The six dimensions explained in the Vedas
Understanding the reality in which we live is quite difficult, especially when we take into consideration the teachings of the Vedas.
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Understanding the reality in which we live is quite difficult, especially when we take into consideration the teachings of the Vedas. There are several factors that we need to simultaneously understand and apply, even to just start understanding the environment we are in.
In the Vedas, we hear about the different material elements, the difference between the soul and the body, and also about the different planetary systems, different universes, and the spiritual world that is beyond them all.
When we look at our city on Google Maps, we see a two-dimensional representation of it. Each house has its address and also a set of coordinates that allows us to find it on the map. However, we all know that when we go to visit someone who lives in a building, the address is not sufficient: we need to know the floor and the number of the apartment. This happens because different from a map, our world is three-dimensional. Two or more people may live exactly at the same coordinates on the map, one on top of the other on different floors of a building, and depending on which floor we go we will see completely different things and people.
What if I were to say to you that our world is actually not three-dimensional but four-dimensional? Would you believe it? If not, I can prove it to you.
Imagine that you agree to meet a friend at a certain address. You get the street and the number (the location on the bi-dimensional plane), and also the floor in the building (the location in the tridimensional plane). You go there, but see that your friend is not there. You wait for a couple of hours, but he doesn’t appear. You go back home frustrated.
What went wrong? The problem was that knowing the location in the three-dimensional space is not sufficient to meet someone. We also need to know the time. According to the time we go to a certain place, we will also see different things and people. Time is the fourth dimension.
One who doesn’t understand the concept of time will have a very incomplete view of reality, thinking that things were always the way they are and never change. He will not understand how modern Rome and the ancient city could exist in the same location, for example.
However, when we study the Vedas, we also get information about a fifth dimension that shapes our reality, just like time and space. What is it?
The fifth dimension is about gross and subtle realities. These two words have different meanings in English, but here I’m using them in the sense of being more or less refined. In this extra dimension, the more one becomes “gross”, the lower he goes, and the more he becomes “subtle”, the higher he goes. It is connected with how much we are influenced by the lower modes of nature. The more we become influenced by the modes of passion and ignorance, we go down and become “gross”, and the more we are influenced by goodness, the higher we go and become “subtle”. In other words, this extra dimension is determined by how much we become entangled in the material energy, or free from it.
The demigods are predominantly influenced by the mode of goodness, and thus, they have subtle bodies. On our planet, there is a much higher influence of the modes of passion and ignorance. Our consciousness is much lower, and thus we get gross bodies. Even if we could go and visit the planets of the demigods using some kind of spaceship or other material arrangements, we would not be able to interact with them, since their bodies are composed of a different kind of matter altogether. An astronaut may visit the moon in his space suit, but when he reaches there, he just sees a desert. The reason is that even though he can move in the three-dimensional space, he is not able to move in the 5th dimension, changing his consciousness. That’s why Śrīla Prabhupāda mentions that modern space exploration is ultimately useless because it relies on mechanical arrangements and not on elevating one’s consciousness. The result is that we just see inhospitable environments wherever we go, without the opportunity of associating with the advanced beings who live in these places.
Other examples of beings with subtle bodies are ghosts and spirits. They live around us, but normally we can’t see or interact with them. Ghosts are a particular case because they are beings in their subtle bodies imprisoned in our gross dimension, where they can’t interact with other people or enjoy different sense objects. In their case, it’s just a form of punishment. In the case of demigods, however, they have subtle bodies and live in a reality that is similarly refined, enjoying sense objects that are of a much higher quality compared to what we have here.
In this way, depending on how high or low we are in this 5th dimension, our concept of reality will be different. The lower we are, the smaller and more limited our reality becomes. We can imagine how limited the concept of the reality of an ant is compared to that of a human being, for example. The reality of an ant is practically one-dimensional; it just sees a line that goes from the nest up to the place where food is, and its field of activity is just to go back and forth on this line, taking food back into the nest. An ant can’t understand the concept of a four-dimensional reality like we do.
Similarly, a demigod has a much higher understanding of reality than a human being. They can not just understand the four-dimensional reality where we live, but they can also better understand the 5th dimension. Their reality is very different from ours, just like our reality is very different from the reality of an ant. When they look into the universe, they see things in a different way than we do.
Similarly, other beings who are even higher than the demigods, like the great sages in Maharloka or the great yogis in Tapoloka, culminating with the highly advanced beings in Brahmaloka, are progressively higher in the 5th dimension and thus have a progressively higher understanding of reality and of the universe where we live.
However, the 5th dimension is also limited. It goes only up to the border of the material universe. It doesn’t allow one to understand or experience anything that goes beyond that. We come thus to the 6th dimension, which is spiritual realization.
This is the dimension that allows us to get out of the material universe. One who is very low in spiritual understanding is forced to remain inside this material universe, going up and down according to the way his consciousness is influenced by the three modes. One who is a little higher may go outside and join the other souls contributing to the brilliance of the impersonal brahmajyoti, while the souls who become advanced in this spiritual realization can go up to the Vaikuṇṭha planets, or even to Goloka Vṛndāvana itself.
Material science is restricted to describing the four-dimensional world. It is thus actually quite limited. The parts of the Vedas that deal with fruitive activities, karma, the description of the material elements, as well as Vedic Cosmology, deal with the 5th dimension and thus can help us to ascend to a level of consciousness similar to the demigods, and go higher in the hierarchy of planetary systems. The parts of the Vedas that speak about bhakti, however, are the really valuable parts that allow us to go higher in the 6th dimension and reach the spiritual planets, which are our final destination.
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