Ancient and Modern Physics | Page 3

With this manasa (which is a
globe) the material, or physical, universe ends; but there are spiritual globes beyond. The
material universe is created from manasa, downward, but it does not respond to or chord
with the vibration of the globes above, except in a special instance and in a special way,
which does not touch this inquiry.
The physical universe of the ancient (and modern) Hindu physicist was made up of these
four kinds or planes of matter, distributed in space as "globes within globes."
Professor Lodge in 1884 put forth the theory that prakriti (physical matter) as we call it,
was in its atoms but "whirls" of ether. Since then speculative science has generally
accepted the idea that the physical atom is made up of many cubic feet of ether in
chemical union, as many quarts of oxygen and hydrogen unite chemically to make a drop
of water. This is an old story to the Hindu sage. He tells his pupils that the great globe of
manasa once filled all space, and there was nothing else. Precisely as on this earth we
have our elementary substances that change from liquids into solids and gases, so on this
manasic globe there were elementary substances that took the form of liquids, solids and
gases. Its manasic matter was differentiated and vibrated through one octave, as the
prakritic matter does on the earth. Its substances combined as that does.
One combination produced prana. The prana collected, and formed globes. On these
pranic globes the process was repeated, with ether as the result, and the etheric globes
formed. Then the process was repeated on the etheric globes, as the modern scientists
have discovered, and prakriti and prakritic globes came into being.
The true diameter of the earth, the ancient Hindu books say, is about 50,000 miles. That
is to say, the true surface of the earth is the line of twenty-four-hour axial rotation; the
line where gravity and apergy exactly balance; where a moon would have to be placed to
revolve once in 86,400 seconds. Within that is prakriti; without is ether. It is also the line
of no friction, which does exist between matter of different planes. There is friction
between prakriti, between ether, between prana; but not between ether and prana, or ether
and prakriti. Friction is a phenomenon confined to the matter of each plane separately.
We live at the bottom of this gaseous ocean--on its floor --21,000 miles from the surface
and only 4,000 miles from the center. Here, in a narrow "skin" limited to a few miles
above and below us, is the realm of phenomena, where solid turns into liquid and liquid
into gas, or vice versa. The lesson impressed upon the pupil's mind by Hindu physics is
that he lives far within the earth, not on it.
There is a comparatively narrow "skin" of and for phenomena within the etheric
sun-globe, say the Eastern teachers, where the etheric solids, liquids, and gases meet and
mingle and interchange. Within this "skin" are all the planets--the "gaseous" atmosphere

of the etheric globe stretching millions of miles beyond the outermost planetary orbit.
The earth is in this skin or belt of etheric phenomena, and its ether is in touch with the
ether "in manifestation" on the etheric globe. The sun and other etheric globes are within
the corresponding "skin" of phenomena of the pranic globes. The prana, manifesting as
solid, liquid, and gas, or in combination and in forms, is in perfect touch with that of the
etheric globe, and through that with the prana of the earth. That our prana is in touch with
that on the pranic globe in all its manifestations means much in metaphysics. The same is
true of the manasic globe, and of our manasa.
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