fabulous beings are in fact “shape-shifters”, if we choose to borrow a term of contemporary science-fiction.
The Gandharvas, at once warriors and musicians serve the devas and are divided into twenty seven tribes, many of which reside in the enchanted gardens of Chitraratha, north of Kailash. They are also aerial beings whose ancestor or ruler is said to be the great musician rishi Narada.

If the Apsaras evoke both the Naiads, Nereids and Valkyries to the western imagination by their appearance and connection with water and heaven, the kimpurusas are lion-faced anthropomorphic creatures and the kinnaras are horse-headed like Hayagriva, the Hindu and Buddhist “demonic” icon who is often called their leader.
They have a clear etymological link with the greek Centaurs (kentauri).
Their consorts, the kinnaris, however are half-bird, half -woman. The ganas are dwarfish, often misshapen beings who are associated with underground minerals and secrets, like their Western equivalents (leprechauns or goblins) and their name relates them to the Arab Jinns, said to be “made of pure fire without smoke” (astral light, possibly).

On a higher plane are the higher “gods”, the Rudras, Maruts, Adityas and Vasus who dwell in subtler realms. Significantly one of the Adityas (children of Aditi: infinite space) is Tvastr, the architect and builder of the universe and the carpenter of the flying vehicles that carry the gods across heaven.
Among the Asuras, the powerful rivals of the “shining ones", is Maya (“the maker”), another cosmic demiurge who crafted the Pushpaka Vimana, described in the Ramayana as the flying chariot of Kubera “resembling a bright cloud in the sky”, taken from him by his envious and ambitious brother Ravana, king of the Rakshasas of Lanka.
The rakshasas are also super-human beings who have all sorts of magical and prodigious powers. Their name comes from the root raksh: to protect, indicating that, although they are regarded as generally cruel and destructive forces in classical Hinduism, (though capable of “redemption”) originally they were ambivalent as are most other kinds of divine or supra-human beings.

Even more enigmatic are the vidyadharas (holders of wisdom), semi-divine beings, often located in remote Himalayan regions and described as possessors of many fantastic abilities like flying, changing shape and becoming invisible. They are sometimes cited as attendants of Rudra Shiva, the Cosmic Mountain Lord who is “The Destroyer of worlds”.
Their monarch is Kandarpabali, according to the Hitopadesha and they are the guardians of tantric wisdom and “supernatural” science.

Many of those beings are indeed associated with the great mountain ranges which border India on the North and surround the polar Meru according traditional geography. While many scholars interpret this nomenclature as describing, in a mythological garb, to tribal populations and kingdoms located in the upper Himalayas and on the Tibetan high plateaux, others tend to see them as imaginary creatures with which poetic fantasy populated the inaccessible snowy fastnesses that lay on the horizon.
However one can also consider the possibility that there may have been groups of beings “descended from above” or from their boreal abode on those highlands, as the original and pre-Buddhist shamanistic tradition of the Bon religion of Tibet records.
The Bon books trace their origins to Dropa Shenrab Miwoche who, more than 18,000 years ago came from the hidden realm of Shambhala flying on the Tagzig Olmo Lug Rig (space) and taught the original form of the Vedic religion handed down to him by his own teacher Shelha or Shiwa Okar (perhaps the Indian Shiva).
The Bon myth about the initial source of all wisdom seems to have inspired the Buddhist doctrine of the hidden Kings (or Kulikas) of Shambhala who have their seat in the wondrous city of Kalapa where they preside over the secret rite of the Wheel of Time (Kalachakra).
In all there will be thirty-two lords of Shambhala, each one ruling for one century, from the first, Suchandra (Dawa Sangpo in Tibetan) to the final one, Raudra Chakrin or Trakpo Cholkhorchen who will come in the twenty-fourth century of the common era, with the contemporary one being Aniruddha or Nagakpo, the 21st in the line.

In the Tarim basin of Chinese Turkestan and outlying areas as well as in Mongolia, there are many related legends about Shambhala and Agartha and some intriguing archeological remains have been found (dropa stones and mummies at Baian Kara Ula), leading Chinese archeologists to speculate about “out of this world” origins.
It is in that broad region that Taoist cosmology situates the Hsi Tien, the Western Paradise of the Lady of the golden plums of immortality Hsi Wang Mu. It is said to be the Central Asian Holy Land of Belovodye described by the Orthodox Old Believers, Raskolniki.

