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THE FAMILY AND THE NATION
consciousness. In that deep silence, they discovered the capability of the mind to become identified with a boundless, all-pervading, unified field that is experienced as an eternal continuum underlying all existence. They gave expression to the self-sufficient, infinitely dynamic, self-interacting qualities of this unified state of awareness, and they articulated the dynamics by which it sequentially gives rise to space-time geometry, and subsequently to all the distinct forms and phenomena that constitute the universe.
According to Vedic science, as the Supreme Creator creates the cosmos, the creative potency descends among the created beings to assist the Supreme Creator in manifesting the material worlds. So, it is believed that the Supreme expands Himself and also creates positions within the material cosmos which are taken by co-creators or demigods who assist in creating and maintaining the material manifestation.
There is a descending process of acquiring knowledge by which we understand the mysteries of life. It is the information provided by the Supreme Creator that descends through the ancient sages and scriptures, and His pure representatives. In this way, we can learn about the Universe and its purpose rather than trying to understand it only by analysing minute cells and parts of the cosmos, which is the way of modern science. Our great Indian mathematician of the twentieth century, Srinivasa Ramanujan, said, 'For me God, zero and infinity are interrelated and integrated. Each new theorem is one more piece of the infinite to fathom.'
Vedic scientists classified the material world into four elements-earth (prithvi), fire (agni), air (maya) and water (apa). To these four elements was added a fifth one, ether, or akasha. According to some scholars, these five elements (pancha mahabhootas) were identified with the human senses of perception-earth with smell, air with feeling, fire with vision, water with taste and ether with sound. Later,
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