Adhyatma means adhi & atma(dharma)
The human cognitive revolution started around 70000 years ago and philosophical ability started around 2500 years ago. Humans must have imagined that the world was created by god.
In Hinduism there are 10 avatars of Vishnu, the first avatar was Matsya or fish and probably in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, both states that the first form of life on earth was water life.
In Christianity, it is told that god made the earth for Adam and the Bible agreed that the earth is in the centre of the universe and the sun revolves around the earth which was proved wrong by Copernicus. So religion is based on keeping earth the centre of the universe, made keeping the sect of religion in mind and according to societies.
Why am I here on Earth? What’s my purpose?
We think that everything that happens in this world is for a reason. The "Cause & Effect" relationship is inductive, We have made it based on experiences. There is no proof that causation & effect happens due to a reason at a metaphysical level or beyond our earth.
Quantum physics won the Nobel prize which stated that light has both wave-like & particle-like nature. Einstein said, god does not play dice with the universe, but he was proved wrong by Schrödinger.
2 theories:
Quantum Entanglement - This proved the theory of Einstein wrong. Quantum Entanglement said that if a particle rotates right in one part of the universe it is entangled with another particle which turns left in some other part of the universe simultaneously, which is billions of light years distance away. This proves that there is something that travels more than the speed of light.
Double-Slit Experiment - Through this experiment, it was seen that photons behaved either wave-like or particle-like on observation & no observation which means reality is different on observation & no observation.
What is meant by ‘relatively real’?
If we say that something is only ‘relatively real/relative reality’, that means that thing depends on another thing for its existence and sustenance. As an example, we know that our body contains consciousness, and the body needs oxygen, food, etc from outside to sustain the consciousness. Also, according to the environmental conditions, we may lose our consciousness. So humans do not have independent or ultimate existence. We depend on other things for our existence. That is, we have only a dependent or relative existence.
In the Indian context, "Shankaracharya"
said that reality has 3 levels.
Pratibhasika - when you are asleep, you feel whatever you see in the dream is a reality but when you open your eyes the reality is different.
This is the world in which we live. Pratibhasika is the most unreal. The dream is at the Pratibhasika level. In dreams, we perceive different things. But in a strict sense, the dream is not completely unreal because those things, which we see, in the dream, have an external substratum in the phenomenal world. Take the example of a skyflower. Even though no sky-flower exists in the world and thus it is unreal, yet, sky and flower, taken separately, are real things, that we have seen in the external world before dreaming. That is, we can dream of only those things which we have seen in the phenomenal world. But in dreams, these real things get combined in strange and different proportions, making quite new unreal objects.
2. Vyavaharika - is the relative plane of reality. This is the realm of "cause-effect" and human intellect works here. The phenomenal world is at this level. Everything that exists in this level depends on each other and we cannot say what their essence is. The things in the "Vyavaharika" world can be said to exist by itself from the phenomenal, relative point of view.
3. Paramarthika - is the ultimate truth level. It can exist by itself without depending on anything. This is spiritual in experience and subject–object duality, cause-effect formula, etc are not here. This is beyond the realm of human intellect. Human intellect cannot comprehend this ultimate level of reality. This can be realised only by direct experience with the help of "Brahma-Vidya".
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