Nature of Reality

Shrinivas Gadkari sgadkari2001 at YAHOO.COM
Thu Oct 4 02:58:38 CDT 2001


Grettings All,

I decided to start a new thread to continue the
discussion started with Jaldhar, Aniruddhan and
Vaidya, instead of discussing this interesting
subject under the thread of 'New Member Introduction ...'

Broadly speaking there are two planes of existence (in
the Vyavaharika sense) - The Physical and the Mental.

The Physical plane is consists of objects that we have
come to believe exist out there.

The Mental plane is the plane on which the mind
exists. Thus all thoughts, feelings, perceptions
(including the perceptions of the objects in the
physical plane), intentions, desires exist at this
level. Note: One can argue that metal plane is the
only plane that exists (in Vyavaharika sense), since
apart from their perception, there is no point in
attributing any reality to the objects in the physical
plane. However, for the present discussion we will
talk of both physical and mental planes as existing in
the Vyavaharika sense.

The connection between these two planes can be summarized
as : "Event in the Physical plane is an effect whose cause
lies in the Mental plane."

By altering the thought patterns and perceptions it is
possible to influence events in the Physical plane. In
fact for a student of Vedas, the Mental plane is where the cause
and hence the cure of all problems lies. Manipulation
of phenomenon in this plane is the subject matter of
much of the Vedic literature.

In my earlier posting I was trying to show that such a
model of reality is not in contradiction with ideas of
modern science which has devoted itself to study of the
Physical plane for several centuries.

Now on utility of this model:
Say we are faced with some problem that needs to be solved.
If we restrict ourselves only to the Physical plane we
are limting our search for the solution. But if we search
for a solution jointly in Physical and Mental plane we
might end up finding better and simpler solutions. Just
in case the best solution indeed lies in the Physical plane
this approach of joint search in Phyical and Mental plane
also lead to this Physical plane solution.

Best regards
Shrinivas



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