Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 4/24/2004

Question
i would really like to find information concerning astronomy as a whole and its connection to the human being.in other words i believe that from the smallest cell to the largest universe there is a transparent light connecting them together, a recurrent pattern which happens on a smaller scale ''the cell'' happens also at a larger scale ''the universe''
thank you so much for you help

Answer
Hi Sara,
Only yesterday night I was browsing through the book by Sagan .."Cosmos"..my copy must be now 10-15 years old..and he was talking at length about such a theory where within every elementary particle there could reside an entire cosmos and so on "up" and "down" the hierarchy of universes.
Since the subject is "spiritual astronomy" and since I am a hindu, I will spend some time (read sentences) on this.
The Hindu philosophy has 6 sub-branches called "darshanas" loosely translated as "views".
Of these the Saankhya and vaisheshika branches attend to the cosmos from a secular point of view.
The advaita school and vedanta teach "tat-tvam-asi" or "thou art that" meaning alternatively "you are the cosmos!"
Brings to mind the craetion myth where the universe is nothing but the dream of brahma and is made of nothing in the end but "mahat" the mind mind matter of brahma!
Sara, use the world wide web as your guru in this matter of interest to you. And do what "Datta-Atreya" the guru of all gurus did..be your own guru..seperate the husk from the chaff to best of your knowledge..the rest will fall in place "god willing" as my middle eastern friends keep on saying!
Unfortunately there is no formal branch under the heading "spiritual" and "science" of any kind any where in the world that I know of.
But even here the rule is .."question / see / investigate" and only then accept!
The hindu upanishadas are in fact all about questions and answers on the same lines as the one you have asked in this century. These are very profound dialogs and may lead you away from astronomy in particular and towards "cosmos" as a whole.
That law of skeptical inquiry is as true for science as for spirituality.
intuition coupled with wisdom of "good/bad" .."right/wrong" which roughly translates as "pradnya" should be the guiding light here.(the other word is viveka or "to discern right from wrong".
This is a highly subjective realm and full of pitfalls so all who tread do so at their own risk.
[sounds rather like the mandatory warning on cigarette packs!]
Any insights you gather along the way must pass the most rigorous and honest questioning before being accepted by you as "it"..(the truth").
By the way for the pure physical non spiritual part of it nothing would be more instructive than a visit to the britannica site:-
http://www.britannica.com (I have not been there for ages though).
Best of luck and take care..
Jayen.