The Vedas or ancient religious scriptures of Hinduism call the Cosmic Entity Brahma. Brahma is synonymous with the western concept of God. However, in western religions God is often portrayed as separate from his creation while the eastern concept is that Brahma is both the creator and the created. According to Tantric and Vedantic philosophy, Brahma has two complementary aspects: Purusha, or Consciousness, and Prakriti (aka Shakti) the Qualifying Principle. Like other complementary constructs, such as wave-particle, Purusha and Prakriti can be considered as two sides of a coin—the coin representing Brahma. Without the action of Prakriti, the unqualified Purusha, or Cosmic Consciousness, could not undergo transformation and would remain unmanifest as pure awareness.
The Qualifying Principle, Prakriti, has three basic modes with which it binds or qualifies. The subtlest mode of Prakriti is sattvaguna. Here sattva means “sentient” or “pure” and guna means “binding force.” The second mode of Prakriti is rajoguna. Rajas means “mutative” or “active principle.” The crudest of the binding forces of Prakriti is tamoguna, the static principle.
Normally the Cosmic Entity, Brahma, remains in an unqualified state: Nirguna Brahma (literally, without guna). In this state, the binding forces of Prakriti can be thought of as being disorganized or dormant and thus unable to act upon Purusha. However, if the three binding forces of Prakriti form an equilateral triangle, become perfectly balanced, and capture a portion of the unqualified Purusha or Cosmic Consciousness in the interior of the triangle, there is the potential for creation. The Purusha cannot withstand being confined in this manner and will burst forth from one of the vertices of the triangle, beginning the process of creation. This emergence of Consciousness from what is to become the nuclear point of creation might be considered a prelude to the beginning of the cosmos as envisioned by astrophysicists—the so-called Big Bang. However, at this stage, it is Consciousness that undergoes a transformation from an unqualified to a qualified state and space and time are not yet manifest.
The Consciousness or Purusha that bursts from one of the vertices of the triangle is not qualified but it does come within the scope of the sattvaguna or sentient force of Prakriti, which is the strongest of the three qualifying forces. While the Purusha in its unqualified state has not even awareness or the idea of its own existence, when it is subject to the sentient force, there is created a cosmic sense of “I am.” This cosmic sense of its own existence is called mahattattva in Sanskrit. This is the first qualification or bondage of Cosmic Consciousness and marks the beginning of what is termed Saguna Brahma (literally, Brahma with guna or bondage). However, this very subtle bondage is imparted to only a microscopic portion of the unqualified Consciousness. An analogy might be the creation of a very slight curvature in a straight-line “wave” that would represent the unqualified Purusha.
Next, a portion of the mahattattva comes under the influence of the mutative or rajoguna force of Prakriti, creating the cosmic sense of “I do” or ahamtattva. Naturally, the wavelength of the ahamtattva is less than mahattattva since it is more qualified or bound. This cosmic “I do” is subjective in character and like the mahattattva, it is more or less a theoretical construct.
As the static principle or tamoguna of Prakriti begins to dominate the creation cycle, it first acts upon a portion of the ahamtattva and creates what can be called cosmic objective mind or citta. This cosmic citta has objective reality but no material reality since matter is not yet formed in the creation cycle. The cosmic objective mind (COM) is analogous to the objectification of an idea and can be compared to a scene we create in our minds. For example, suppose we close our eyes and try to visualize a child on a swing. There is willfulness or doership associated with our sense of “I” as our mind takes on the colors and forms of the child and the swing. For us the scene has only subjective reality, much like a dream or hallucination. It has no objective reality since we lack the power to create a living child and swing. These three aspects of creation, mahattattva, ahamtattva, and citta, together constitute Cosmic Mind and they represent the first phase of the creation cycle (brahmachakra).
The transformation of Purusha or Consciousness into Cosmic Mind takes place outside the scope of time following the emergence of Consciousness from the nuclear point of creation. This movement of Consciousness is extroversive in character since it undergoes a change from subtle to crude. The Sanskrit name given to this part of the cosmic cycle of creation is saincara.
