Hindu cosmology & Astronomy -Part 3

`Veda' means knowledge. And Yoga-
Patanjali Yoga Sutra 1:2
Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah
Yoga is the mastery of fluctuations of the mind.

For quite some time scholars believed that this knowledge amounted to no

more than speculations regarding the self; this is what we are still told in some schoolbook

accounts. New insights in archaeology, astronomy, history of science and Vedic scholarship

have shown that such a view is wrong. We now know that Vedic knowledge embraced physics,

mathematics, astronomy, logic, cognition and other disciplines. We find that Vedic science

is the earliest science that has come down to us.

Briefly, the Vedic texts present a tripartite and recursive world view. The universe is

viewed as three regions of earth, space, and sky with the corresponding entities of Agni,

Indra, and Vishve Devah (all gods).

Vedic Rishi and old education institutes alse read modern science but name was different.

These were Vedic science-

logic (nyaya) and physics (vaisheshika), cosmology (sankhya) and psychology

(yoga), and language (mimamsa) and reality (vedanta).

The Five Levels

In the Taittiriya Upanishad, the individual is represented in 5 levels that enclose the individual's self. These levels, shown in an ascending order, are:

The physical body (annamaya kosha)

Energy sheath (pranamaya kosha)

Mental sheath (manomaya kosha)

Intellect sheath (vijnanamaya kosha)

Emotion sheath (anandamaya kosha )

The emotion sheath, is innermost .

This is a recognition of the fact that eventually meaning is communicated by associations

The energy that underlies physical and mental processes is called prana.


Further description of above-

According to yogic theory & philosophy, a human being is comprised of 5 layers. These layers are called koshas, or sheath. Each layer is more subtle than the other.

The first is annamaya kosha, or literally mean ‘food sheath’ – it is the physical body: the bones, muscles, tissues, organs, bloods, etc. The grossest of the layers. It is made of the elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. It is on this layer the gateway to the external world, the five receiving senses and the five action sense are located, so it is through this layer that one is experiencing life.

The second is pranamaya kosha, or the energy body, the prana layer. More subtle than the physical body, this layer not visible to the naked eye, but one can feel it. The chakras, or energy centers, are within this layer. Without prana, there is no life.

The third is manomaya kosha, the mind body. This is the mind that interacts with the inputs from the senses, carry out day to day operation of keeping oneself alive and well – eg if there’s a danger, move away – if there’s a reward, come closer. Manomaya kosha is full of emotions – a reaction to the input from the senses. It is key for survival.

The fourth is vijnanamaya kosha, sometimes called the higher mind. Also referred to as the ‘wisdom body’ – this is where awareness, insight, discernment, and consciousness located. Without awareness, one will be only reacting to whatever comes one’s way. With awareness, one can stop to only reacting and choose to response with intention.

The fifth is called anandamaya kosha, the bliss body. Sometimes also called the causal body. This is the innermost layer covering the essence – the soul, or spirit, or self, or atman. The unchanging eternal reality.

Using a computer as analogy, annamaya kosha is like the hardware. The receiving sense organs are keyboards, mouse, touchscreen, microphone. The action sense organs are the monitor, speaker, printer. Pranamaya kosha is like the electricity powering the computer – without plugging it into the electricity the computer can’t turn on. It’s the current that goes through the hardwares. Manomaya kosha is like the operating system – basic operation of the computer is controlled from here. Vijnanamaya kosha is like the more advanced software, with which the computer can interact in a more useful way, be productive, be of service. I can’t think yet of the parallel for anandamaya kosha in a computer… can you think of one? Although not yet complete, I think this computer analogy helps me understand more about the koshas.

The Structure of the Mind

The Sankhya system takes the mind as consisting of ¯ve components: manas, ahankara,

chitta(MEMORY BANK) buddhi, and atman. Again these categories parallel those of Figure ABOVE.

This mental complex surrounds the innermost aspect of consciousness which is called

atman, the self, brahman, or jiva.

