We frequently try to ‘know’ things based on a particular capacity of our being; however, this may not always be the correct way to appreciate and understand what is actually taking place. Trying to understand music, for instance, by applying the logical intellect and trying to parse the sounds, notes and combinations is going to be an exercise in futility. Music must be appreciated through a different type of evaluation than that of the logical intellect.
Similarly, as long as we are dealing with the strict logic of the material world, it may be appropriate to apply that logic to events, and thus, we can know how our technology operates, we can plan according to the movements of time, we can expect a series of sequence of events to occur based on known factors within our knowledge.
What does not work is the attempt to study other domains, worlds or occult forces with the same methodology, techniques and ways of knowing that we use for these external phenomena.
There is much debate about whether, for instance, life or intelligence, can exist in other worlds on a basis other than the carbon-base that we are familiar with in our world. Science fiction writers thus speculate about the existence of “silicon-based’ units which would have totally different capabilities, and limitations, than we have as “carbon-based” units ourselves.
When we try to extrapolate the existence of other domains, worlds, forces, powers or ways of knowing, based on our physical existence and our reliance on external senses and the interaction with the operations of a nervous system and brain, all limited by a specific range in the spectrum that we can perceive, we quickly find out that different rules or laws of Nature operate on these different planes. We also find that they may occupy the same ‘space’ to the extent they are not physically manifested, such that thought-forms or vital forces coexist with us in the physical world, and thus, mental beings and vital beings, occupying their own domains, may be constantly within the space-time that we occupy, just vibrating at a different frequency and occupying thereby a different ‘space’ that is nevertheless co-existent with what we know of as our world. We may look at the concept of frequency bandwidths used to transmit wireless communication. Each bandwidth occupies a different level based on the wavelength it manifests, and all of these different wavelengths all are moving at the same time through our atmosphere, without interfering with each other, and nevertheless carrying data to those receivers we have built that can receive and decode those transmissions. In some cases, where the bandwidths approach one another, there may be some overlap or static occurring to the extent that our use of the bandwidth is at all imprecise, but for the most part, the signal carried at each bandwidth comes through correctly without interfering with a signal sent along a different bandwidth.
The strict separation of bandwidth analogy breaks down to some extent when one recognises that there are conscious beings on the various planes who may be aware of and actively working to communicate with and exert an influence on our physical lives, and that the material world we live in is already permeated with the interactive forces of a vital and mental nature. Our world is not purely material, but incorporates elements of vital, mental and spiritual domains in a complex inter-related and interactive mix that automatically draws upon and provides a field of expression to these other vibratory planes.
Thus, there is no reason to deny out of hand the existence of any number of other ‘worlds’ or ‘domains’ consisting of vital forces and beings, or mental forces and beings, or spiritual forces and beings, without having to find a physical planet or locale elsewhere than right here where we are. We just need the ability to ‘see’ them, by being able to tune into the wavelength at which they are vibrating. This is not dissimilar to the fact that even on the physical plane where we live, there are beings that exist outside our ability to see them until we develop the tools, such as electron microscopes, to observe plankton, or bacteria or viruses, for instance.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “It is a fact that mankind almost from the beginning of its existence or so far back as history or tradition can go, has believed in the existence of other worlds and in the possibility of communication between their powers and beings and the human race….”
“It is evident that the beliefs of the past are not a sufficient basis for knowledge, even though they cannot be entirely neglected: for a belief is a mental construction and may be a wrong building; it may often answer to some inner intimation and then it has a value, but, as often as not, it disfigures the intimation, usually by a translation into terms familiar to our physical and objective experience, such as that which converted the hierarchy of the planes into a physical hierarchy or geographical space-extension, turned the rarer heights of subtle substance into material heights and placed the abodes of the gods on the summits of physical mountains. All truth supraphysical or physical must be founded not on mental belief alone, but on experience, — but in each case experience must be of the kind, physical, subliminal or spiritual, which is appropriate to the order of the truths into which we are empowered to enter; their validity and significance must be scrutinised, but according to their own law and by a consciousness which can enter into them and not according to the law of another domain or by a consciousness which is capable only of truths of another order; so alone can we be sure of our steps and enlarge firmly our sphere of knowledge.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.6 Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces, pg.135
Sri Aurobindo Studies 