The saincara process does not end with the formation of Cosmic Mind but continues under the gradually increasing dominance of tamoguna. As a result, a portion of the COM (cosmic citta) is transformed into ethereal factor or akasha, which physicists call spacetime. Cosmologists call the first emergence of spacetime from a dimensionless, incredibly massive “cosmic egg” (spacetime singularity) the Big Bang. According to this theory, the universe initially expanded very rapidly—much faster than the speed of light. Since it was space that expanded, this does not contradict the theory of relativity, since the speed of light was not affected. Cosmologists call this phase of the universe’s development inflation, and it ended after a minute fraction of a second and transformed into the normal expansion of space that is observed today.
Our current understanding of ethereal factor or spacetime is that it is not just emptiness or a container for material reality. It is observed to expand and be bent by massive objects. Deformation of space is responsible for the force of gravity. In addition, the old concept of space as a vacuum that is devoid of both matter and energy must be thrown out. Not only is the universe expanding, but also it is expanding at an accelerating rate. Theoretically, any expansion of the universe should be slowed by gravity. The scientific explanation for how space can be expanding at an accelerating rate requires that space must contain a repulsive energy. And like a spring, this energy increases as space expands. Scientists call this repulsive force of space dark energy—not because it is black—but because they do not know exactly what it is. Since dark energy more than cancels out the force of gravity from all the matter of the universe, it is termed as anti-gravitational and has to account for nearly three-fourths of the total mass-energy of the universe.
Interestingly, the fact that spacetime or ethereal factor contains more energy than all the other fundamental factors combined is consistent with the spiritual concept that power resides in the subtle and not the crude. Additional evidence for this comes from quantum mechanics and the observation that subatomic particles continuously emerge and disappear into the “vacuum” of spacetime. Quantum calculations of such phenomena indicate that spacetime contains enormous energy.
In the next phase of creation, the pressure of the static binding principle, tamoguna, continues to increase transforming a portion of the ethereal factor into aerial factor. The most common form of aerial factor that science recognizes consists of matter. In the early stages of cosmogenesis following the Big Bang, matter was too hot to unite to form atoms, but instead was a hot plasma consisting mostly of subatomic particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons. This hot plasma emitted various forms of electromagnetic radiation, which may be termed luminous factor.[i] As the universe continued to expand and cool the hot plasma coalesced to form principally hydrogen gas. Although hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe, other constituents of the aerial factor that formed after the birth of the universe were helium, lithium, and presumably massive amounts of weakly interacting particles that scientists call dark matter.[ii]
Under the relentless pressure of static Prakriti (tamoguna), the primordial atoms, which were not uniformly distributed in space, became attracted to one another by the pull of gravity. Once a huge mass of hydrogen and helium formed, the atoms lost their electrons and the nuclei (principally protons) began to fuse under the immense pull of gravity. The first baby stars were born. This process is termed thermonuclear fusion and, it is the process that fuels all stars including our Sun. It is also responsible for the enormous energy released by a hydrogen bomb.
The energy released when hydrogen nuclei fuse to form a helium nucleus having two protons is due to the conversion of mass to energy. Even though the loss of mass is small, the energy is large since in Einstein’s equation relating mass to energy (E=mc2), “c” (the speed of light in a vacuum) is a very large number. Most of the energy released by the fusion of atomic nuclei is electromagnetic radiation including light. In the brahmachakra scheme of creation, such radiating energy is called luminous factor (tejastattva).
A typical star consists principally of a hot and very dense plasma, a form of luminous gas in which most of the atoms are ionized or do not have electrons directly associated with atomic nuclei. The fusion of two hydrogen nuclei produces helium, but helium can also fuse and create heavier elements. Such fusion reactions create additional energy that fuels the star and extends its lifetime. But this process ends with the creation of iron. For heavy elements to form, such as copper, zinc, silver, gold, etc., a massive star has to undergo a stellar explosion known as a supernova.