The French esoteric philosopher Saint Yves d’Alveydre in his various books, particularly in his Mission de l’Inde en Europe, written in 1886 under the inspiration of certain Hindu spiritual teachers, claimed to have visited Agartha in his astral body ten years earlier and to have been initiated to his sacred language, called Vatan.
He describes it as the nerve-centre and main sanctuary of Paradesa:
“the highest land” in Samskrt, (the name from which paradise is derived, according to him).
He hints that this realm is partly subterranean, beneath the Himalayas and at least partly hidden in another dimension, which makes it invisible and inaccessible to most people who are not invited into it.
Saint Yves gives several other details on this mysterious empire whose population he evaluates at about twenty million.
He adds that it is surrounded by various tributary kingdoms, ruled by their respective Rajas and that this confederacy numbers forty million people in all. The ruling hierarchy consists, in ascending order of yogis, pandits, bhagwandases (who are 360) and above them, of twelve world gurus, headed by the supreme triumvirate of the Brihatma (depository of the spiritual authority), the Mahatma (entrusted with juridical power) and the Mahanga who is the executive enforcer.

Saint Yves who was socially prominent and enjoyed great respect in esoteric circles, was so confident of the knowledge he had gained about Agartha that he wrote letters to the Pope, Queen-Empress Victoria and Tzar Alexander III of Russia to offer his introduction to the governors of that hidden kingdom in order to allow the Mahatma and his court to come out in the open and make available the stupendous treasury of knowledge accumulated in the great underground libraries kept by the scholars of Agartha all over the planet.
He wrote that all the records of times past since the dawn of the ages and scientific knowledge immeasurably more advanced than that of his contemporaries, was available in those archives, compiled in the last fifty five thousand years since the days of Manu.
He cited the 18th century Swedish mystical theologian and polymath Emmanuel Swedenborg, who had described seeing through his extrasensorial faculties the annals of forgotten human history from the origins, buried deep beneath the steppes of Central Asia.

The tradition recorded by Saint Yves influenced a number of later esoteric researchers, such as Rene Guenon and Ferdinand Ossendowski as well as Nicholas Roerich.
All wrote about or sought the abode of the “king of the world” somewhere between the Himalayas and Mongolia.
D’Alveydre indicates that the denizens and rulers of Paradesa are human, though they exist at a very advanced stage of evolution which lends them the attributes of divinity; but he notes that in the course of their investigations of the universe, both beneath the earth surface and into “the highest heavens”, the Agarthans have discovered various intelligent species, some of which are similar to humans while others seem to be hybrids of men and various types of animals.
He further says that they use “dirigibles” (zeppelins) to explore the sky and the regions above but that could be an allusion to spacecraft of a type unknown to him who, in his age, could only understand the principle of aerostats since the principle of “heavier than air” aircraft was regarded as unrealistic by most.

Also linked to the lore of Agartha are the legends of the underground sacred cities of Shonshe and Shangwa in Eastern Turkestan, refuges of the ancient celestial Uyghur race which is believed to have left the visible world after a great cataclysm many thousands of years ago.
In the Mahabharata the abode of the Devas is given as Uttara Kurus, North of Tibet and of the kingdom of the gandharvas (generally equated with modern Afghanistan and Central Asia).
It may be the Samskrt version of Homer’s Hyperborea.

Heavenly Vehicles
As we have seen, some of the fantastic creatures alluded to in the previous chapter, whether fully “divine” or at least half-human are said to fly in heavenly chariots and to hold extraordinarily powerful weapons as well having the ability to carry out many magical actions, such as changing shapes, increasing their sizes to colossal proportions or inversely, shrinking to the scale of a gnat or an atom and so on.
Such abilities are however also accessible to the greatest yogis so that there is no clear separation between humans and other living beings.

The weapons of the immortals, which are gifts of the gods or acquired through a combination of technical knowledge and extraordinary penance and mental concentration (tapas) have practically infinite capabilities, as demonstrated through many Puranas as well as in the course of the great epics.
  • the Agneyastra produces a very intense fire which cannot be put out and sears everything to ashes
  • the Varunastra triggers diluvian rains which flood an entire country
  • the Suryastra creates a blazing light that blinds and paralyses all who see it
  • the Vayavastra unleashes tornado-like blasts of air that can overthrow the strongest buildings and ravage the landscape
  • the sanmohana induces the target population or army into a collective trance or hallucination
  • the Tvastra triggers such confusion and panic that those exposed to it may fight with each other to the death without reason
The Sudarshan chakra (or fiery wheel) of Vishnu is irresistibly destructive but can only be used once because on second launch it boomerangs and can annihilate he who shoots it as well as his troop.
It is an “intelligent” missile as the name sudarshan (all seeing) indicates and that feature irresistibly brings to mind the celestial wheel “covered with eyes” described by Ezechiel in his Biblical Prophecy.
The kaumodaki is Visnu’s mace whose effects are also devastating and irresistible. The Indravajra is a beam of searing light, a “laser” thunderbolt which is directed and shot through a circular shield acting as a sort of reflector.
Finally the Narayanastra, the Pashupatastra and above all the Brahmastra are so lethal that they extinguish all life in the area in which they are unleashed and cause long-term and fatal damage to the ecosystem.