In his famous paper on the origin of mathematics, Seidenberg (1978) concluded: Old-

Babylonia [1700 BC] got the theorem of Pythagoras from India.

Barend van Nooten (1993) has shown that binary numbers were known at the time of

Pingala's Chhandahshastra. Pingala, who lived around the early Frst century B.C.E., used

binary numbers to calssify Vedic Mantras.

The Puranas speak of countless universes, time  owing at different rates for different observers and so on.

Advanced Ancient Indian Science-

The Mahabharata speaks of an embryo being divided into one hundred parts each becoming, after maturation in a separate pot, a healthy baby; this is how the Kaurava brothers are born. There is also mention of an embryo, conceived in one womb, being transferred to the womb of another woman from where it is born; the transferred embryo is Balarama and this is how he is a brother to Krishna although he was born to Rohini and not to Devaki.

There is an ancient mention of space travellers wearing airtight suits in the epic Mahabharata which may be classi¯ed as an early form of science ¯ction. According to the well-known Sanskritist J.A.B. van Buitenen, in the accounts in Book 3 called The Razing of Saubha" and The War of the Yakshas":

the aerial city is nothing but an armed camp with fame-throwers and thundering cannon, no doubt a spaceship. The name of the demons is also revealing: they were Niv¹atakavacas, clad in airtight armor," which can hardly be anything but space suits. (van Buitenen, 1975, page 202)
Universes de¯ned recursively are described in the famous episode of Indra and the ants
in Brahmavaivarta Purana. Here Vishnu, in the guise of a boy, explains to Indra that
the ants he sees walking on the ground have all been Indras in their own solar systems in
different times! These Fights of imagination are to be traced to more than a straightforward
generalization of the motions of the planets into a cyclic universe.


Aryabhata

Aryabhata is the author of the first of the later siddhantas called Aryabhatiyam which

sketches his mathematical, planetary, and cosmic theories. This book is divided into four
chapters: (i) the astronomical constants and the sine table, (ii) mathematics required for
computations, (iii) division of time and rules for computing the longitudes of planets using
eccentrics and epicycles, (iv) the armillary sphere, rules relating to problems of trigonometry
and the computation of eclipses.
The parameters of Aryabhatiyam have, as their origin, the commencement of Kaliyuga
on Friday, 18th February, 3102 B.C.E. He wrote another book where the epoch is a bit
different.

Aryabhata took the earth to spin on its axis; this idea appears to have been his innovation.

He also considered the heavenly motions to go through a cycle of 4.32 billion years; here he
went with an older tradition, but he introduced a new scheme of subdivisions within this
great cycle. According to the historian Hugh Thurston, \Not only did Aryabhata believe
that the earth rotates, but there are glimmerings in his system (and other similar systems)
of a possible underlying theory in which the earth (and the planets) orbits the sun, rather
than the sun orbiting the earth. The evidence is that the basic planetary periods are relative
to the sun."

That Aryabhata was aware of the relativity of motion is clear from this passage in his

book,Just as a man in a boat sees the trees on the bank move in the opposite direction, so
an observer on the equator sees the stationary stars as moving precisely toward the west."

Varahamihira

Varahamihira (died 587) lived in Ujjain and he wrote three important books: Panchasiddhan-

tika, Brihat Samhita, and Brihat Jataka. The ¯rst is a summary of  five early astronomical
systems including the Surya Siddhanta. (Incidently, the modern Surya Siddhanta is different
in many details from this ancient one.) Another system described by him, the Paitamaha
Siddhanta, appears to have many similarities with the ancient Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha.
Brihat Samhita is a compilataion of an assortment of topics that provides interesting
details of the beliefs of those times. Brihat Jataka is a book on astrology which appears to
be considerably influenced by Greek astrology.

Brahmagupta

Brahmagupta of Bhilamala in Rajasthan, who was born in 598, wrote his masterpiece,

Brahmasphuta Siddhanta, in 628. His school, which was a rival to that of Aryabhata, has
been very influential in western and northern India. Brahmagupta's work was translated into
Arabic in 771 or 773 at Baghdad and it became famous in the Arabic world as Sindhind.
One of Brahmagupta's chief contributions is the solution of a certain second order inde-
terminate equation which is of great significance in number theory.
Another of his books, the Khandakhadyaka, remained a popular handbook for astronomical computations for centuries.