Such events are rare but can emit as much energy in a few weeks as our Sun will emit during its lifetime. In addition, to creating heavier elements that are necessary for life, supernovas throw off enormous amounts of gas and radiation. Hence, life as we know it would be impossible if we did not have within our bodies the dust from exploded stars. The shock wave from a supernova can also trigger the formation of new stars. Stellar material is constantly being recycled and today astronomers can observe new stars forming from the remnants of dead and exploded stars.[iii]
As a star forms from gaseous hydrogen it will often develop what is termed a gaseous protoplanetary disk. After a substantial amount of time, hot gases in this disc cool with the accretion of dust and heavier material produced by the star or attracted to it by its massive gravitational field. Eventually these gases and dust particles coalesce to form protoplanets. At first, a protoplanet will exist in a molten state, but over time, it will cool and develop a solid crust. Thus, the liquid and solid factors arise by the continued binding force of tamoguna on the heavier material substances that make up a star. The solid factor is the crudest fundamental factor.
In the solid state of matter, the binding pressure of Prakriti’s tamoguna has reached its maximum. Interatomic and intermolecular distances are at a minimum, but atoms are nothing like ball bearings. Almost the entire mass of an atom is concentrated in the tiny nucleus that holds the relatively massive subatomic particles of protons and neutrons. The electrons exist in various shells or orbitals outside the nucleus and are maintained in position by their electrostatic attraction to the protons in the nucleus. However, the mass of an electron is only about one two-thousandth that of a proton or neutron, and the shells containing the electrons are many thousands of times greater in diameter than that of the nucleus. To put this in perspective, if the nucleus of a typical carbon atom was the size and weight of a grain of sand, the electrons would be comparable to dust particles some seventy feet from the nucleus. Clearly, an atom is almost entirely empty space! The only reason the empty space composing your hand does not immediately pass through the empty space composing a table is that the outermost shells of the atoms in your hand and those in the table are already filled with electrons. The electrostatic repulsion of the electrons in your hand with those from the table prevents your hand from passing right through atoms of the table. This creates the illusion of solidness, when in fact common matter is mostly just space.
Nonetheless, a solid object such as a rock or planet is ultimately composed of Consciousness—albeit in its crudest form. This is the nadir point of the creation cycle, but creation cannot cease at this point since ultimately the Consciousness that lies dormant in the solid factor needs to be expressed. As a result, P. R. Sarkar explains that a solid object like a planet can endure one of two possible outcomes. If a planet or solar system lacks the requisite balance of the five fundamental factors needed for the emergence of life, it will undergo an explosion or disintegration of its solid matter into subtler factors. This is termed jadasphota, and the explosive type of this process is well known to astronomers as a supernova. However, the slow type of jadasphota will also occur when there is no scope for the expression of life.[iv] Presumably, Hawking radiation (evaporation of black holes) would be an example of this type of jadasphota.
The other possibility is that there is a proper balance of the five fundamental factors creating a congenial environment for life. This condition sets in motion what is called the pratisaincara phase of the creation cycle, which entails the gradual expression of consciousness from nonliving matter. While saincara is the inanimate phase of creation and represents the formation of Cosmic Mind and the macroscopic universe, pratisaincara is the counter-movement or centripetal (center-seeking) movement of the creation cycle. In this phase, unit or solid objects begin to evolve mind. The same layers of Cosmic Mind form but in a reverse order, and they are constrained within the physical boundaries of living organisms.
Transformation of matter into living organisms and their evolution into higher and more complex life forms takes place gradually in the pratisaincara phase of the creation cycle from the constant struggle for survival and the increasing reflection of Cosmic Consciousness. According to P. R. Sarkar, ten “vital airs” or vayus, known collectively as pranah, and sub-microscopic living entities known as microvita play an important role in organizing energy, creating forms, structures, and processes for converting non-living matter into living organisms (abiogenesis). However, I will leave a more detailed discussion of this topic to others.[v],[vi]
As mentioned before, life can only develop on planets or moons when there is a proper balance of the five fundamental factors: ethereal, aerial, luminous, liquid, and solid.[vii] On a planet like Mercury or Venus, life could not develop because there is an over-abundance of luminous factor resulting in very high temperatures and no liquid water. On the other hand, frozen planets like Uranus and Neptune have insufficient luminous factor reaching their surface from the Sun and are too cold for life to evolve. On gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn there is an overabundance of the aerial factor and essentially no solid or liquid surface for life to evolve. At one time Mars may have been hospitable for the development of living organisms since there is strong evidence that it once had abundant and flowing water and a robust atmosphere. Further exploration of Mars may well prove that primitive life forms evolved there billions of years ago. However, today the lack of liquid water and a suitable atmosphere that would shield potential life forms from deadly solar radiation suggest that conditions are not currently conducive to life.