There is no need to remark that many of the features and effects of those mythical weapons are very similar to the capabilities of the ballistic, chemical, meteorological, electromagnetic and nuclear arms that have been developed by the most advanced military powers or are envisioned by strategic planners and scientists for the future.
Though the stock response of academics is that such descriptions merely reflect the breathless imagination of the ancient bards, the abundance of uncannily technical allusions appears to indicate the transmission of a very old experiential knowledge.
For instance, in the Mahabharata, Krishna, when his opponent Saubha makes himself invisible on the battlefield, shoots at him an arrow or missile that is guided by sound to hit its target.

Vimanas are of many sorts and are described throughout the long and rich period of Indian ancient and medieval literature. In the Mahabharata their builders are said to be the yavanas, a western people that has been identified with the Greeks by many later sources but that probably refers to a large family of Western Indo-European nations or tribes.
However, the minority religion of Jainism which is extremely ancient, has recorded that some of its Enlightened Guides (Tirthankaras) came to the world on jayanta Vimanas.
In later texts some twenty-five shapes of Vimanas of diverse sizes, from the tiny to the gigantic (celestial cities) are described, some in fairly great details. In the language of architecture, a Vimana is a tower or building that has seven stories and is the specific name of the spire which arises above the sanctum (garbhabriha: house of the egg or germ) of a temple.
More recent Samskrit treatises such as the Visnudharmottaram, the Aparajitaprachcha, the Abhilasirtharta Chintamani and the Narada and Kasyapa Silpa Sastras contain information on the construction and performance specifics of Vimanas.
The best known source, the Samarangana Sutradhara, attributed to 11th century King Bhoja of Dhara and his vast scientific and literary academy has the following to say on those space vehicles:
“Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material.
Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury, which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky.
The movements of a Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, or move standing forwards or backwards. With the help of machines, human beings can fly through the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth”.
(chapter 1, 95-100)
The same text describes bio-mechanical robots used as guards and soldiers (ibid., 101-107),

From the aforesaid we can conclude that Indian sacred, historical and technical literature knows of many different worlds and dimensions and of several types of beings that generally move back and forth among those dimensions, just as we probably do unconsciously.
Ancient India also kept the memory - perhaps refreshed by occasional or frequent observations - of artificially built spacecraft powered by psychic or mechanical energy, and capable of moving in the air as also on and beneath the water.
We can now do a rapid review of relatively recent and contemporary reports which tally with the Indian legends, annals and chronicles and thus give reason to believe that these ancient accounts were based on real experience or at least on visual evidence.

Modern Records and Observations
Even if we refrain from going back to the 19th century or to even older times where some reports (and even a few early photographs) of unknown aircraft and “non-human” creatures descended from the sky exist but for which hard proof may be lacking, we must recollect some significant statements, made by important figures of science and by military leader, indicating beyond reasonable doubt that an awareness of “higher beings” has existed for well over a century among the technocratic elite of our societies.

It appears that for some unclear reason, a super-human, non-earthly or at least non-earthbound presence manifested itself to a number of people in both Europe and America shortly after the First World War.
As if that great civilizational crisis, which marked the end of an era, had triggered intense interest “from above”. UFO sightings and even landings were reported in the USA and in Germany and some secret societies were formed, purportedly under the guidance of otherworldly beings.
The most influential were the rumored but not historically established Black Sun and Vril Gesellschafts in Bavaria and the now well known Thule Group.

The Vril Society, called after the cosmic energy of life that is equivalent to Prana in Samskrit, drew its inspiration from a young and beautiful Medium, Maria Orsic, who claimed to be in contact with a very advanced group of beings from a planet around the Aldebaran giant star (Rohini in Samskrit astronomy) within the Taurus constellation.
Those beings allegedly sent her periodic messages and thereby conveyed high-level scientific information, designed to enable the members of the group to produce inexhaustible, non polluting energy and build aircraft capable of flying at virtually unlimited speed in order to reach the stars.

The data channeled by Maria Orsic and other “Vrilerinnen” (young female mediums) were interpreted by Professor W. Schumann from the Technical University of Munich and used to try building the “flying saucers”, from a first unsuccessful prototype tried out as early as 1922 over a Bavarian lake.
The program was later taken over by the Third Reich under the purview of its SS E-IV Division, as some members of the Vril and Thule groups (closed down by the Gestapo, as most other secret societies) became high-ranking officials of the new regime.

