A Thought on Cosmology and Cosmography
The beauties and intricacies of the physical and semi-physical universe have in the last decades been revealed to us by science in a manner of which our ancestors only a few generations ago could not even have had the faintest idea. Nevertheless we find detailed descriptions and artistic representations of the cosmos in many ancient scriptures. But many of these look “absurd” from the modern point of view. Often the earth is depicted as a flat disc, or all stars are floating or fixed on some distance above the earth, etc. Thus it can easily be concluded that such descriptions are no more than fantasies, in which it is assumed that the artists or scientists of those days were too primitive and ill-informed to distinguish fantasy or visions or hallucinations from reality and sound reasoning. Nevertheless the philosophical treatises of such cultures clearly show that the people were aware of all these distinct potentialities and illusions of the mind. So “perhaps” the ancient and occult views on the cosmos do make sense. The point is that such teachings and descriptions are products of a different approach. Our modern pictures show the material and literal reality of the cosmos. But for more spiritually oriented and holistic cultures the visible cosmos is only the outer manifestation on one particular plane of being – the physical plane, which for them is the most evanescent and the least essential. It says nothing about the place of the soul, about the eternal pilgrimage of the vast hosts of beings within the cosmos, or about the living relation between the numerous planes of being which form the inner side of the cosmos. But the ancient teachings give many hints and show the cosmos as an all-encompassing ecosystem of beings and functions, forces and energies, of which most are invisible and physically imperceptible, but at the same time of more importance than the earthly human consciousness and its functions and forces. So it is very worthwhile to investigate the real meaning, the essential messages hidden in such cosmologies. If we do that, one day our universities will stand on equal level with those of the past.
Taken from: Culture Transcending Education from a Theosophical Viewpoint