In our solar system, that leaves Earth where life did emerge and evolve. The planet Earth is believed to have formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Initially, it was a hot molten body that was continually bombarded by meteorites and comets. The heavier elements such as iron and nickel settled into the core of the planet, where they are still found today in a molten state, kept warm by the radioactive decay of unstable heavy elements. The lighter substances rose to the surface of the planet and cooled, creating a hard crust.
It is believed that meteorites and comets that rained down on the surface of the infant Earth for hundreds of millions of years contained water and organic compounds including amino acids. The result was that oceans and continents formed by 4.3 billion years ago along with a thick atmosphere consisting mainly of carbon dioxide, water vapor, sulfur compounds, methane, and nitrogen. The atmosphere helped Earth retain its liquid water and shielded potential life forms from deadly solar radiation. The conditions found on the surface of the Earth at this time in its history were conducive to the formation of life. And according to the spiritual model of creation, abiogenesis was bound to occur. Once the temperature of the oceans moderated, life on Earth did develop rather quickly—approximately 3.5 billion years ago. The evidence for this comes from the fossilized remnants of cyanobacteria. These bacteria obtained energy via photosynthesis, which utilizes energy of the Sun. A byproduct of photosynthesis is oxygen, and it is believed that these early single-celled organisms were responsible for converting the early atmosphere, which was devoid of oxygen, to one containing oxygen. The oxidizing atmosphere was deadly to many of the other microbes that were present on Earth at the time, but it was a vital component needed for the evolution of more complex organisms, including animal life. In the absence of an organizing principle (Cosmic Mind), the incredibly complex combination of atoms and molecules that make up even the simplest life form would be highly improbable.[viii]
Only unicellular organisms populated the Earth for a very long time. Even single-celled life forms express unit consciousness and possess a very rudimentary unit mind consisting of only citta. Naturally, they experience constant clash and struggle to survive. In this struggle for survival, the simple unicellular organisms found it advantageous to colonize with other cells and eventually multicellular organisms evolved. The time when multicellular organisms arose is difficult to determine with any precision, but it may have been about one billion years ago. This was a giant evolutionary step; not surprisingly, it took a very long time before multicellular organisms began to dominate the biosphere.
Organisms evolve in the pratisaincara phase of creation through the constant struggle for survival and the constant pressure of the creative force (Cosmic Mind). The struggle for survival forces organisms to adapt to changes in their environment and compete with other organisms for survival. The result is that they experience greater and greater expression of subtler citta, ahamtattva, and mahattattva. In other words, organisms experience mental dilation, and such mental advancement requires that they acquire greater physical complexity. As a result, life forms gradually evolve into higher and more advanced kingdoms and phyla such as fungi, plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, and finally mammals.[ix]
This path toward Cosmic Consciousness is not without starts and stops as many life forms come and go when they fail to adapt to changing conditions. However, the movement from crude, less developed life forms to mentally subtler and physically more complex life forms is inevitable. Like a cosmic clock, the hands of evolution always move forward under the prevailing force of Prakriti and the attraction for the Great.
Once ahamtattva begins to surpass citta, intellect begins to develop in a living organism. In Sanskrit, the word for intellect is buddhi, which is related to Buddha, meaning the “Enlightened One.” Citta is instinctive mind, but when more and more “I do” feeling, or aham, develops in a creature, it begins to learn from its experiences and modify its behavior accordingly. For example, a dog learns a series of tricks through training. This learned behavior involves some degree of buddhi since this behavior is not instinctual for the dog. Most animals show some degree of buddhi since they learn from experience and modify their behavior because of those experiences.