Though much controversy surrounds the extent and rate of success of the Haunebu” and “Vril ships” building program, there is no doubt that the Germans experimented throughout the war years with “flying disc” gyroscopic and turbojet technologies,- side by side with the more conventional V1 and V2 rockets built by Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun - through such craft as the RFZ-1, first tested in 1934, and the later and superior RFZ-2 which is believed to have achieved impressive performance levels.
SS General Hans Kammler, who organized the use of prisoner labour from the concentration camps for the space weaponry program headed by General Dornberger, reportedly supervised the R&D effort into anti-gravity propulsion.
It is significant that the propulsion technology is said to have consisted essentially in the assembly of “Thule Tachyonators”, spheres of vertically rotating mercury, in line with what some of the Indian Shastras describe in the Vimanas.

As Professor Hermann Oberth, one of the fathers of the German and later American space programs and the major mentor of von Braun, put it succinctly, they were helped by “people of other worlds”.
In parallel with the German research effort, there is documentary proof that Benito Mussolini was briefed by his officials on the fall or landing of a UFO (an aeromobile sconosciuto: unknown aircraft) in the Veneto province of Italy in late 1932 and personally ordered the “leaden cast” of his own telegraphic instructions to be destroyed, as well as “total silence” to be kept, further instructing the state media to describe the object as a meteorite in their releases.
Evidence for this is supplied in the form of facsimiles of the telegrams from the Dictator reproduced in the book “Contattismi di Massa” (2005) by Stefano Breccia (publish in English as “Mass Contacts" - Authorhouse, 2009).
Mussolini - who soon afterwards created the Research Unit RS/33 dedicated to new technologies, with the participation of Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the Radio - would turn out to be one of many statesmen to be confronted with material evidence of this kind; and, like almost all others, he treated it as a top secret matter of national security.

A semi-ironic allusion to the clandestine discovery can be detected in the Duce’s famous speech to the Federation of Fascist Trade Unions at Teatro Adriano in Rome on February 23rd, 1941 in which he said:
“In any event, it is more plausible that the United States (would be) invaded, rather than by troops from the Axis, by the denizens of planet Mars, not well known, but it seems rather warlike who shall come down from sidereal space on unimaginable flying fortresses.”
German ballistic and space-related research was obviously of utmost interest to the main victors of the war, the USA, the Soviet Union and Britain; and they took great pains to identify and “mop up” the evidence and equipment they found when they invaded the country.
The American and Soviet space programs can be said to have arisen from the ashes of the Third Reich’s achievements and plans for winning the mastery of airspace and venturing out of the atmosphere.

Skeptics have argued that the Vril is the name of a psycho-physical cosmic force first described in the 1871 novel “Vril - The Power of the Coming Race” by British writer and occultist Lord Bulwer Lytton, the famed author of the Last Days of Pompei; and that, being a fictional name could hardly have been adopted as a symbol and a goal by a German occult research society.
However it must be noted that the Vril, the essential energy in light sound and electro-magnetism which Bulwer Lytton associates with a gigantic race of Indo-Aryan origin, living in a network of deep underground caverns and endowed with “Enochian knowledge”, was held to be real by eminent scholars of that period, not to mention other occultists like Helena P. Blavatsky and her theosophist colleagues.

For one, the Indologist Louis Jacolliot who served as France’s Consul in Calcutta in the second half of the 19th century, mentioned the Vril as the invisible power tapped by the Jain initiates he met in Gujarat and Mysore and described in his book Traditions indo-europeennes (1876), proving that the name was used in a non-fictional context to account for real phenomena.
Another reference to the Vril in an Indian context is found in the writings of Saint Yves d’Alveydre and I have personally heard testimonies from at least two persons, otherwise quite unaware of the above literature, who had heard from their relatives during the Second World War about secret weapons being developed by the German leadership and made possible by the discovery of Vril energy.
Such contemporary accounts show at least that the stories had spread in German and Italian civil society and there may have been some fire behind that smoke.

The Polar Enigma
The German connection with an “Alien power” before and during World War II remains a matter of conjuncture and speculation until more documentation is found or made public.
A puzzling statement was uttered by Reich Admiral Donitz during his trial at Nuremberg to the effect that the Reich had kept “an invisible fortification in the midst of the eternal ice”, interpreted by many as a hint of a remaining secret Nazi base near the South Pole.
In this regard some intriguing clues can be retrieved from well established events.
In late 1946, barely a year after the end of the War, when “ghost rockets” were being reported by the OSS (the precursor of the CIA) in Sweden, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal commissioned for Operation High Jump to Antarctica a large armada, consisting of two large vessels, amphibious command ship, USS Mount Olympus and the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea, 13 support ships, 2 seaplane tenders, 15 other aircraft, 6 helicopters et al. manned by 4700 men and commanded by the pioneer of polar exploration, Admiral Richard Byrd.