Bhaskara

Bhaskara (born 1114), who was from the Karnataka region, was an outstanding mathemati-

cian and astronomer. Amongst his mathematical contributions is the concept of di®erentials.

He was the author of Siddhanta Shiromani, a book in four parts: (i) Lilavati on arithmetic,

(ii) Bijaganita on algebra, (iii) Ganitadhyaya, (iv) Goladhyaya on astronomy. He epicyclic-

eccentric theories of planetary motions are more developed than in the earlier siddhantas.

Subsequent to Bhaskara we see a °ourishing tradition of mathematics and astronomy

in Kerala which saw itself as a successor to the school of Aryabhata.

Madhava

Madhava (c. 1340-1425) developed a procedure to determine the positions of the moon every

36 minutes. He also provided methods to estimate the motions of the planets. He gave power
series expansions for trigonometric functions, and for pi correct to eleven decimal places.

Nilakantha Somayaji

Nilakantha (c. 1444-1545) was a very prolific scholar who wrote several works on astronomy.

It appears that Nilakantha found the correct formulation for the equation of the center of
the planets and his model must be considered a true heliocentric model of the solar system.
He also improved upon the power series techniques of Madhava.

The methods developed by the Kerala mathematicians were far ahead of the European

mathematics of the day.

7 Concepts of space, time, and matter

Yoga-Vasishtha (YV) is an ancient Indian text, over 29,000 verses long, traditionally attributed to Valmiki, author of the epic Ramayana- Of which some random translations are given here from

book done by Venkatesananda (1984).

Time

² Time cannot be analyzed... Time uses two balls known as the sun and the moon for

its pastime. [16]

² The world is like a potter's wheel: the wheel looks as if it stands still, though it revolves

at a terrific speed. [18]

² Just as space does not have a fixed span, time does not have a fixed span either. Just

as the world and its creation are mere appearances, a moment and an epoch are also

imaginary. [55]

² Infinite consciousness held in itself the notion of a unit of time equal to one-millionth

of the twinkling of an eye: and from this evolved the time-scale right up to an epoch

consisting of several revolutions of the four ages, which is the life-span of one cosmic

creation. Infinite consciousness itself is uninvolved in these, for it is devoid of rising

and setting (which are essential to all time-scales), and it devoid of a beginning, middle

and end. [72]

Space

² There are three types of space|the psychological space, the physical space and the

in¯nite space of consciousness. [52]

The in¯nite space of individed consciousness is that which exists in all, inside and

outside... The ¯nite space of divided consciousness is that which created divisions of

time, which pervades all beings... The physical space is that in which the elements

exist. The latter two are not independent of the ¯rst. [96]

² Other universes. On the slopes of a far-distant mountain range there is a solid rock

within which I dwell. The world within this rock is just like yours: it has its own

inhabitants, ...the sun and the moon and all the rest of it. I have been in it for

countless aeons. [402]

² The entire universe is contained in a subatomic partice, and the three worlds exist

within one strand of hair. [404]

Matter

² In every atom there are worlds within worlds. [55]

² (There are) countless universes, diverse in composition and space-time structure... In

every one of them there are continents and mountains, villages and cities inhabited by

people who have their time-space and life-span. [401-2]

Experience

² Direct experience alone is the basis for all proofs... That substratum is the experiencing

intelligence which itself becomes the experiencer, the act of experiencing, and the

experience. [36]

² Everyone has two bodies, the one physical and the other mental. The physical body

is insentient and seeks its own destruction; the mind is ¯nite but orderly. [124]

² I have carefully investigated, I have observed everything from the tips of my toes to the

top of my head, and I have not found anything of which I could say, `This I am.' Who

is `I'? I am the all-pervading consciousness which is itself not an object of knowledge or

knowing and is free from self-hood. I am that which is indivisible, which has no name,

which does not undergo change, which is beyond all concepts of unity and diversity,

which is beyond measure. [214]

² I remember that once upon a time there was nothing on this earth, neither trees and

plants, nor even mountains. For a period of eleven thousand years the earth was

covered by lava. In those days there was neither day nor night below the polar region:

for in the rest of the earth neither the sun nor the moon shone. Only one half of the

polar region was illumined.