Higher animals such as apes, dolphins, whales, seals, etc. have a fairly well developed intellect or intelligence. They are able to solve problems using abstract reasoning. That is, they exhibit behavior that is not trial and error but seems to involve the ability to apply previous knowledge to a new situation.
Aham is created from citta by psychic clash; that is, by stressful situations that force the animal’s mind to adapt and grow. A portion of the unit citta is transformed into aham. The very struggle for survival creates conditions that lead to the growth of aham, which we associate with intelligence. For example, a young deer wanders down to the river for a drink, but a crocodile is waiting submerged, hidden from sight. As the deer leans over for a drink of water the crocodile leaps toward it, jaws open. The deer escapes almost certain death when it jumps back just before the jaws of the crocodile are about to close on its leg. From this frightening experience, the deer learns to be more cautious when approaching the river for a drink and the aham of the crocodile also grows as it learns that it might need to wait a bit longer before it tries to ambush its prey.
Animals appear to have some degree of cognitive interconnectedness. A new learned behavior of one or more animals is passed along to other animals of the same species via Cosmic Mind.[x] Because instinctual behavior is guided by the citta of Cosmic Mind, learned behavior of individual animals can theoretically be passed on to others, helping to advance the evolutionary development of the species.
Another example of the connection animals have with the Cosmic Mind is the many stories of lost animals returning to their owners. For example, during the 1920s, Bobbie, a two-year old female collie, was traveling with her family from Ohio to their new home in Oregon. During a rest stop in Indiana, Bobbie ran off and could not be found. After many hours of searching, the family gave up their search for Bobbie and continued on to Oregon. After three months, Bobbie turned up in the bedroom of their new home in Oregon when she awoke her owner by licking his face. Bobbie had never been to Oregon and there was no mistaking her because of several unique marks and scars. At the time, few believed the story that Bobbie had somehow made it halfway across the country to a home she never knew. The Oregon Humane Society launched an investigation and by interviewing people, they were able to reconstruct Bobbie’s 2,800-mile trek home in the middle of winter by a different, more circuitous route than that followed by her owners.[xi] There are hundreds of such stories involving cats, dogs, and birds. Within nature there are many more mysteries involving homing behavior. The best explanation for such behavior is that animals are guided by instincts arising from their connection to the nonlocal, omni-present Cosmic Mind.
The relentless march of evolution is slow. It has taken nearly a billion years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth from the first multicellular organisms. Homo sapiens (modern humans) evolved from hominid ancestors about 250,000 years ago. But how do human beings differ from other animals? As creatures develop mentally on the path of pratisaincara, the unit citta is increasingly transformed, giving rise to more and more aham (I do) and mahat (I am). The individual or unit mind grows in proportion to how much the Cosmic Mind is reflected in the mental plate of the organism. As mind dilates, the physical structure becomes more complex with more and subtler glands in order to adjust to the higher psychic sentiments and demands. The ego, or sense of doership (aham), develops followed by an increasing sense of self-awareness (mahat). Once the mahat portion of mind becomes predominant, the organism is fully self-aware and self-determinant (sentient). We call such creatures human beings.
Humans have a developed sense of self-directed willfulness or ego. They can move their mind according to their desire and possess free will. In plants, citta is predominant with only a dim reflection of aham and yet dimmer reflection of mahat. In animal life, aham is more fully developed but mahat or their sense of self-awareness is not well-developed. As a result, plants and animals do not have the ability to act independently. They act according to instincts and do whatever is in their best interest. They cannot make mental choices that would cause them to move against the natural flow of pratisaincara. On the other hand, humans represent the culmination of evolution. They are fully self-aware because their mahat has become their predominant mental faculty. Hence, they have the ability to act as they choose—even if it is not in their best interest—and point their mind in any direction they choose. Since mind always takes on the qualities of the object of its ideation, this can be a double-edged sword. When the mind is focused on the subtlety of Cosmic Consciousness, we move rapidly forward on the path to self-realization (unification with the Supreme Entity/Brahma). However, if we choose to act or direct our mind in such a way that it becomes cruder, then it is possible to move backward on the great wheel of cosmic evolution and degrade to an animal existence.
