HIGHER DIMENSIONAL SCIENCE

Transmigration and Karma

Transmigration requires procedures to regulate the passage of the conscious self from one body to another. According to the Vedas, this process is carried out under higher laws of nature known collectively as the law of karma. The conscious selves within lower forms such as plants and animals automatically progress until they reach the human form. The progression from lower to higher forms corresponds to development from lower to higher states of awareness.

At this point, one might ask why a supreme intelligent being would put a conscious entity, or soul, through the experience of enduring birth and death in different kinds of bodies. The answer depends upon appreciating a fundamental aspect of the conscious self--its freedom to desire as it pleases. The constitutional position of every self is to knowingly and freely act in harmony with the desires of the Supreme. If a conscious entity misuses its free will to act independently of the Supreme, then He accomodates this desire by giving the entity a field of action in the material universe.

There it must endeavor for survival in an environment of competition and conflict among millions of other beings motivated by material desires like its own. These interactions among conscious beings are governed by a principle of universal justice called karma, under which their successes and failures, and happiness and distress, are awarded according to their actions in past lives. Every conscious being is thus personally responsible for its destiny.

The varieties of bodies the conscious beings may enter exist for a dual purpose--the fulfillment of particular desires to experience material sensation, and gradual reformation of desire from material to spiritual. To the degree that a being misuses its freedom and acts in such a way as to harm itself or others, it must endure correspondingly greater restrictions in its ability to act.

The desire of God is that the soul return to the spiritual level of existence. But by its own choice the soul may remain in the material world. In life forms with consciousness less than human, the living entity is fully controlled by material laws. In the human form consciousness is evolved to the point where one can see how the material energy is being directed by the universal controller.

This is the key to freedom, because at this level one is able to make conscious choices affecting his status. The law of karma strongly influences the situation in which a person finds himself, but it does not strictly determine his future--there is latitude for free choice. The conscious being can choose to disregard the will and purpose of the universal controller and continue taking birth again and again in the material world, perhaps regressing to less-than-human forms. Or he can desire to act in harmony with this will and purpose and thus become liberated from the cycle of birth and death and engage in spiritual sensory activities.

Spiritual sensory activities are possible because sense perception is an inherent function of the conscious self. A physical sense structure such as the eye or ear is merely a mechanism for channeling a certain type of sense data to the perceiving self, known in Vedic writings as the jivatma. The brain is an information-processing device that is part of this sensory apparatus.

The senses and brain may therefore be considered an interface between the outside world and the conscious self (jivatma). But this interface is actually a limitation upon the original sensory capability of the jivatma, because the material sense structures are designed to register only certain material phenomena. This limitation is necessary if the soul is to function in forgetfulness of its spiritual nature and independently of its connection with God. It is always possible, however, for the soul to awaken its original sensory capabilities and perceive God directly. The Vedic literatures describe the histories of the great devotees and sages who have achieved this state of superconsciousness.

There are various levels of awareness and activity possible within the limits of the material senses. A person on the ordinary human level of consciousness will be aware of only the familiar material phenomena known to all of us. But beings with higher levels of awareness, including those such as devas, or administrative demigods, have access to deeper and more extensive aspects of material reality. For example an ordinary person looking at a television program sees only the forms of people on the screen. But an electrical engineer may understand exactly how the images are produced and have direct access to the electronic equipment that generates these images. Just as the engineer working at a television station operates in a more sophisticated environment than the person watching the television at home, there may exist in the universe higher and lower dimensions of material reality corresponding to different levels of material perception.

If there is a supreme intelligent designer of the universe, He must exist in a dimension beyond the material time and space that He generates and controls. The individual soul, being completely spiritual, may also enter this dimension. At this highest level of consciousness the senses of the jivatma become unimpeded in their operation, and one can directly perceive the cause of all causes.

Scientists have been engaged for centuries in a philosophical quest for an ultimate unity underlying the variegated universe. Today this takes the shape of the physicists' search for a grand unified field theory to explain everything from subatomic particles to galactic clusters. Such endeavors to find a unifying material principle have, however, not been successful.

