Reality by Number

In other words, Sankhya lists the five physical elements, the five subtle elements, the five organs of the action, the five sense organs, the three faculties of the mind, then matter and spirit themselves.

Note that the first four elements are often mistranslated " earth, water, fire and air". These four concepts as they're actually applied in Hindu physics and medicine, are far more complex than these simplistic translations would suggest. Hindus understand them as energy states, as the way matter behaves in its densest forms.

Akasha, the fifth element, is a super fine form of matter that fills space and in a sense actually is space. Atomic particles are created from it. Only recently have nuclear physicists begun speculating that such a field of " super matter" must indeed exist to explain the occasional appearance of particles " out of no where" during their experiments!

Note that only the first five categories on the list are physical. The second five categories are not physical. These subtle elements refer to matter as you experience it in your mind, not as it exist outside your body. When you see a fire in a dream, your skull doesn't burn up. According to the Hindu tradition, the substance of your dreams and inner visions is just as real as the substance of the external world. In fact, whole other dimensions exist in this immaterial matter. This is an important point that may help you to understand how visualizations and ritual magic- important components of Hindu spiritual practice- actually work.

Hold on to your hat, because the next major point is totally countertutive to our Western conditioning. Sankhya holds that the sense organs and organs of action are not physical either. When you read the preceding list, you probably thought it was talking about the hands and nose and feet and eyes. It ain't so.

The Sankhya masters noted that we see and move not only in the physical world but also in our dreams. Yogis and shamans see and move in whole other dimensions all together. So the senses and the ability to interface with the stuff around us must exist in our subtle body. They may express through our physical organs while we're alive and conscious, but in dream states, " astral travel", or after death, they express through our sukshma sharira, our subtle body.