As organisms developed physically, they evolved sense organs in order to better interact and adapt to their physical surroundings. With the exception of the ethereal factor (akasha), which can only be sensed mentally, organs developed that allowed organisms to sense the other four fundamental factors (aerial, luminous, liquid, and solid). The five principal senses are smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch. In Tantric philosophy, the physical stimuli that affect the sense organs are termed tanmatras, and the sense organs are called indriyas. The indriyas consist of the gateway organ (such as nerves in the skin), the nerves connecting the gateway organ with the brain, and finally the portion of the brain where perception of the stimuli actually takes place. The seats for the five sensory organs are actually in the brain. For example, we “see” our outside environment with the help of the visual cortex inside our brain. No light enters the brain, only nerve signals from the optic nerve. This is true for the other four senses as well. Finally, the tanmatras, or inferential waves, consist of a small portion of the fundamental factors. The ear (sound) and the sense of touch (e.g. wind) detect the tanmatra of the aerial factor. The luminous factor is detected with the eyes and by the sense of touch (e.g. heat), and for the liquid and solid factors one can add the senses of taste and smell.
Our mind is able to translate the nerve impulses reaching the brain from the gateway organs into externally projected reality with the help of our unit citta. Similarly, when we experience thoughts and daydreams it is our unit citta that is transformed in the process. This is why mind takes on the properties of the object of its attention, whether internal or external. When the mind is involved with sensing and reacting to the external environment, or thinking about crude objects in that environment, it cannot expand and become subtler.
As mentioned before, humans are dominated by mahattattva (“I am” feeling) and are naturally attracted to the limitlessness of Cosmic Consciousness. While our unit consciousness is multi-purposeful because we desire many things, we are unilateral because we can only do one thing at a time. On the other hand, Cosmic Consciousness is multi-lateral because it guides and witnesses everything in creation, but it is uni-purposeful because it has only one desire—that all created beings return and become one with the Supreme. Hence, as hard as we may try to go against the subtle pull of the Supreme Entity, it is ultimately impossible to reverse the natural flow of the cosmic cycle and we are inevitably drawn to the Supreme.
The effort to point one’s mind toward the Supreme Entity is known as sadhana in Sanskrit. In English, this word is best translated as spiritual practice or meditation. In sadhana, the mind is turned inward, and therefore sadhana is an introversive or center-seeking movement of the mind. Many human activities fall under this category. In fact, any activity whereupon the ego is set aside and the mind becomes concentrated as it is absorbed in the creative flow of invention, problem solving, artistic creation, or other such mental activities could be called sadhana. Such activity expands the mind and generates pleasure. In practice, the most powerful types of sadhana are those where there is a willful turning of the mind inward toward the Cosmic “I am feeling” and Cosmic Consciousness. Sadhana greatly accelerates the natural movement of the unit consciousness toward its goal of merging with Cosmic Consciousness. This accelerated movement of the unit toward its goal of unity is termed vidya in Sanskrit.
The opposite movement, termed avidya, is also possible for humans. If the mind is strongly attached to physical objects and desires like money, pleasure, name, fame, etc. then it takes on the qualities of these objects and desires and becomes increasingly crude. The counter-movement from subtle to crude means that it is possible for humans to regress rapidly on the evolutionary path and possibly return to animal existence.
The final merger or unification of the unit consciousness with Cosmic Consciousness is the endpoint of the creation cycle. The path leading to this union is sometimes given the name: ananda marga—the path of divine bliss. All living entities will eventually finish their long journey through various lower life forms and become sentient beings. And once they obtain human form, it can take many lifetimes before they attain union with the Supreme.[i] However, humans crave limitlessness. When they recognize that ego attainment is a dead end path that cannot give them the unlimited happiness they desire, they are nearing the end of their long path to unification. Such individuals naturally take up the practice of sadhana, which greatly accelerates this movement toward the Divine. Such practice trains their minds to surrender their ego. Any remaining karma at the time of their death can also be surrendered allowing them to become one with the Supreme and put an end to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Naturally, there are many paths leading to self-realization just as there can be myriad paths leading to a mountain peak. But the path taken will not be without difficulties. This is because spiritual practices break down the ego or aham and accelerate the reaping of one’s karma. As a result, one’s growth is often measured more by the difficulties experienced and overcome than by the pleasures one feels. However, once one embarks on the path of knowledge or vidya and becomes what is known as a “seeker,” their success in obtaining self-realization is near at hand; and as they draw ever closer to the Supreme they feel greater and greater happiness. This final leg in their journey to the culmination of human existence could be compared to a small fish living in the stagnant waters of a pond. If the fish leaps over a dam into a tiny brook, at first, it experiences just a trickle of flowing water, but soon the flow increases exponentially to that of a great river, and eventually that river reaches the ocean. In the great ocean of Consciousness, their individual identity is lost—just as a grain of salt dissolves and becomes one with the ocean.