Then demons ruled the earth. They were deluded, powerful and prosperous, and the

earth was their playground.

Apart from the polar region the rest of the earth was covered with water. And then

for a very long time the whole earth was covered with forests, except the polar region.

Then there arose great mountains, but without any human inhabitants. For a period

of ten thousand years the earth was covered with the corpses of the demons. [280]

Mind

² The same in¯nite self conceives within itself the duality of oneself and the other. [39]

² Thought is mind, there is no distinction between the two. [41]

² The body can neither enjoy nor su®er. It is the mind alone that experiences. [109-110]

² The mind has no body, no support and no form; yet by this mind is everything con-

sumed in this world. This is indeed a great mystery. He who says that he is destroyed

by the mind which has no substantiality at all, says in e®ect that his head was smashed

by the lotus petal... The hero who is able to destroy a real enemy standing in front of

him is himself destroyed by this mind which is [non-material].

² The intelligence which is other than self-knowledge is what constitutes the mind. [175]

Complementarity

² The absolute alone exists now and for ever. When one thinks of it as a void, it is

because of the feeling one has that it is not void; when one thinks of it as not-void, it

is because there is a feeling that it is void. [46]

² All fundamental elements continued to act on one another|as experiencer and experience|

and the entire creation came into being like ripples on the surface of the ocean. And,

they are interwoven and mixed up so e®ectively that they cannot be extricated from

one another till the cosmic dissolution. [48]

Consciousness

² The entire universe is forever the same as the consciousness that dwells in every atom.

[41]

² The ¯ve elements are the seed fo which the world is the tree; and the eternal conscious-

ness if the seed of the elements. [48]

² Cosmic consciousness alone exists now and ever; in it are no worlds, no created beings.

That consciousness re°ected in itself appears to be creation. [49]

² This consciousness is not knowable: when it wishes to become the knowable, it is known

as the universe. Mind, intellect, egotism, the ¯ve great elements, and the world|all

these innumerable names and forms are all consciousness alone. [50]

² The world exists because consciousness is, and the world is the body of consciousness.

There is no division, no di®erence, no distinction. Hence the universe can be said

to be both real and unreal: real because of the reality of consciousness which is its

own reality, and unreal because the universe does not exist as universe, independent of

consciousness. [50]

² Consciousness is pure, eternal and in¯nite: it does not arise nor cease to be. It is ever

there in the moving and unmoving creatures, in the sky, on the mountain and in ¯re

and air. [67]

² Millions of universes appear in the in¯nite consciousness like specks of dust in a beam

of light. In one small atom all the three worlds appear to be, with all their components

like space, time, action, substance, day and night. [120]

² The universe exists in in¯nte consciousness. In¯nite consciousness is unmanifest,

though omnipresent, even as space, though existing everywhere, is manifest. [141]

² The manifestation of the omnipotence of in¯nite consciousness enters into an alliance

with time, space and causation. Thence arise in¯nite names and forms. [145]

² The Lord who is in¯nite consciousness is the silent but alert witness of this cosmic

dance. He is not di®erent from the dancer (the cosmic natural order) and the dance

(the happenings). [296]

Might then one accept the claim of Srinivasa Ramanujan that his theorems were revealed to him in his dreams by the goddess Namagiri? This claim, so persistently made by Ramanujan, has generally been dismissed by his biographers (see, for example, Kanigel, 1991). Were Ramanujan's astonishing discoveries instrumented by the autonomously creative potential of consciousness, represented by him by the image of Namagiri? If that be the case then the marvellous imagination shown in Yoga-Vasishtha and other Indian texts becomes easier to comprehend.

