The material scientists confess they cannot observe the entire material universe in its fullness because there is a subtle material energy they cannot detect that they call dark matter and dark energy that makes up most of the material universe.
Over the last few years many modern scientist today have concluded that there is a type of subtle matter in the material universe that is undetected by the instruments made of gross matter (materials made of ordinary matter) that we are familiar with in our limited view of the material universe. In fact, that ordinary matter we perceive with our biological senses (also made of ordinary matter) and their extensions like space probes, Electron microscopes and instruments like the Large Hadron Collider, only takes up 4.9% of the complete material universe according to modern scientists. This is the limited view they have
In other words, even the material scientists know there is much more to the material cosmos than what is seen through biological eyes but have no way of detecting it. There are many Cosmologists and physicists who claim they do not know what the other 95.1% of the material universe is made of and can only refer to it as dark energy and dark matter.
As ancient scriptures like the Vedas tell us, there are two aspects to the material universe, the first feature is known as the gross material energy that we see all around us through the medium of our biological body that is also gross material energy, and the second is the subtle material energy that is also occupied by planetary systems, civilizations and living entities but is not perceived from the gross material platform.
The subtle aspect of the universe is unknown to the instruments of modern science although many people have experienced this subtle energy on a personal level; after all, all of us also have a subtle material body that is further covered by the grosser biological material body which in fact moves all biological vessels in the gross material dimension of the universe taking up only 4.9%. of the material creation
This gross biological covering is so thick that for most of us (except for advanced yogis and sages), blocks out our ability to perceive or acknowledge the subtle material universe that exists all around us taking up 95.1% of the material creation, therefore our so called advanced technology is only seeing a very small portion of the entire material universe.
Often many of those yogis and sages as well as many religions mistake this subtle material universe for the spiritual universe however, even though there are many heavenly worlds on this subtle platform where the life span is 10,000 years or more, such subtle worlds are only material and temperory.
The next question is, in the subtle material universe, what are the subtle material bodily vessels made of? Are they made of a subtle version of the gross biological universe?
The answer to this question is not easy because we are seeing everything from the gross material platform with the laws of nature that governs this gross universe only. Such laws are different in the subtle world and cannot be messaged by instruments in the gross world.
The material scientists know there is something more to the material universe than what meets the eye but have not discovered the correct way to acknowledge it as yet. They have become good at analyzing a very small portion of the 4.9% of the material universe they know about on just this small planet and have invented many instruments in medicine and other technologies that have greatly influenced breakthroughs in biology and technology by rearranging and manipulating this small amount of the 4.9% of the known material universe.
However, they still have not discovered the underlining subtle energy in the material universe nor the subtle individual vessels that exists as a basis within all biological species within the gross material aspect of the universe. The subtle material universe is the backdrop to the gross material universe, which cannot exist without subtle matter
The only way to truly understand this is by penance, austerity and pious activity, which sound a bit vague to most people because most people do not know enough about the subtle workings of the material universe in this age of Kali-yuga. Anyway it’s good to know that all our vast gross material knowledge and technology is only exploring the 4.9% of the total material universe. There is still so much more to discover in this small figure what to speak of the subtle universe.
Ultimately this means developing a higher knowledge through higher consciousness, only then can one can discover what is in the other 94.9% of the material universe that is still mundane to a devotee of Krishna. This subtle aspect of the material universe is beyond the realms of modern technology, it can never be perceived with gross material means or endeavors.
This is where the Srimad Bhagavatam and other Vedic texts come into the picture however, this needs highly advanced devotees of Krishna to not only present this knowledge but also live it, only then will all these secrets of not only the mundane subtle material universe be known, but also the spiritual worlds of Vaikuntha and Goloka-Vrndavana, which is way beyond all the ordinary gross and subtle characteristics of the material universe.
Srila Prabhupada explains further how the gross biological and subtle bodies are material covings of the jiva soul also known as the marginal living entity which is our real individual identity
“We have got two kinds of body. One body is this gross body, and the other body is subtle body, made of mind, intelligence, and ego. So foolish person, they do not see the subtle body, but the subtle body is there.
Everyone will accept. I am working with my mind, intelligence and ego. Everyone knows. So although we cannot see the subtle body, it is there. So death means this gross body, this overcoat is left, and I am carried away by the subtle body, and I enter into another overcoat, or gross body.
So practically this is called death. Because we have no vision of the subtle body, how the soul is being transferred or transmigrating from one gross body to another gross body, keeping the subtle body intact. And the subtle body is given up when one is liberated. And at that time he goes, when he is liberated, freed from this subtle body also, at that time he is promoted to the spiritual kingdom in spiritual body.
Therefore while living in this gross body, we have to educate our subtle body in such a way that it becomes spiritualized completely.
The subtle body is mind, intelligence and ego.
So if we think of Krsna in the mind, always, and if we work intelligently for Krsna, that is mind and intelligence. And if we change our false ego, ego means, "I am." So I am at the present moment thinking, "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am white," "I am black," like that. "I am human being," "I am animal," "I am cat or dog," so many things, "I am." This "I am" has to be changed. I am eternal servant of Krsna.
In this way, if you educate or transfer the activities of the subtle body, mind, intelligence, and ego, then, at the time of death, you give up this subtle body, material subtle body, mind, intelligence, and ego, and by your spiritual body you go back to home, back to Godhead. This is called Krsna consciousness movement. Gross body, automatically we give up. Now, we should practice to give up the subtle body. To give up this subtle body, one has to develop love for God, prema. And the process is, how to give up the subtle body” Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.8
September 6, 1972, New Vrndavana.
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