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CHAPTER ONE

THE HIGHER DIMENSIONS
OF
HUMAN EXISTENCE

THE HIGHER DIMENSIONS

In order to understand the place, meaning and Value of the Sacraments we need to look into the Christian understanding of Cosmos.  Cosmology of Christianity is essentially borrowed from the Cosmology of Hebrews.  We scientists often speak of the four dimensions of space comprising of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time.  This is the cosmos of the physicists.  However the Hebrew Cosmology goes far beyond that.

According to the Christian understanding of Cosmos, we live in a four dimensional world. Each of the dimensions have within themselves several dimensions. Thus the space-time continuum of the Physicist is one dimension in our Christian Cosmos.  Within that we have at least four internal dimensions – three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. Scientists have since enlarged these into many other internal dimensions.  This is because the interest of the scientist is confined to the material world and its management.  Scientists have been increasing the number of dimension as they went along.  .But in Christian Cosmology we go far beyond the mundane Physical dimension. 

 We can compare these to a four storey building.  Man lives in four stories.  We may not dwell too long in some floors.  Nevertheless they are there.  In the Kabala tradition this is considered as a tree with four levels of branches.  We will not go into the details of these as they are not necessary for our study.

These four levels of existence are:

1. The Material World of sensations – Asiyah

 In Kabala terms this is the Malkuth the Material Realm – The Kingdom

2. The Mental World of intellect – Yetzirah -  The world of thinking
3. The Spiritual World: Beriah
4.  The Divine World: Atziluth

Each of these Worlds is a world of their own with several rooms and forms of interactions and power.

There is something beyond the world that we perceive with the five senses and that perception is given by the dimension of mind.  It was this acknowledgement of the dimension of mind by Buddha that gave him a scientific leap over the Vedic material world concept.  Science can provide a model of the world, it describes aspects of the world for us but it cannot tell us anything about the foundations or the underpinnings of the world and of the purposes behind it. It describes our horizontal existence and gives us a power over this aspect of our existence but is incapable of telling us anything about our vertical existence. It can take us one more step forward from our ground floor to the edge of the second floor.  Thus we come to the second floor of our home - The Mental Realm – The Realm of Intellect.

We know our external world through our five senses.  Together they transmit information to us.  However information that is given to us must be interpreted to make sense.  It is here that we come across the second level – The Mind.  Though this part of the dimension is not acknowledged by Science, it is still a vital part of the Scientist.  Even the mind is explained in terms of the material realm.  However without the mind we cannot understand the external world.  We make our own models with our mind using the material information we receive through our senses.  “Hey, there is a law and relation between these things that we observe.” Says the scientist.  That is what we call the law.   This world of mind is not material in dimension.  It is something beyond the five senses.

In the Indian Yoga theory this is presented as the Pancha Kosa – Five sheaths of man

“In ascending order from matter to Spirit, the five natural evolutionary stages of life are results of these five sheaths. When one by one the sheaths are unfolded, there is a corresponding manifestation of a progressively higher expression of life.”
- Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

Thus the highest dimension is the divine realm where only the Sons of God can enter.  While the Hindu advaita philosophy identifies soul with God, the Supreme Self,  the dvaitas hold the same theology as Christians that the Supreme Brahman is distinct from the individual beings.

Normally we live in the first three floors of our house, more in the lower levels than in the higher.  That is why we talk about the Trinity of Man – Body , Mind and Spirit.

There are beings in every dimension. Some sharing various dimensions.  Thus we have three levels of heavens with angelic beings in each. 

As we know man currently shares three dimensions.  We normally refer to them as body, mind and spirit.

However before the fall of Man, Adam was in constant communication with God and he lived in the Divine Realm.  We are told in Luke 3:38 that Adam was the Son of God.  As such he lived in the divine realm as a son.

 However after the fall this floor was closed for man until he was responsible enough to deal with that world.  We were put under the tutelage of the Angels and under the law.

The redemption of man was achieved through Jesus Christ.  We become mature enough to enter into the sonship by being born again in the spirit dimensions.  This process of  being born into the spirit realm and then grow into the full sonship is often referred to as “Theosis” - being in the likeness of Christ.

Rom 8:14-17   For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship.  When we cry, "Abba! Father!" It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,  provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

We can enter into that level only if we become children of God. The real anthropological meaning of deification is  Christification – being like Christ .  This is described in the bible in various ways such as:
Christ as "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation" (Col 1:15),

"every man" to become "mature in Christ" (Col 1:28), 

"have come to fullness of life in Him" (Col. 2:10).

"to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13),

to acquire "the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16), the heart of Christ (cf. Eph 3:17)

"it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,"   (I John 3:2).

When we unite ourselves unto Christ we become "transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18).
"And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man" (I Corinthians 15:49).  

As born again sons of God we have been given the spirit of God so that we may be able to discern things which we were normally incapable of.

We have defined four dimensions of human existence.  These we associated with Body, Mind and Spirit and the Divine dimensions.  Each dimension of existence has several internal dimensions.  Body dimension has five sense dimensions each giving a dimension within the material realm.  Similarly there are various dimensions within each of the other.  We usually call man a trinity of Body, soul and spirit.  These are our attempts to describe the totality of man.  Soul is more than mind and includes the mental attempt to reach out into the higher realms. 

Man is a reflection of God.  This is where the  Trinity concept come in.  The figure below tries to explain it.  Remember Man is an image.  Man was created in the image of God as a Trinity. Image implies a different plane of existence within Godhead just as our image in a mirror.   As Man is a unity so is God.  The two are two different classes and they are connected together  through the fourth dimension of divine dimension.