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SECOND LECTURE
31

On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that enquirers into physical science in the West, like Professor Crookes and others, will arrive at truer results than are contained in the existing systems of Sankhya philosophy known to the public. Occult science has, of course, a definite theory of its own to propound for the origin of these organisms, but that is a matter that has always been kept in the background, and the details of that theory are not necessary for the purpose of explaining the doctrine of the Bhagavad-Gita. It will be sufficient for the present to note what the field of Sankhya philosophy is, and what it is that comes within the horizon of physical science.

We can form no idea as to the kind of beings that exist on the astral plane, and still less are we able to do so in the case of those beings that live on the plane anterior to the astral. To the modern mind, everything else, beyond and beside this ordinary plane of existence, is a perfect blank. But occult science does definitely formulate the existence of these finer planes of being, and the phenomenon that now manifest themselves in the so-called spiritualistic seances will give us some idea of the beings living on the astral plane. It is well known that in most of our Puranas, Devas are mentioned as existing in swarga.

All the Devaganams mentioned in the Puranas are not in swarga. Vasus, Rudras, Adityas and some