Is nature and animals, human all are molecule- Yes partly with consciousness.

	H		H2O	[C10H16O13N5P2]N	CE10HE10OE10NE9PE8 SE8CaE8KE6ClE6NaE6MgE6FeE5SiE4MnE2CoE2		CE27HE27OE27NE26PE25SE24CaE25KE24ClE24NaE24MgE24FeE23FE23ZnE22SiE22CuE21 BE21IE20SnE20MnE20SeE20 CrE20NiE20MoE19CoE19VE18
13.7 BYA	Seconds after Bang	13.2 BYA	4.4 BYA	4.1 BYA	3.9 BYA	45 MYA	150,000 Year Ago

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Mind ,Matter, Consciousness

What is mind? No matter!

What is matter?

Never mind!Even as scientists all over the world are making concerted efforts to understand the human mind and the human consciousness, a plethora of provocative questions still remain unanswered. As someone said, if we could satisfactorily explain the workings of our minds, our brains would be so simple and underdeveloped that we wouldn't be able to understand anything! This is a definite limitation of the conventional sciences. And here's where people take recourse to spirituality, imagination and the occult.

Vedic Science Has the Answers!

Professor Ashok Sharma, a former Indian professor of Applied Physics, who was also a scientist at Harvard University, has formulated some path-breaking theories and postulations based on the ancient Vedic Sciences that give us some powerful insights into the gray regions of the human mind, and help us understand our consciousness.Even after treading for long in the realm of science, Prof Sharma feels that science fails to understand consciousness as an independent entity. He says, "Science cannot integrate a non-physical entity, like consciousness, into its conceptual framework, and views human personality as a non-conscious physical system."

What is Consciousness?

Consciousness, according to Prof Sharma, is a non-physical entity, which is essentially different from the four basic entities of space, time, energy and matter of the conventional science. Consciousness does not have any physical attribute or property or action, but is endowed with autonomous will power of creation, retention and annihilation of the knowledge of an individual or that of the universe.Quoting the Upanishads (Shvetashwar, 6/19), he says that consciousness itself is non-differentiable, inactive, placid, indescribable and non associative:"Nirajanam Nishkriam Shantam Nirvadyam Niranjanam"But again, consciousness manifests itself in the form of knowledge.
Sharma's Formula

In the light of the above discussion, Prof Sharma has put forward a formula, where consciousness is represented by a symbol Ψ, which is a set of concepts of knowledge. In the normal state of consciousness, an individual human mind or a conscious system is capable of the finite set of concepts of knowledge I, i.e.,Ψn = I,which he defines as Ego, soul, Atman or Karan Sharir.However, the field of the non-physical entity of consciousness can be expanded to infinity, so as to cognize the total infinite set of concepts of knowledge G, i.e.,Ψ∞= G,which he variously defines as God, Parmathma or Brahma.

Yoga & Meditation

Prof Sharma points out that consciousness is endowed with autonomous will power, and the techniques of Yoga and meditation must be considered as the methods of realization of the self and the development of the will power (Sankalpa Shakti) for the expansion of the field of consciousness Ψ.
Bridging the Gap

Sharma quotes Prof Wigner - "The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that the concept of consciousness is an ultimate reality and, all the possible knowledge, concerning objects can be given as its wave function" - and concludes that the gap between Vedic and scientific systems of knowledge has been considerably reduced and scientists have started realizing the necessity of integration of consciousness with the conceptual structure of science.

