Ancient and Modern Physics by Thomas E. Willson (books on motivation .TXT) 📕

The great lesson the Eastern physics burns into the pupil is that we are living not only within the prakritic earth, but within each of the other globes as well in identically the same way and subject to the same laws. Our lives are not passed on one globe, but in four globes. It is as if one said he lived in Buffalo, Erie county, New York, United States; that he was a citizen of each and subject to the laws of each.

This question of the four globes, of the four planes of matter, of the four skins, and of the four conditions or states of all matter and necessarily of all persons, from the purely material standpoint, is not only the foundation of Oriental physics, but the very essence of Oriental metaphysics—its starting-point and corner-stone. To one who carries with him, consciously or unconsciously, the concrete knowledge of the physics, the abstract teaching of the metaphysics presents no difficulty; it is as clear as crystal. But without the physical teaching the metaphysical is not translatable.

Our Western physics teaches that physical matter is divided into two kinds prakriti (commonly called "physical matter") and ether; that the differences of each of the elementary prakritic substances (iron, copper, sulphur, oxygen) are in their molecules, the fundamental atom being the same; that each of these elementary substances vibrates only through one octave, though on different keys; that it changes from solid to liquid and gas as the rate of vibration is increased and from gas to liquid and solid as its vibration is decreased within its octave; that the ether obeys identical laws; that it has elementary substances vibrating through one octave only, and that these are solids, liquids, or gases on the etheric plane as prakriti is on this; that these etheric substances change and combine in every way that prakriti does; and that while all our prakritic substances vibrate within (say) fifty simply octaves, the lowest vibration of etheric matter begins over one thousand octaves beyond our highest, making a gulf to leap. The Eastern physics presents this with a wealth of detail that dazes the Western student, and then adds: "But beyond the etheric plane (or octave) of vibration for matter there is a third plane (or octave) of vibration called prana and beyond that a fourth called manasa. What is true of one plane is true of the other three. One law governs the four. As above so below. There is no real gulf; there is perfect continuity."

The Western scientist teaches as the foundation of modern physics that "each and every atom of prakritic matter is the center of an etheric molecule of many atoms;" that "no two prakritic atoms touch," although their etheric envelopes or atmospheres do touch; and that "all physical phenomena are caused by the chording vibration of the prakritic atom and its envelope of ether," each "sounding the same note hundreds of octaves apart." The "solid earth" with its atmosphere represents the atom with its ether. As all the oxygen and hydrogen do not combine to make the drop of water, some remaining in mechanical union to give it an atmosphere, and about one-fourth of its bulk being gas, so the atom formed of the ether does not use all the ether in its chemical union, retaining some in mechanical union for its envelope or atmosphere.

The Hindu physics goes much farther along this road. It says that, when the pranic globes were formed, each atom of prana had its manasic envelope—was the center of a manasic molecule. When the etheric globes formed, each atom of ether was the center of a pranic molecule, each atom of which was surrounded with manasa. When the prakriti was formed from the ether, each and every atom of prakriti had the triple etheric-pranic-manasic envelope. "Each and every prakritic atom is the center of an etheric molecule," says our Western science; but that of the East adds this: "And each atom of that etheric molecule is the center of a pranic molecule, and each atom of prana in that pranic molecule is the center of a manasic molecule." The four great globes of matter in the material universe are represented and reproduced in each and every atom of prakriti, which is in touch with each one of the four globes and a part of it. The same is true of any aggregation of prakriti—of the earth itself and of all things in it, including man. As there are four atoms in each one, so there are four earths, four globes, consubstantial, one for each of the four elements, and in touch with it. One is formed of prakritic atoms—the globe we know; another, of the ether forming their envelopes; another, of the prana envelopes of ether, and a fourth of the manasa around the pranic atom. They are not "skins"; they are consubstantial. And what is true of atoms or globes is true of animals. Each has four "material" bodies, with each body on the corresponding globe —whether of the earth or of the Universe. This is the physical basis of the famous "chain of seven globes" that is such a stumbling-block in Hindu metaphysics. The spirit passes through four to get in and three to get out—seven in all. The Hindu understands without explanation. He understands his physics.

The Hindu physics teaches, with ours, that "the ether is the source of all energy," but, it adds, "as prana is the source of all life, and manasa of all mind."