The operation, surprisingly large and well armed for a “scientific” mission in an uninhabited part of the world was to last until the fall of 1947 but it was abruptly recalled in early March after apparently meeting with something unexpected and quite upsetting.
A reported secret diary of Admiral Byrd, signed December 24th, 1956 surfaced several years after his demise on March 11th 1957. There has been so far no confirmation of its authenticity but some cryptic statements made by Byrd on his return journey from Antarctica, would seem to lend it some plausibility.

Byrd’s interview with journalist Lee von Atta of INS (International New Service) and carried in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio on March 5th 1947 reads as follows:
“Admiral Byrd warned today of the necessity for the USA to adopt protective measures against the possibility of an invasion of the country by hostile aircraft proceeding from the polar regions”.
On the reasons for terminating the expedition six months ahead of schedule, he said:
“The most important of the observations and discoveries made was of the present political situation as it relates to the security of the USA” and he called for “the country to remain in a state of alert and watchfulness. We are abandoning the region after making important geographical discoveries”.
Given that the U.S. was at the time the sole nuclear power - the USSR would spring a major surprise in August 1949 by detonating its own atom bomb - and the absolute winner of the recent global conflict while most of the world, including Western Europe, China, Japan and the USSR, lay in ruins or was still under colonial rule or American occupation, the warning given by Byrd is not easy to explain.
The Soviet Union had already become the new enemy, but America could hardly fear the prospect of waves of Red Army bombers going all the way down to the South Pole on their way to North America and the Pentagon had more than enough means to repulse any “Bolshevik” air raid.

In all probability, Byrd was referring to a clear and present danger that was not Soviet and which he could not publicly identify.
If we accept his secret diary as genuine, then we must believe that, according to his own words, as he flew over Antarctica from Base Camp “Little America IV” on Whales’s Bay, on the 2nd of February 1947 he was “intercepted” and escorted by “disc shaped craft” that took him to a sprawling underground facility, called “the domain of Arionni” where he met the leader of a mysterious Scandinavian-looking group of men, who spoke German-accented English and who warned him about the trials to be faced by mankind in future decades.
Byrd further records in his diary that on his return to the USA, he submitted his secret account to Forrestal and was debriefed at the Pentagon for six and a half hours on March 11, 1947.

A Rising Presence

That year which saw the independence of India and Pakistan, the creation of Israel and several other major international developments, was especially eventful on the “alien” front.
It is well known that in June of that year, three months after Byrd’s return, many American newspapers carried the report of Aviator Kenneth Arnold about sighting a squadron of crescent shaped “flying wings” silently gliding “saucer-like” in the air over the State of Washington at 1200 nautical miles an hour.
He was a highly credible and expert witness so that his testimony was unquestioned as there was no official policy yet to deny UFO reports.
Between the 4th and the 6th of July, one or more craft, apparently crescent-shaped as well, crash landed or were brought down in the desert of New Mexico near Roswell in the general area of the Los Alamos, White Sands and Alamo Gordo (the nerve centre of the still ongoing Manhattan Project), as announced by the local army spokesmen, reported in the newspapers and on the radio, triggering a flurry of activity within the U.S. Government which promptly ordered the concerned military authorities to issue retractions and rushed by Executive Order the passage of a draconian and secretive National Security Act in the fall of that year.
Whether coincidentally or not, Forrestal’s 3000 page day to day journal skips the period between July 3rd and 14th completely. Subsequent UFO alerts and “crashes” were thence dealt with the same mixture of barely concealed alarm and stringent censorship.

In September, the Strategic Air Command sent a wing of B-29 bombers on a mission to the Arctic, basing them at Fort Richardson, Alaska, possibly in response to Admiral Byrd’s cautionary warning about the danger of attack from the poles. Like the records of Operation High Jump, the goals and findings of that mission were classified.

Less than two years later, the circumstances of Forrestal’s mental breakdown and subsequent death by suicide in circumstances that were never properly investigated, while under 24 hour watch at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, provide support for theories about a major and ominous secret that may have been suspected by the American leadership during the War and at least partly discovered by Byrd during the High Jump Antarctic mission.
That secret has been kept since by certain persons and agencies in the U.S. government, if we judge by the amount of indicative evidence available in public records.
It has been established by his biographers that the ex-Secretary of Defense was under heavy stress on 28th March 1949, when President Truman made him tender his resignation, at which time the Secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington told him in confidence something which seems to have pushed him “off the edge”.
The very next day Forrestal was flown to the house of future Defense Secretary Robert Lovett in Florida under military supervision, placed under the care of a Navy psychiatrist who heavily medicated him, and then checked into Bethesda on April 2nd as an in-patient; his journal was removed to the White House on Truman’s order.

