Experiencing and Understanding Infinite Worlds of Experience

Scientists nowadays are speaking of infinite numbers of parallel universes, each one carrying out some different ‘choice’ that can be worked out. Not every world is based on the same set of factors and choices as the world we currently inhabit. There are also realms that are not physical in the sense of the materiality of the existence, but which are much more fluid vital domains or worlds of mental formations that exist in a space of pure mentality, etc.

Many people have a hard time separating themselves sufficiently from the solidity and ‘reality’ of the physical world, to understand, acknowledge, and eventually relate to other worlds or domains. Yet we are clearly moving in the direction of gaining these insights, both on the scientific side, on the psychological side, and among those who practice the science of consciousness through yogic sadhana.

Over the last couple of hundred years, the Western science of psychology took up the study of dreams, and through the extensive work carried out by Freud, links and connections were made between dream events and various experiences in the world, past traumas or events, etc. However, this did not exhaust the subject, and the work of C.G. Jung went further to determine that some dreams related to what he called a “collective unconscious” which is a separate domain shared by the mental-vital space of humanity, not specifically related to an individual’s trauma or event background.

Some people reported various forms of prophetic dreams, and others reported entering into other realms or worlds and interacting there. Some people visited what has been called the ‘akashic record’ and found the history of humanity, past, present and future, available to them for review in the time they were there. Others have received detailed teachings from gurus, teachers or guides while in a type of dream state, while not in the physical presence of those teachers.

There is such an enormous number of potential experiences, and they defy realistic description to those who have not had those experiences. Thus, the only way to truly understand these other states of awareness, or other planes or domains, is to consciously take up the study and begin to focus on and relate to the experiences one has and correlate them to those related by others, or to other experiences one has oneself. In the end, the only true knowledge in this realm is knowledge through direct experience and through identity with the experienced state.

When an individual takes up this type of review, it is important to recognise that much of the validity of the understanding must be based on the foundation provided by the individual who is experiencing and reporting. That is why an inner development is needed to ensure that the results reported are not tainted by desire, greed, fear, vanity or any other vital movement that can skew the results.

The Mother notes: “So it is difficult to speak of all these worlds, these innumerable worlds, in a few minutes. It is a knowledge which needs a lived experience of many years, thoroughly systematic, and which requires, as I said, an inner preparation absolutely indispensable, to make it harmless.”

“We all get the chance to have a little contact — very partial, very superficial — with these worlds in our dreams. And the study of dreams itself already demands much time and care, and in itself may constitute a preparation for a deeper study of the invisible worlds.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 5 Occult Forces, pg. 111