It might therefore be fruitful to consider the unifying aspect of a supreme conscious entity. To understand this unifying aspect we can draw a parallel between the supreme conscious entity and the qualitatively similar individual conscious beings such as ourselves. Even as you are reading this your consciousness is unifying different aspects of reality--the magazine, your self, the environment, your thoughts--into an single integrated impression. Similarly, the one universal conscious entity, sometimes known as the Supersoul, is the integrating principle that ties the universe into a complete whole. All-pervasive consciousness is the distinct characteristic of the Supersoul, in contrast with the infinitesimal living beings, whose consciousness is extremely limited in scope.

In the Brahma-samhita, a collection of hymns from the Vedic literatures of ancient India, the author describes how the universal conscious entity ties together all aspects of reality. "He is an undifferentiated entity. ... All the universes exist in Him and He is present in His fullness in every one of the atoms that are scattered throughout the universe, at one and the same time. Such is the primeval Lord whom I adore." Everything, right down to the atom, is the energy of the transcendental controlling intelligence, and is thus unified. Most concepts of unity put forward the idea of a oneness that underlies all phenomena and is devoid of qualities. But we are suggesting that the ultimate oneness is full of qualities, personality, and variegated form.

Although our own intelligence can be applied to the forms and patterns of matter and thus lead us to certain conclusions about the existence of the universal controller, detailed knowledge about this supreme being and His transcendental actions must be obtained through another process. According to the Vedic account, the ultimate source of absolute information is providing information for the design of organisms. He is also providing information for the functional intelligence of living beings, enabling them to perform complex activities. In addition, this original being can provide information about Himself.

The Vedas give an elaborate description of how this absolute information is disseminated. Essentially this knowledge is communicated via sound vibration. The information is communicated to the first living being in the universe, Brahma. And then it is passed down from one spiritual teacher (guru) to another in a chain of disciplic succession. The Vedic sounds are qualitatively different from material sounds in that they embody rather than simply represent knowledge.

His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the world's most renowned Vedic scholar and himself one of the great spiritual masters in the disciplic chain descending from Brahma, states, "Before the creation the Lord was there, and therefore the words spoken by the Lord are vibrations of transcendental sound. There is a gulf of difference between the two qualities of sound, namely prakrita and aprakrita. The physicist can deal only with the prakita sound, or sound vibrated in the material sky, and therefore we must know that the Vedic sounds recorded in symbolic expressions cannot be understood by anyone within the universe unless and until one is inspired by the vibration of supernatural (aprakrita) sound, which descends in the chain of disciplic succession." A material sound is different from the object it represents. For example, the word water is different from the substance water, but Vedic sounds are nondifferent from the spiritual realities they represent. By receiving the Vedic sounds from the proper channel, the spiritual realities embodied in them are directly communicated to the receptive listener. The requirement is that one receive the knowledge as heard and pass it on without change. In this way the information remains perfect. At a certain point in history the Vedic sound vibrations were set into writing by the great sage Vyasadeva. These writings form a standard body of knowledge, and the teachings of spiritual masters can thus be examined to see if they conform to the Vedic texts such as Bhagavad-gita.

The ultimate goal of knowledge is restoring the conscious self to its original position free of matter. In the conditioned state, the conscious self attempts to exercise its faculties apart from the Supreme, but in the liberated state the self is able to reciprocate on a direct personal level with the supreme person. Bhakti, or the science of devotional service, is the means for cultivating this transcendental relationship.

The means for awakening this relationship vary throughout history. In the present age the Vedas recommend the chanting of mantras composed of the names of God, particularly the Hare Krishna mantra. The basic principle is that God is present in the sound of His name. When consciousness is covered by material conceptions, it cannot properly perceive the self or the Supreme. But the spiritual energies contained within the transcendental sound vibrations of the Hare Krishna mantra have the power to remove the material coverings of the self, thus awakening its original spiritual consciousness and freeing it from the karmic reactions that entangle it in the cycle of reincarnation.

Scientists have long criticized religion for proposing explanations that one can believe or not believe but which cannot be reliably tested. But the science of bhakti-yoga does have practical methods for elevating sensory perception so that one can actually perceive everything that we are discussing--the soul, the Supreme Being, and the higher spiritual dimension.

