CONCLUSION

Finally, we have reached the end. Beyond the largest and smallest of the 108 layers lies the immeasurable reality of the Supreme Being, which is truly infinite.

As the enlightened soul ascends and descends through the layers, it becomes filled increasingly with the presence of God, and in the end, when it transcends the smallest layer below and the largest layer above, it becomes one with God.

Yet according to the seers, the expansion of consciousness is endless and eternal. For that reason the supreme reality was called brahman, the ever-expanding reality. Although the ancient spiritual wisdoms may have been expressed in religious terms, we have seen that these wisdoms were also highly systematic, formulated so that the steps on the path of immortality were spelled out literally in the sacred texts and mapped out by the sacred divisions of the land.

Due to this systematic expression, as we have seen, the spiritual wisdoms can be expressed in terms of pure numbers and mathematical formulas that are linked to particular scales of space and time. As we have discovered, encapsulated by the system of matched pairs, this system is genuinely scientific in the sense that it can be used to predict accurately a hidden vertical symmetry in the overall organization of the universe. In the end, however, the ancient spiritual science transcends the boundaries of the finite created universe, and provides a description of the immortal and supreme realities that lie beyond the scope of reason or scientific analysis. It was not, then, just an empirical science; it was also a spiritual science, a science of immortality.

We have discovered that this ancient science was not the province of one culture or religion, but was shared by some of the most ancient traditions of knowledge on earth, including the Vedic, Egyptian, and Hebrew cultures.

There is no doubt that this science was kept secret in ancient times, and was passed down exclusively among the elite royal and priestly classes through a process of hereditary and initiatory oral transmission which persisted for thousands of years. Around the time of Alexander the Great, however, these secrets of the elite classes began to be written down and were made available to the public—for example, in the Great Library at Alexandria. Unfortunately, this library was eventually destroyed by a series of fires, and the treasure of ancient wisdom was lost.

Yet this fate was not shared by the Vedic texts, which were preserved by oral traditions for thousands of years, and then were written down eventually in the form of sacred texts. Although only about thirty to forty thousand Vedic texts have actually been cataloged, translated, and studied by Western scholars, these provide an unparalleled glimpse into the minds of the ancient seers and how they viewed the world and what lies beyond the world. Much of our examination of the ancient science has been based upon the Vedic texts because they represent the largest and most complete body of ancient literature that has ever been found on earth—much larger than all of the other ancient literatures taken together.

To be honest, however, we have scarcely begun to explore the vast treasure of ancient knowledge and wisdom that has been left us. The typical view of Western scholars is that the ancient literatures present a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo, which has no relevance to modern society. On one hand, this is true in the sense that modern society has essentially lost its taste and inclination to explore the deeper spiritual reality of the world. On the other hand, as we have seen here, the teachings encoded in the ancient texts may have direct relevance to the most advanced theories being developed today.

Although this knowledge was kept secret in ancient times, here we can find it spelled out in explicit terms and made available to the public in accordance with the spirit of our modern era—the era of the common man. According to the ancients, the advent of the ancient spiritual science on earth took place some twelve thousand years ago, when humankind was still living in caves or in makeshift dwellings beneath the trees. During the last twelve thousand years, the cycle of time has largely erased this science from human memory. The seers predicted, however, that at the end of the cycle, the ancient science would be remembered and a new age of spiritual truth would dawn. If this volume helps to contribute to that remembrance in any way, then it will have served its purpose. Here, we have listened merely to the story as it has been drawn from the ancient texts. What we make of the story is up to each of us.

The fact is that we all see the world through our own tinted glasses. Our modern view of the universe is based upon an objective paradigm, while the ancient view was based upon a subjective paradigm. Here, we have seen that these two paradigms, though mutually opposed, can lead to similar empirical predictions regarding the overall organization of the universe. Which system is more valid, however, cannot be answered here.

A detailed and well-defined mathematical theory of the unified field will be required to determine which paradigm has greater validity. Perhaps this book will inspire great minds to explore the potential for a new type of unified theory, one rooted in subjective rather than objective principles. Whether or not this comes to pass, only time will tell.

Footnote

*1. The N indicates a variable that can differ from the value of N.