STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

I have always wanted to draw or paint a picture which symbolizes our life on this earth. Let me first describe what I mean by “our life on this earth”. We can say that life is simply a collection of all experiences we go through over a certain period of time, from the time we are born to the time when we die, which results from our having five senses and a brain to process all the input. I did not want to paint real people, animals, objects or landscapes to represent life but create an abstract symbolism. Being a student of physics, my first thought was to start with the goal of graphically representing our lifespan on a spacetime plot.

It is easy to understand that, along the time axis, our lifespan can be represented by a certain segment of the axis. I can even use a bright colored patch across this segment to indicate awareness of life for a strong visual impact. Everything before our birth and everything after our death is dark in the sense that those periods are unknown to us and can be represented as black color. One can even select different colors to represent different phases of life but I would simply use a uniform bright color such as yellow or gold in my first effort.

Now let us consider the space axis. There are, of course, three space axes but to keep my picture simple, I wanted to use just one space axis to represent the extent of what we experience with our senses. Time axis can be the x-axis and the space axis can be the y-axis on a two-dimensional graph.

The interesting fact is that all of our experiences are spatially limited; as a result, during our lifetime, we can- not enjoy everything that the universe has to offer even if we use all of our five senses to the fullest. We can only see a range of wavelengths in the visible spectrum, hear sounds with wavelengths in the audible range. We cannot see or feel really tiny entities like microbes and we are overwhelmed by gigantic objects, only being able to sense small parts of them.

Even when it comes to smelling and tasting, there is a whole array of items that we cannot detect. That is why we use hound dogs to go after smell of missing persons or criminals and there are many herbs we cannot taste. This inability can be correlated with mechanical dimensions associated with the objects being sensed. We cannot taste or smell extremely tiny beads and we cannot taste or smell the ocean or mountain ranges for example.

It is fair to say that, from a purely mechanical dimension point of view, there is a range of dimensions that are associated with our lives. This range extends, let us say, from a fraction of a micrometer to several thousand kilo-meters and all of our experiences are confined within these two limits. We may be able to use special tools such as microscope and telescope to observe things beyond this range to a certain extent but the fact is that our lives would be largely unaffected even if we could not do that.

So, if we take our y-axis to represent distance to symbolize extent of our senses our life has meaning only when y lies between two numbers, one being very small and the the rectangular box along the x-axis, hundreds if not thousands of times. Our lifespans could vary from one incarnation to the next and therefore widths of these rectangles would also vary. The heights of the boxes would, however, be identical because if we come back exactly in the same human form, the limitations on our sensing abilities would remain the same! those of the original box. other being very large. This y dimension can be just the two extremes of mechanical distances which can be felt by touch, wavelength of light seen by the eye, wavelength of sound waves affecting our hearing, size of particles we can taste or smell. In our visual representation we can again paint areas on the graph above and below these two numbers as dark.

Since the larger number can be thousands of kilometers and the smaller number a fraction of a micrometer, the scale along y has to be logarithmic in nature in order for our graph to fit into a regular graph paper or canvas. I will assume, somewhat arbitrarily, that the larger number is 10^ (+10) meters and the smaller number is 10^ (-10) meters. As a result, the yvalues would be restricted to between –10 and +10 on a logarithmic scale. Our graph or picture would lie entirely between two horizontal lines, one going through the point y=10 and the other going though y= -10.

If we look at the resulting picture symbolizing life it looks like a bright rectangular box against a black background. If we believe that we have only “one life to live” then its graphical visualization is just that - a somewhat depressing prison-like confinement - a bright rectangle against a dark background!

As a next step I wondered about reincarnations. Where do God and reincarnations fit into this picture? If all of our reincarnated lives were to be exactly like our present life then we can simply extend the graph by repeating

The interval between these rectangular boxes I.e., the period between successive reincarnations varies from person to person. All the boxes would lie above the same horizontal line.

Hindu yogis have been saying for thousands of years that we do not come back to a similar life. In fact, our goal is to come back in a more enlightened state by engaging in good deeds. Also, as Sri Yukteswar revealed to Paramhansa Yogananda (Ch. 43, “An Autobiography of a Yogi”), the experience between reincarnations is highlighted by additional senses and positive (bright) surroundings. So, the regions between rectangular boxes should not be painted black but perhaps by some incandescent light and the extent of this illuminated region in the vertical direction should be beyond the boundaries of the bright boxes, signifying more heightened sensing capabilities.

By Basab Dasgupta, California continue

As we get more and more enlightened in successive incarnations the dimension of the boxes in the vertical direction would increase because we would have more than just five senses perhaps by meditation or extra-sensory perception to experience a variety of new entities. The result would be vertical dimensions extending beyond

Eventually, after countless number of reincarnations, the bright rectangular boxes would become larger and larger in height and so would be the incandescently illuminated regions between the boxes. Ultimately, there would only be an all=pervasive bright region throughout my graph paper. That would symbolize God and this state is nirvana!

Now if I try to incorporate these pieces on a very large canvas my painting would start to look like a number of small illuminated cottages in the darkness of night, gradually changing to taller and taller structures with appearance of considerable background illumination rising up to the sky between the structures as well if we follow the horizontal axis.

That is an abstract painting alright, but does it resemble any object or physical phenomenon from our life on this earth which might be a metaphor of this painting and perhaps can be used to explain life itself? What came to mind is a journey from some remote village in Nevada (or any other part of the country, for that matter) toward the city of Las Vegas at night along a straight path (the x-axis) -perhaps a country highway. The trip starts with small cottages lined up along the route. The buildings start to get taller and more lit as we approach the city. The city skyline is, of course, packed with outlines of high-rise casino buildings. Even the horizon between the buildings start to show an illumination which pervades the sky.

Reaching Las Vegas after a long journey at night might to page 6 }