[i] Evidence obtained from radio telescopes and the Planck spacecraft indicate that even today we can observe a relic of the Big Bang termed the “cosmic microwave background radiation.” Studies of this radiation show that it was not completely homogeneous, which may have resulted in the inhomogeneity of the universe. Scientists believe that because of this, today most observable matter is concentrated in distant galaxies.
[ii] Dark matter accounts for about 27 percent of the total mass-energy of the universe. Ordinary baryonic (atomic) matter only accounts for 5 percent of the total, and therefore dark matter outweighs regular matter about five to one. The remaining 68 percent of the mass-energy of the universe is dark energy.
[iii] An example is the Crab Nebula, which resulted from a supernova that was observed in 1054.
[iv] Most cosmologists today consider the universe a closed system that will ultimately suffer one of two possible fates—a thermal death as space continues to expand and stars run out of fuel—or a collapse of the universe (Big Crunch) as gravity finally wins over dark energy possibly resulting in another Big Bang. However, according to Sarkar, a thermal death of the universe is not in the cards for the universe since creation is an ongoing process; and as the ethereal factor increases so do the other fundamental factors. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see my blog post below: “How Will the Universe End?”
[v] For a detailed description of the role of pranah in this process, I recommend the excellent book by Devashish D. Acosta, The Conscious Universe: A Commentary on Shrii Shrii Anandamurti’s Ananda Sutram (Sam Germán, PR: InnerWorld Publications, 2021).
[vi] P. R. Sarkar, Microvitum in a Nutshell (Kolkata: Ananda Marga Publications, 2012).
[vii] The five fundamental factors are more like a spectrum or continuum than distinct elements of physical reality. For example, the aerial factor consists of particles with mass such as hydrogen gas and dark matter particles but also consists of the ten vayus, which are massless, and appear to fall between the ethereal factor and the aerial factor.
[viii] For a discussion of this see chapter 20: “Evolution and the Mystery of How Life Began,” in my book The Fallacy of Materialism: How Consciousness Creates the Material World and Why it Matters (select the My Books tab above).
[ix] Note that this process is opposite to Darwinism, which says that more advanced mentality is a product of physical advancements in the organism. Actually, the opposite is true. Physical advancements occur because of the mental expansion of organisms that result from psychic clash and cohesion resulting in a subtler mentality as more citta is converted into aham and aham into mahat.
[x] One example of such interconnectedness is how rats that were trained to avoid one of two gangways that would give them an electric shock was passed onto subsequent generations. See: W. E. Agar, F.H Drummond, O.W. Tiegs, and M.M. Gunson, “Fourth (final) Report on a Test of McDougall’s Lamarckian Experiment on the Training of Rats.” Journal of Experimental Biology, 31, (1954), 307-21. Another example is the so-called “100th Monkey Phenomenon,” which resulted from studies of an isolated group of Japanese monkeys; most of which learned to wash the dirt from sweet potatoes, and this behavior was supposedly then learned by monkeys on a neighboring island.
[xi] Larry Dossey, One Mind: How our Individual Mind is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why it Matters, (NY: Hay House, 2013), 54-5.
[xii] For more on the topic of reincarnation, see my blog post above:” Is There Scientific Evidence for Reincarnation?” or my book, Reincarnation: Science of the Afterlife (select the My Books tab above).