At this point some might claim that such experiences are available only to special individuals and are therefore not really acceptable as scientific. This charge can more accurately be leveled at material science. Particle physicists with access to high-energy particle accelerators may be able to confirm the existence of certain subatomic particles, but the average person is not equipped to do so. On the other hand, everyone has the potential to experience the spiritual knowledge that can be gained through the science of bhakti-yoga. No special equipment is necessary.

The reason that not everyone is able to immediately obtain direct perception of nonmaterial phenomena is that there are necessary conditions for the elevation of consciousness to work. This is also true in science. For instance there was an experiment performed by the renowned English physicist Henry Cavendish (1731--1810), for determining the gravitational constant. In this experiment, a dumbbell is suspended by a thin wire. Iron balls of a certain mass are placed opposite each end of the dumbbell, and by their influence the dumbbell moves slightly. When the iron balls are reversed, the dumbbell is moved in the opposite direction. By calculation one can determine the gravitational constant.

But if there is outside interference from traffic, for example, there is no possibility of getting an accurate reading. Extraneous influences must therefore be carefully excluded from the system. In spiritual science also, certain factors must be excluded in order to get the desired results. There are certain activities detrimental to higher consciousness. These disturbing influences, which according to the Vedas keep consciousness on the material platform, are gambling, meat-eating, illicit sex, and intoxication. A practitioner of bhakti-yoga therefore carefully avoids them. So-called yoga societies that allow their members to continue the above-mentioned habits cannot deliver real spiritual realization.

The ultimate stage of bhakti-yoga is understanding the activities of the supreme conscious entity in the spiritual dimension. The most confidential sections of the Vedic literatures describe some of these activities. We have already spoken of the idea of higher dimensions of existence, and we have indicated they become accessible by the attainment of higher levels of consciousness. The Vedic literatures reveal the existence of a spiritual realm that is quite distinct from this material universe and that in fact constitutes the major portion of the total reality. The Bhagavad-gita states, "Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is. That which the Vedantists describe as unmanifest and infallible, that which is known as the supreme destination, that place from which, having attained it, one never returns--that is My supreme abode."

God does not create just the material universe. He has His own transcendental variegated realm in which He engages in pastimes for His own satisfaction. God is the supreme enjoyer, and innumerable spirit souls on the highest platform of consciousness live with Him and directly associate with Him. They serve the Lord constantly without selfish interests. The Lord reciprocates with them by serving them in turn, and thus both the Lord and His devotees experience varieties of spiritual pleasure that far surpass any material pleasure. The nature of these exchanges constitutes a science in itself.

In this magazine we have briefly presented an alternative to the mechanistic concept of the universe, a science based upon consciousness and personality rather than atoms and the void. W. Heitler, a theoretical physicist at the University of Zurich, says in his book Man and Science: "Belief in a mechanistic universe is a modern superstition. As probably happens in most cases of superstition, the belief is based on a more or less extensive series of correct facts, facts which are subsequently generalized without warrant, and finally so distorted that they become grotesque. ... The 'witch superstition' cost innumerable innocent women their lives, in the cruelest fashion. The mechanistic superstition is more dangerous. It leads to a general spiritual and moral drying-up, which can easily lead to physical destruction. When once we have got to the stage of seeing in man merely a complex machine, what does it matter if we destroy him?"10

REFERENCES

1. James D. Watson, "James D. Watson (Interview)," Omni (May 1984), p. 77.

2. James D. Watson, Omni, p. 118.

3 James D. Watson. Omni, p. 77.

4 James D. Watson, Omni, p. 118.

5. Walter M. Elsasser, "A Form of Logic Suited for Biology," Progress in Theoretical Biology, Vol. 6 (1981), p. 57.

6. Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (New York: Simon and Schuster, 198 1), p. 139.

7. Robert Broom, "Evolution--Is There Intelligence Behind It?" South African Journal of Science, Vol. 30 (October 1933), pp. 18--19.

8. Alfred Russell Wallace, The World of Life (New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1911), p. 431.

9. His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Çrimad-Bhagavatam, Canto Two, Volume One (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1977), p. 228.

10. W. Heitler, Man and Science (New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 97.

Hopepage