Richard Dolan, in his detailed chapter on Forrestal’s death included in his book “UFOs and The National Security State - Part I”, notes that very few people were allowed to meet with him (his brother Henry had to ask many times before being allowed to visit) and that even his own religious confessors were inexplicably kept away by the Navy minders who supervised his care (Forrestal was a practicing Roman Catholic).
On the other hand, Truman, his successor at the Department of Defense, Louis Johnson, his old foe Stuart Symington and a few other high government officials called on him though he had not requested to see them. Truman was demonstrably worried about any undiscovered papers or recordings that might have been kept by his former cabinet member and in August of 1949, Louis Johnson sent him a confidential memo to reassure him that no voice recordings or any other documents concerning Truman’s conversation with Forrestal remained.
Effectively, Forrestal had become a prisoner of the U.S. Navy. It appears that the government’s concern was to prevent disclosures by the former cabinet member who ended his own life (or was made to) on May 22, 1949, in the night before his brother was to take him home following his apparent recovery.

Incidentally one of Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington’s cousins is no other than Fife Symington who, while Governor of Arizona, on March 13th 1997 was one of the thousands of baffled witnesses to the spectacular “Phoenix Lights”, described as the passage of a silent 2000 to 3000 feet wide delta-shaped matte black craft sporting a row of dazzling headlights, over the city.
After attempting to ridicule the sighting at a press conference by getting one of his staff to wear an “Alien grey” mask, Symington years later, when out of office apologized and readily acknowledged on camera at the Washington DC National Press Club that what he had seen was indeed “some form of an alien spacecraft”.
The “ET factor” does seem to run across generations for some families.

There are of course many matters on which Forrestal must have had very privileged information that might have caused distress to Truman if he had spoken out, but an intriguing clue was provided by General Arthur Exon, the former commanding officer of the Wright Patterson Air Base (the site of Air Materiel Command) in 1990 when he stated that Stuart Symington had been a member of “Unholy 13” who controlled policy on UFO-related matters in the Government.
That group is almost certainly the “above top secret” MJ-12 or Majestic Committee, reportedly appointed by Truman and Forrestal to manage the alien situation, on which Forrestal sat.

An exhaustive collection of the solid and confirmed reports of Alien sightings and encounters compiled since 1947 to this day would fill many books (which have already been written) and so we can only briefly mention a few of the most unquestionable records.
It is important to point out, as we noted earlier, that since the second half of World War, the U.S. had embarked not only on the top-secret, exorbitantly expensive Manhattan Project (the Oak Ridge Laboratory alone consumed one sixth of all the electrical power produced in the country during the War years) but also on an elaborate program to gain possession of all the advanced research and technology to be found in the Third Reich, through the JIOA (Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency).
Hundreds of “Nazi” scientists and engineers were identified and singled out for transfer to the USA in the belief that they could make an invaluable contribution to the American war machine as well as to its civilian economy.

No less than 86 aeronautical engineers and 127 rocket scientists, among them von Braun, and his boss Dornberger, were targeted by Operation Lusty (Luftwaffe Secret Technology) out of a total of some 1600 men. From 1945 on, most were brought to the USA after being secretly detained, often in violation of the Geneva convention since the Red Cross was kept in the dark about their locations.
Furthermore, in order to circumvent a U.S. legislation prohibiting asylum to those connected directly to the Nazi regime, those who could be held accountable for war crimes were provided with false records by the OSS.

The high priority operation known first as Overcast and later as Paperclip reflects the hypocrisy or at least the moral ambiguity of an all powerful military complex which blithely ignored national and international laws in order to achieve its goals, following in the footsteps of the Manhattan Project, coordinated by Dr. Vannevar Bush, the founder and head of the secretive Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD).
Bush is also believed to have set up and headed MJ-12, which according to classified correspondence of the time was kept at a higher level of secrecy than its now famous atom-bomb making predecessor.

The Lusty Operation acquired and stored at its Air Materiel Command Headquarters at Wright Field, Ohio (later Wright Patterson AFB) more than 16000 items, weighing 6200 tons, of blacklisted “foreign equipment” from the Axis powers, most of it related to aeronautics and ballistics. Since there was no independent U.S. Air Force as yet, the supervising authority was the Army’s “Foreign technology Desk” at the Pentagon.
The late Colonel Philip J Corso, a high-level military intelligence officer, has affirmed in his memoirs that said desk also received and held some “alien technology” recovered aboard the captured flying discs.

There is no escaping the conclusion that a hegemonic but paranoid United States, in the wake of the greatest war of the 20th century, quickly geared for a new confrontation, not only with the Communist powers in Russia and then in China, but also with a seemingly non-human off world agency, first believed to originate at or under the poles, which it defined as a secret but major threat.