"When the prakritic atom is vibrating in chord with its etheric envelope," say our textbooks, "we have physical phenomena —light, heat, electricity." "Yes," says the Hindu teacher; "but when the atom and its ether and its prana are vibrating in chord, we have life and vital phenomena added to the energy. When the atom and its ether, prana, and manasa are vibrating in chord, we have mind and mental phenomena added to the life and energy." Each atom has energy, life, and mind in posse. In the living leaf the prakriti, ether, and prana are sounding the threefold silver chord of life. In the animal, the manasa is sounding the same note with them, making the fourfold golden chord of mind. Even in the plant there may be a faint manasic overtone, for the potentiality of life and mind is in everything. This unity of the physical universe with the physical atom, and with all things created—earth, animal, or crystal—is the physical backbone of Oriental metaphysics. Prakriti, ether, prana, and manasa are in our vernacular the Earth, Air, Fire, and Water of the old philosophers—the "Four Elements."

The Oriental physics has been guarded most jealously. For many thousands of years it has been the real occult and esoteric teaching, while the Oriental metaphysics has been open and exoteric. It could not be understood without the key, and the key was in the physics known only to "the tried and approved disciple." A little has leaked out—enough to whet the appetite of the true student and make him ask for more.

The Two Kinds of Perception

To the savage, matter appears in two forms—solid and liquid. As he advances a step he learns it has three forms—solid, liquid and gas. He cannot see the gas, but he knows it is there.

A little further on he learns that matter as he knows it is only a minute portion of the great universe of matter—the few chords that can be struck on the five strings of his senses, and limited to one octave or key.

Whether the particular matter he investigates has a solid, a liquid, or a gaseous form depends upon its rate of vibration. If it is a liquid, by raising its rate of vibration one third it becomes a gas; by reducing it one third it becomes a solid.

Each kind of matter has vibration only through one octave. It is known to us only by its vibration in that octave. Each kind of matter has a different octave—is set on a higher or lower key, so to speak, but all octaves of vibration are between the highest of hydrogen gas and the lowest of carbon.

In mechanical compounds, such as air or brass, the rate of vibration of the compound is the least common multiple of the two or more rates. In chemical compounds, such as water or alcohol, the rate is that of the highest, the others uniting in harmonic fractions.

All matter as we know it through our senses—prakriti, as it is called in the Secret Doctrine to distinguish it from non-sensual matter—is the vibration of an universal Something, we do not know what, through these different octaves. The elementary substances (so-called) are one and the same thing—this Something—in different keys and chords of vibration; keys that run into one another, producing all sorts of beautiful harmonies.

Taking any one of these elements, or any of their compounds, all we know of it is limited strictly to its changes during vibration through one octave. What happens when the vibration goes above or below the octave has not yet been treated hypothetically.

While some elements are vibrating on higher and some on lower keys, we can consider them all as vibrating within one great octave, that octave of the universal Something which produces sensual matter, or prakriti.

But matter is not confined, we know, to this great octave, although our sensual knowledge of it is strictly confined to it. How do we know it?

Knowledge comes to us in two ways, and there are two kinds of knowledge.

1. That which comes through our senses, by observation and experience. This includes reasoning from relation.

2. That which comes through intuition—or, as some writers inaccurately say, "through the formal laws of thought."

All the observation and experience of the rising and the setting of the sun for a thousand centuries could only have confirmed the first natural belief that it revolved daily around the earth; nor by joining this experience with other experiences could any deduction have come from our reason that would have opposed it. Not our reason but our intuition said that the sun stood still and the earth revolved daily. The oldest books in existence tell us that this axial revolution of the earth was not only known in the very dawn of time but that it has been known to every race (except our own of European savages) from before the time thought was first transmitted by writing.

Ask the ablest living geographer or physicist to prove to you that the earth revolves daily and he will reply that it would be the job of his life. It can be done at great expense and great labor, but that is because we know the answer and can invent a way of showing it, not because there are any observations from which a deduction would naturally follow.

Nearly if not all our great discoveries have come to us through intuition and not from observation and experience. When we know the lines on which to work, when intuition has given us the KEY, then the observation and experience men prize so highly, and the reason they worship so devoutly, will fill in the details. The knowledge that flows from observation and the reasoning from the facts it records, is never more than relatively true, it is always limited by the facts, and any addition to the facts requires the whole thing to be restated. We never know all the facts; seldom even the more important; and reason grasps only details.

Lamarck's theory of evolution, known to all Asiatic races from time