In Summary

The basic conceptual structure of Prof Ashok Sharma's "Science of Consciousness" can be summarized as a set of the following propositions:The element of consciousness (Chetan Tatva) is the fundamental entity, which is non-physical, inactive, placid, indescribable and non-associative, but endowed with autonomous will power (Swasankalpa Shakti) to create, retain and annihilate all concepts of knowledge of self and the universe, which can be represented by the symbol Ψ. The concept of consciousness is, essentially, analogous to the vacuum states of the relativistic quantum field theory, except for its autonomous will power.The phenomena of existence of the world are, essentially, the existence of the concepts of knowledge of the phenomenal world in the unified field of consciousness. In view of the non-physical nature of the consciousness, the concept of the unified field of consciousness must be clearly distinguished from the unified field of the physical fields.The stimulus-response function of the conscious system of human personality is due to the association of consciousness, with physiological brain, so as to provide the operation of mind, 'Ideation Body' or Karan Sharir. In the normal state of consciousness Ψn, an individual is ignorant about his full potentialities and depends on the knowledge gained through the sensory perception for the expansion of the field of consciousness of knowledge. Since, in the normal state of consciousness, an individual has the capacity of the cognition of a limited set I of the concepts of knowledge, it can be defined as Soul, 'Ideation Body', Atma or Karan Sharir, represented by, Ψn = I.The field of consciousness can be expanded by the development of the capability of non-sensory intuitive cognition of knowledge through the techniques of Yoga and meditation, so as to attain the super-conscious state, in which an individual has direct intuitive revelation of knowledge. The final state of Yogic attainment is to have the consciousness of the infinite set of knowledge of the universe, i.e., Ψ∞ = G, which can be interpreted as the realization of God, Allah, Paramatma or Brahman.

The Future of Science!

Prof Sharma, who now lives in New Delhi, is currently working on the conceptual development of the Science of Consciousness, Social System Science and Social Engineering. He hopes that the heritage of the Vedic system of knowledge should be viewed as the future extension of the present non-conscious science, as the science of consciousness.
Need of the Hour

"There is an urgent need to reinterpret the Vedic texts in modern terms - a task which is now possible with the availability of computers and the recent developments in the fields of cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence and theories of knowledge representation", says Prof Sharma, adding, "However, such an effort requires a concerted effort of the enlightened community of Indians."

WHAT IS MIND?

Infinite Universal Consciousness is also called "Brahmn". In this Infinite Universal Consciousness this entire universe is pervaded. When a Spark of this Universal Consciousness is conditioned by and undergoes modification by mixing with Nature Elements or with the external body, then this conditioned Consciousness is called MIND. In such a situation Consciousness forgets it's true nature that it's a part of & of the nature of that Infinite Universal Consciousness. Such a conditioned consciousness is also called Jiva.

This Jiva / Mind after forgetting it's true nature (being part of & of the nature of that Infinite Universal Consciousness), inherits a body & makes appearance in this world. Such a conditioned soul / Jiva takes birth in different bodies & moves from one body to other body after death. Such a journey of soul / Jiva goes forever until it sees the truth again.

But Infinite Universal Consciousness, called "Brahmn" is independent of all these & pervades this whole universe, beyond this Jiva & beyond this body.

It is due to our Ignorance only (after forgetting the Infinite Universal Consciousness called "Brahmn") that this universe exists. Once we know ourselves to be a part & parcel of that Infinite Universal Consciousness, then this illusion of universe disappears & you become one with the "Brahmn".

Below are some verses from Bhagwat Gita which illustrates the same:


"mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva-bhutah sanatanah
manah-sasthanindriyani
prakriti-sthani karshati" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 7)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind."

"sariram yad avapnoti
yac chapy utkramatishvarah
grhitvaitani samyati
vayur gandhan ivasayat" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 8)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. Thus he takes one kind of body and again quits it to take another."

"srotram chaksuh sparshanam cha
rasanam ghranam eva cha
adhisthaya manas chayam
visayan upasevate" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 9)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, The living entity, thus taking another gross body, obtains a certain type of ear, eye, tongue, nose and sense of touch, which are grouped about the mind. He thus enjoys a particular set of sense objects."

"utkramantam sthitam vapi
bhunjanam va gunanvitam
vimudha nanupasyanti
pasyanti jnana-chaksusah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 10)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, The foolish cannot understand how a living entity can quit his body, nor can they understand what sort of body he enjoys under the spell of the modes of nature. But one whose eyes are trained in knowledge can see all this."