President Truman, extensively briefed on the UFO sightings and encounters by his military Liaison officer Colonel Robert Landry, must, like all officials in the know, have been unnerved by the frequent visits of “unknown intelligent aircraft” to the most sensitive and restricted strategic facilities of the country, including the White Sands and Alamo Gordo installations.

Faced with a rising tide of reports about “alien spacecraft” in the media and an increasingly worried public, Truman admitted to the White House Press corps on April 4th 1950:
“I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exists are not constructed by any power of on this Earth”.
The following years were to witness thousands of sightings and several spectacular UFO overflights of many of the world’s capitals, particularly over Washington DC as also over the Air Force bases and nuclear power plants of the USA and of the other great powers.
In 1952, shortly after the massive passages over the White House and the Pentagon by UFOs on January 19th, the President had General Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg, the Air Force Chief of Staff tell that it had been confirmed that they were neither Russian nor American and that the government did not know their identity or origin.
However Vandenberg, a former director of Central Intelligence, had been directly associated with the official handling of the Roswell incident in 1947 and is listed as a member of Majestic 12.
In 1948, he had partly dismissed, without giving his reasons but seemingly on grounds of national security, the “Estimate of the Situation” appended to his own USAF staff’s Project Sign report on UFOs, favoring an Extra-terrestrial origin. The report was subsequently burnt on his orders in 1950. The evidence of an attempt at a cover up appears overwhelming.

It is worth noting that the personal papers of the General are kept at the National Archives where they are classified (inaccessible to the public). He thus arguably knew more than he publicly declared in 1952 about the nature of the flying vehicles that had buzzed the federal capital.
Other superior officers were more outspoken as shown by General George Ramey, deputy chief of AF staff for operations, on July 29, 1952 when he gave a press conference in which, according to the San Francisco Examiner, he stated: Jets have been placed on 24 hour nationwide alert against flying saucers with orders to shoot them down if they refuse to land.

According to reporter Robert Gardner, General Benjamin Childlaw, GOC, Air Defense Command in February 1953 told him significantly:
We take them seriously (flying saucers) when you consider we have lost many men and planes trying to intercept them.
In Europe and on the other side of the iron curtain, Soviet top military officers were making similar comments though those were usually censored or downplayed in the state media.

Rumors supported by credible “inside” sources, spread about President Eisenhower meeting twice with “Nordic” looking alien visitors on board their spacecraft at two Air Forces bases in 1954 but whether that happened or not, we cannot ignore Wernher von Braun’s revealing 1959 announcement:
“We find ourselves faced by powers which are far stronger than hitherto assumed, and whose base is at present unknown to us. More I cannot say at present. We are now engaged in entering into closer contact with these powers, and within six or nine months it may be possible to speak with more precision on the matter”.
(quoted in Above Top Secret, by Timothy Good, 1988)
Von Braun seems to have approached the UFO mystery with an open mind and a rather optimistic disposition; but such was not the mindset of the Generals and civilian officials who ran the Pentagon and the Intelligence Agencies.
They obviously saw potential enemies in the unknown visitors and called for mental and technical mobilization at the highest levels of government against what they perceived as a formidable threat.
Statements on record from top men in uniform such as Nathan Twining, Benjamin Childlaw and Douglas MacArthur attest to that.
The latter issued a stern warning to the graduating class of 1962, on May 12th at the West Point Academy, possibly letting out more than what his peers wished when he talked about,
“ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of another planetary galaxy”.
Already then, perhaps from the time of the Mars invasion broadcast by Orson Welles in October 1938, the UFO-ET phenomenon had become part of popular culture through innumerable books, radio programs, films and television series.
The information has spread around ever more widely, though it is surrounded by an equally large amount of misinformation, generating a climate of general confusion.

In recent years, classified documents released by the governments of several countries, including the Defence Ministries of Britain, France, Brazil, Peru and Mexico, have once and for all provided hard evidence for the existence of Alien beings piloting very advanced flying craft and landing on earth.
One of the reports released by the MOD of the UK in July 2010 indicates that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had agreed with General Eisenhower to cover up close encounters between military Planes and UFOs during the War, in the interest of national security and social stability. Revealingly, Churchill was concerned that religion might be fatally harmed as a result of public disclosure of those incidents.

However, side by side with the technological and military developments connected with the official reaction to the UFO phenomenon, there was a less visible spiritual effect. General Dornberger occupied a high position at the Bell Aerospace Corporation, in which was associated with Arthur M Young, the visionary engineer and inventor who founded the Institute for the Study of Consciousness.
Young and researcher Andrija Puharich were both members of the Round Table Foundation, at Glen Cove, Maine, which acted as a “channel” for a series of messages reportedly sent by an assembly of Extra-terrestrial authorities designated as the Council of Nine, through a visiting Indian medium, the respected Indian spiritual teacher and clairvoyant Maharshi Nyayaratna DG Vinod from Mumbai, known to many of the leading figures of India at the time of the Independence, including Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore and who had been invited to the USA by the University of Duke.
The Nine were said to have inspired Gene Roddenberry to create his immensely successful Star Trek television series.

