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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
as humans have two and a half dvīpa at our disposal.66 Beyond that no human time division exists. However, animals, plants, microbes, minerals, etc. exist beyond that mountain range as well. Phenomena like lightning, rain, fire, metal ores, lakes, darkness and other astronomical phenomena do not occur there however. Even though we humans on this earth are within this circular mountain range, beyond which we cannot go, no one I know has ever been to Dhātakīkhanda or Pushkaravara, beyond the salt ocean. But, though invisible to our eyes in space and/or time, they are clearly described as bearing humans, animals and other creatures. My conclusion is that, For as long as thinking humans have existed, they have always lived within these 2%2 dvīpas; and when our souls were embodied outside the range, we were creatures still without a human mind in a now invisible region.
An intelligent Jain with a full modern academic education (PhD) told me in a discussion about the earth and the cosmos that NASA pictures of the modern earth are very clear and correct, but due to the imperfection of the observations (which only cover visible and matter-related regions) she believed in them only partly. She added that in Jain cosmography (which most westerners probably regard as an absurd superstition) she believed a full 100%. How can a sane person say such things in our modern age? Are those old teachings and drawings perhaps less absurd than they appear to us at first sight? They do not only and in the first place represent physical reality - but of course a metaphysical reality can not be drawn with pen and ink. For those who have no inner knowledge about these realities they can only be hinted at, but they can be understood in the right way by those who have evolved through discipline and training an inner “intuitive eye.” Discipline means absolute unbiased discrimination within the metaphysical (and also physical) worlds by the controlled mind. The highest concepts of occult philosophy are beyond any concept of “form” and “color” as these can be understood by us. To me these cosmographic representations are diagrams most probably containing a
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