"yatanto yoginas chainam
pasyanty atmany avasthitam
yatanto ’py akritatmano
nainam pasyanty acetasah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 11)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, The endeavoring transcendentalists, who are situated in self-realization, can see all this clearly. But those whose minds are not developed and who are not situated in self-realization cannot see what is taking place, though they may try to."

"sarvasya chaham hridi sannivisto
mattah smritir jnanam apohanam cha
vedais cha sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedanta-krd veda-vid eva chaham" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 15)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas."

"dvav imau purushau loke
ksharas chakshara eva cha
ksharah sarvani bhutani
kuta-stho ’kshara uchyate" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 16)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible, and in the spiritual world every living entity is called infallible."

"uttamah purushas tv anyah
paramatmety udahrtah
yo loka-trayam avisya
bibharty avyaya ishvarah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Fifteen verse 17)

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Besides these two, there is the greatest living personality, the God Soul, the imperishable Lord Himself, who has entered the three worlds and is maintaining them."

How Your Body Generates Electricity And The Benefits Of Grounding

(Dr. Mercola) Your body is capable of generating electricity, and this ability is actually a key part of your achieving health. Electricity allows your nervous system to send signals to your brain. These signals are actually electrical charges that are delivered from cell to cell, allowing for nearly instantaneous communication.
The messages conducted via electrical signals in your body are responsible for controlling the rhythm of your heartbeat, the movement of blood around your body, and much more.
Your biological clock even uses electrical activity in order to help keep your circadian rhythms in order.1 You are, quite simply, an electrical being. If electrical activity stops in your body, you cannot survive. But how, exactly, does this electrical activity take place?

How Does Your Body Produce Electricity?

The video above, from The Medicine Journal, gives a concise explanation of the complex process your body uses to generate electricity. Inside your body are atoms that are made up of positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons, and neutrons (which are neutral).
An atom with unbalanced charges will become either positively or negatively charged, and the switch from one charge to the other allows electrons to flow from one atom to another. This is what is referred to as electricity.

Your cells generate electrical charges via electrolytes like sodium and potassium using a mechanism known as the “sodium-potassium gate.” As Discovery Health explained:

“When your body needs to send a message from one point to another, it opens the gate. When the membrane gate opens, sodium and potassium ions move freely into and out of the cell.
Negatively charged potassium ions leave the cell, attracted to the positivity outside the membrane, and positively charged sodium ions enter it, moving toward the negative charge. The result is a switch in the concentrations of the two types of ions — and rapid switch in charge.
…this flip between positive and negative generates an electrical impulse. This impulse triggers the gate on the next cell to open, creating another charge, and so on. In this way, an electrical impulse moves from a nerve in your stubbed toe to the part of your brain that senses pain.”
It is because of your body’s electrical activity that defibrillators, which deliver an electric shock to your heart, may work to restore heart rhythm and why receiving the wrong type of shock, like an electric shock or lightning strike, can essentially “fry” your body’s electrical system. The opposite also holds true in that you can actually harness the electrical charge of the Earth to positively influence your health in numerous ways.

Your Body Can Absorb Free Electrons from the Earth

The Earth carries an enormous negative charge. It’s always electron-rich and can serve as a powerful and abundant supply of antioxidant and free-radical-busting electrons.
Your body is finely tuned to “work” with the Earth in the sense that there’s a constant flow of energy between your body and the Earth. When you put your feet on the ground, you absorb large amounts of negative electrons through the soles of your feet.
The effect is sufficient to maintain your body at the same negatively charged electrical potential as the Earth. This simple process is called “grounding” or “earthing,” and its effect is one of the most potent antioxidants we know of.
Grounding has been shown to relieve pain, reduce inflammation, improve sleep, enhance wellbeing, and much, much more. When you wear rubber- or plastic-soled shoes, however, you are effectively shielding yourself from this beneficial influx of electrons from the Earth.

