Uddhava Gita Explained - Question

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Apr 19, 2016

Alfredo 3 years ago

Michael!

In Uddhava Gita Explained, Chapter 9, Verse 9.1:

"The derserving Uddhava said:  O Krishna, the teachers of spirituality speak of various means of well being. Are all of these options essential? Is one the most important?"

In your commentary there is an allusion about Sanaka and his brothers, who did not practice the yoga sufficiently to penetrate into the 4th dimension.

What is this 4th dimension? Is this similar to the 4th dimension entertained by P. D. Ouspensky in "Tertium Organum"?

MiBeloved 3 years ago

It is different to Ouspensky’s concept. This fourth dimension is described in the Bhagavad Gita as the place where there is no sun or moon. Here is a verse:

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The sun does not illuminate that place, nor the moon, nor the fire. Having gone to that location, they never return. That is My supreme residence. (Bhagavad Gita English 15.6)

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It is the place where everything is self illuminated. In this world shadows are cast by object and everything functions under that principle but in that other place everything is lit from inside itself so there is no shadow because there is no illuminated distant source.

Ultimately it may be that Ouspensky was heading to the same place but I do not feel that he had a definition of it which was based on experience in that place, but he may have speculated about it and touched it in mystic practice now and again.

Fourth dimension is the place where you are your body, where the core-self itself is the one and only body. There is no physical body or subtle body with adjuncts. The self itself is the limbs, senses and whatever there is as a personal psyche.

Ouspensky may have been talking about the astral world but that is not the spiritual world. The problem with the astral existence is that it has the causal level as its support and therefore it is liable to collapse into that at any moment. You can never tell when that will happen. And then the subtle bodies and all the nuclear materials go out like a burnt out filament.

But the spiritual world which Krishna speaks about is different. And it is not so much that world but the core-self’s form which is used there. That is the interest.

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The interesting part of the story about Sanaka and his brothers was that they had just re-emerged in another material creation (subtle and gross) of their father Brahma. The creation was new and so at the onset they had the spiritual gusto to inquire from their father about the origins. But they had no recall of their previous existence in previous creations and no idea of the other place which Krishna described.

That is similar to what happens to us, where we appear as a certain material body but with no recall of previous existence, and then we begin to challenge and demand answers from our seniors and also to ridicule lower species like birds and insects.

Massive ignorance causes this presumption.

Alfredo 3 years ago

Thanks Michael!

Yes, I don't think that Ouspensky was referring to the same place as the one Krishna spoke in the Bhagavad Gita verse you quoted. At least he never hinted he was.

He firstly entertained the explanation of a 4th dimension by what lower-dimensional beings can experience. Thus for him, us 3-dimensional beings could only comprehend the 4th dimension as the variables of time and movement in space. Likewise, a dog for example, a 2-dimensional being, experienced the 3rd dimension as time and movement and for them a 3-dimensional object, such as a horse pulling a cart passing in front of them, became a multi-moving object, thus their agitation at first.

However, it is interesting to note that some of the characteristics of the Supramental Species that was proclaimed by Sri Aurobindo (and the Mother) are similar to those described in the astral planes, as thought/travel projection, telepathy, lightness of body, absence of physical organs such as the heart pump, the fleshy brain, etc...So, I have a question...could it be that this so-called Supramental Species to manifest upon earth that Sri Aurobindo posited, is a bringing of the possibilities of certain high, spiritual, astral realms? For I don't think Sri Aurobindo was referring to Vaikhunta or Brahma-Loka.

MiBeloved 3 years ago

I cannot answer for the Guruji because it is not clear in your statements as to what he referred to. We have to assume that due to his integrity, what he had in mind was valid.

I will show you a similar case. Buddha used to talk about the Tushita heaven where the bodhisattvas live. So then later some Buddhist denied that and said that there is no heaven or hell and that that is illusion. So this is not the correct attitude. First the Guruji must have integrity and then we can follow his statements with belief even if they do not make sense. If he has no integrity then why bother to follow him.

If I see the original statements, I may be able to give an opinion.

However my view on upgrade of the physical plane by using superior human bodies is that this is a bad focus for a yogi. My reasoning is that if there is a superior environment already existing somewhere, the yogi should just work to relocat there instead of working to turn this place into a heaven.

When I was six, I was at the kindergarten where there were little potties, you know, a little shitter.

Then when I was 12, I was in elementary school and there were some medium size shitters, you know, too small for my parents to sit on.

Then when I was 21 I got a job in an office, and you know, there was the adult shitters.

But once I went to a ward in a hospital for obese people, and then I saw some giant shitters, you know those fat bodies need space to sit on.

So then I got this bright idea, that instead of making different size shitters, one size should be manufactured. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?

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So this is why I feel that each place has a specific shitter already predesigned and it is best to move the people to different locations, than try to make one location be another.

The majority of people on earth are suited to this environment, not to something higher and so it is best that this be left as is, but if someone feels out-sized or misplaced here, then that person should work so as to graduate from here and reach a better place (or worse place).

King Parikshit wanted to straighten out this place but he was prohibited from doing so. What happened is that he did not like the idea that exploited vice-ridden people should have a life there. He wanted heaven on earth. But fate did not permit it.

Alfredo 3 years ago

Thanks, very interesting answer.

Regarding the Guruji, the originals are scattered here and there, and besides the statement itself, there is not much explanations or details. However, one thing was certain, according to this line of thought, Sri Aurobindo stated the new Supramental species he was positing was not an aggrandized man, but a new species altogether, as removed from man, as man was from the primate.

However, your explanation is very refreshing in regards to Moksha. The core of your beliefs and aspirations are indeed the cornerstone, the pillar, of Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma, but what is interesting is how much this thought or aspiration has receded from its original blueprint, and how diluted the message has become coming from many Gurujis from India, and, of course, after having entered the Western sphere of thought and the New Age whitewashing.

You are perhaps one of the few nowadays completely extolling and supporting this escape from the material world, and a living example of what is needed to effect it. No wonder Sri Aurobindo stated Moksha was elitist, but personally possible.