Vinod achieved great fame in the world of ESP research as he lectured and collaborated with several universities and specialized institutes in the USA (such as Dr. Pfeiffer’s parapsychological research center in Spring Valley, NY) and Europe. He met figures of the caliber of Jung, Aldous Huxley, Eistein and Millikan.
The Round Table Foundation was supported by the prestigious Stanford Research Institute (SRI), whose director was then Dr. Harold Puthoff, a pioneer in para-normal and UFO-related studies.

A related organization was the Jason Institute which focused on defence-related matters and was thereby related to the CIA whose various, and generally infamous, programs to investigate and test the potential for mind warfare and related clandestine operations, such as MK Ultra and Artichoke, bear a relation to the observation and investigation of UFOs, as recognized by the well known researcher H.P.Albarelli, founding member of the North American Truth and Accountability Commission on Human Experimentation and author of A Terrible Mistake: the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments (2010), though the exact nature of the link is often difficult to assess.

There seems to be a form of cooperation between some “Aliens” and those U.S. agencies unless the latter are simply trying to use the information they gather from those beings.
Similar hints can be gleaned from other governments at one time or another. For example, the President of the Russian Buddhist Republic of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov declared in 2010 on a prime time show on Russian Television that he had been abducted in 1997 from his Moscow home by “Alien yellow-clad cosmonauts” aboard a spaceship and told that they were “not ready” to publicly interact with mankind.
This statement triggered an official letter from a deputy from the Duma, the Russian Parliament, to President Dimitri Medvedev seeking a clarification on the significance of this testimony and its implications for national security.
However no response from the Russian head of state seems to have been forthcoming so far and his silence may be another evidence of the deep quandary that many states find themselves in.
In 2009, the wife of Japanese then-Prime Minister Hatoyama reiterated to the Media that she had been “taken to Venus” on a UFO.

Coded Messages
One of the most puzzling but spiritually and aesthetically pleasing phenomena generally regarded as a corollary of the presence of UFOs is the frequent appearance of the “crop circles” in various parts of the world, but more often in England.
The extraordinary complexity of those geometric patterns whose shapes and designs closely resemble the Indian yantras and mandalas denotes not only an unknown and very sophisticated technology - seemingly using microwave beams - to produce them, generally in the dead of the night and in a matter of seconds, with no visible agent being present (except for some rapidly moving lights which disappear as suddenly as they manifest) but also a deep familiarity with the sacred geometry of the ancient world and with advanced mathematics and bio-physical laws.
It has been demonstrated by various scholars in the subject that those “circles” sometimes contain elaborate scientific formulations and reveal new equations and physical laws.
Attempts by professional skeptics to “debunk” the mystery by getting pranksters to draw some of the relatively cruder patterns on fields with the help of ropes and other primitive tools, belong to the systematic policy of denying the “para-normal” reality altogether, dismissing evidence by means of flimsy pseudo-explanations.
They don’t change anything to the reality of the crop circle phenomenon, no matter what many people, unfamiliar with the facts, have been led to believe.

NASA photographs taken in outer space have been interpreted by some experts to show some gigantic artificial objects that appear to be the “massive spaceships” alluded to by astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in a recent TV documentary on cosmology and the flying cities and celestial lokas described in some ancient Indian texts.
Even more amazing are some genuine, unretouched or photoshopped pictures showing UFOs, sometimes of a very large size, as being almost invisible or transparent, as if they moved on the fringe of our physical universe or at least on the edge of electromagnetic perception. They would hence appear to belong to the other dimensions often described in ancient texts as also by contemporary “occultist” writers.
It is therefore much easier to understand why that facet of reality has generally been discounted or ignored by mainstream scientific research.

We will give the last word to eminent psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung who did considerable research on the subject of UFOs and who concluded:
“It remains an established fact, supported by numerous observations, that UFOs have not only been seen visually but have also been picked up on the radar screen and have left traces on the photographic plate.
It boils down to nothing less than this: that either psychic projections throw back a radar echo, or else the appearance of real objects affords an opportunity for mythological projections”.
(A Fresh Look at Flying Saucers, Time, August 4th, 1967)
Then, are Indian mythology and ancient history (Itihasa: “so it was”), among others that have come down from the remote past on most continents, records of an era when human beings acknowledged the presence of gods or “shining ones” hailing from various “heavens” and dimensions, and interacted with them on many levels?
If so, our modern “scientific worldview” is in need of drastic review and correction and the history of our origins could be very different from what we are taught in schools.