Why It’s So Important to Stay Grounded

Grounding’s potent antioxidant effect helps alleviate inflammation throughout your body, a potentially life-saving benefit since inflammation is at the root of most diseases, including heart disease.
According to Dr. Stephen Sinatra, a prominent cardiologist, inflammation thrives when your blood is thick and you have a lot of free radical stress, and a lot of positive charges in your body. Grounding effectively alleviates inflammation because it thins your blood and infuses you with negatively charged ions through the soles of your feet.
Grounding helps thin your blood by improving its zeta potential, which means it improves the energy between your red blood cells. Research has demonstrated it takes about 80 minutes for the free electrons from the earth to reach your bloodstream and transform your blood.
Hypercoagulable (thick, slow-moving) blood contributes to chronic inflammation, because when your blood does not flow well, oxygen can’t get to your tissues. Grounding’s effect on blood thinning is so profound that if you are taking blood thinners, you must work with your health care provider to lower your dose otherwise you may overdose on the medication. You can see my interview with Dr. Sinatra below.

Download Video Transcript

Grounding Helps Neutralize Free Radicals

Interestingly, grounding research has now discovered that if you place your feet on the ground after an injury (or on a grounded sheet, or place grounding patches on the balls of your feet), electrons will migrate into your body and spread through your tissues. Any free radicals that leak into the healthy tissue will immediately be electrically neutralized. This occurs because the electrons are negative, while the free radicals are positive, so they cancel each other out. As noted by Dr. James Oschman, an expert in the field of energy medicine:
“So really what is happening with grounding or earthing is that you’re protecting your body from — I call it, collateral damage… Damage that was not intended to take place but does take place because we have disconnected ourselves from the Earth by putting rubber and plastic on the bottoms of our shoes.”
Free radical stress from exposure to pollution, cigarettes, insecticides, pesticides, trans fats, and radiation, just to name a few, continually deplete your body of electrons. Simply by getting outside, barefoot, touching the Earth, and allowing the excess charge in your body to discharge into the Earth, you can alleviate some of the stress continually put on your system. Walking barefoot can help ameliorate the constant assault of electromagnetic fields and other types of radiation from cell phones, computers, and Wi-Fi. It’s also thought that grounding may actually facilitate the formation of structured water in your body.
Furthermore, grounding also calms your sympathetic nervous system, which supports your heart rate variability. And, when you support heart rate variability, this promotes homeostasis, or balance, in your autonomic nervous system. This is important because anytime you improve your heart rate variability, you’re improving your entire body and all its functions. If you want to learn more, check out the Grounded documentary (in which I actually appear). You’ll hear first-hand accounts from residents of Haines, Alaska who have overcome chronic pain, sleep apnea, and much more simply by getting grounded.

How to Reconnect with the Earth’s Electrical Charge

Many Americans spend most of their waking hours wearing shoes with rubber or plastic soles. These materials are very effective insulators, which is precisely why they’re used to insulate electrical wires. Yet, they also effectively disconnect you from the Earth’s natural electron flow. Wearing leather-soled shoes will allow you to stay grounded with the Earth, as will walking barefoot, but you’ll need to do so on the proper surface. Good grounding surfaces include:

• Sand (beach)
• Grass (preferably moist)
• Bare soil
• Concrete and brick (as long as it’s not painted or sealed)
• Ceramic tile

The following surfaces will NOT ground you:

• Asphalt
• Wood
• Rubber and plastic
• Vinyl
• Tar or tarmac

Like eating right, exercising, and sleeping, grounding can be described as yet another lifestyle habit that supports optimal health by supporting your body’s “electrical” connection with the Earth. It’s supported and backed by prominent medical doctors, scientists including Dr. David Suzuki, NASA astronauts, and was used by ancient civilizations who placed strong value on their relationship to the Earth.
As mentioned, simply taking off your shoes as much as you can when you’re outdoors will help you take advantage of natural grounding opportunities. When indoors, using a grounding pad or sheet is an excellent way to stay grounded while you’re working or sleeping. (For frequent travelers, I typically bring a grounding pad with me when I fly, too.)
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The Mind Unleashed or its staff.