According to modern geometry the point is the minutest unit with which a line is drawn. The point is indivisible and without length and breadth. When we think of bindu as the minutest unity we are reminded of the concept of paramānu ( Vaiśesika defines paramānu as : mūrtatve sati niravayavah : being limited, it is without any body part ).

In Yogabhāsya of Vyāsa we find that a substance when reduced to its minutest unit is called paramānu , and in the same way the minutest time unit is called ksana. But bindu is neither a time unit like ksana nor a space unit like anu. It is a unit of consciousness , and at the same time becomes body of the material world.

It reminds me of T. S. Eliots’ poem ‘Four Quartets’ in which he refers to a ‘still point’ that is ‘more than a fixity’. I quote from the First Quartet called ‘Burnt Norton’ :-

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

In essence this bindu is a drop of incessant energy which has enfolded vibration but it is ‘non-sound’ or anāhat. That is also the name of the fourth, the heart-chakra. It resonates to a Universal Hum and in Aitareya Āranyaka I.3.1 while explaining the beginning of the offspring from ‘hmm’ , the rishī says “the word is masculine and its cadence feminine…. Again with regard to his (the offspring’s) beginning with the word ‘hmm’, the word is the discrimination of divine and human speech”. This should be understood as the first spurt of soundless prāna from the bodhi chakra to the anāhat or heart chakra inciting the first heartbeat in the womb, the first breath. Thus, in the vedic sense, the seat of cidākāśa, the infinite dimension of undivided consciousness is the hrdya or the heart, although, the antenna is the bindu chakra. The breath or vāyu rises from the lower chakrās to the throat, the seat of the fifth chakra – the viśuddhi chakra, to merge with the prāna from the heartbeat. This first cry is the pranav and is often used synonymously with the sound of ‘aum’ in vedic literature. However, they are different, the former is symbolic of evolution and the latter of the involution of prānic energy. When the conch shell is blown in vedic rituals it is this pranav that is magnified and when we chant inwardly it is the nasal sound of ‘aum’ that resonates in our cranial cavity.

4. The sahasrār chakra
   This sits as an energy point in the central fissure of the brain under the crown of the head. It is often referred to as the crown chakra.[32] Just as the bodhi chakra is linked to the anāhat or heart chakra, the sahasrār chakra is connected with the viśuddhi or the throat chakra. According to the Vedas, which originated completely as an oral tradition, speech or vāk plays the most important role in identification, naming, recognizing and thus the memorizing of patterns. The entire knowledge of the universe has a nām, name and rūpa or form. The throat is not only resident to speech or vāk it also lends itself to melody or dhvani and the entire gamut of sound is therefore vāni.[33]
   The Sanskrit shlökas unfold the sound energies as we view outwards from the Earth and talk to each other. This view is termed bhūgolik or earth-centric and our speech is called vaak. If we look from the heavens downwards, filtering the cacophony, we hear the natural sounds or what is called dhvani or music. And this view is termed khagolik. Thus vaani is the ‘words that are sung’ and it is both vaak and dhvani put together. It is the Divine song.       The throat chakra, therefore, is instrumental in harnessing the vāni and through it, the names & forms of the entire creation around us. Whereas the ājna chakra receives and processes the sensory inputs, being surrogate to the cittākāśa and the sahasrār chakra, at the head of the crown, the throat chakra delivers the Ātmic energy into words and music. The beej mantra of the sahasrār chakra is the sound of the first vowel ‘a’ in Sanskrit, combined with ‘h’, the last letter in the Sanskrit alphabet. Interestingly, both these sounds emanate adjacently from the gullet or the kanth. (See attached Figure). This is more explicitly explained by Ait.Ᾱr.II.3.6          :- ‘â’ therefore represents ‘that’ which is the Absolute infinity or Omega, Ω of Cantor’s theory of Infinities.[34] It is Brahman, the Unknown. It is the akśara the indestructible or the â + swar, the first vowel. [35]If, this is the ‘whisper’ –as explained in Ait. Ār.     II.3.6 above, then as we force the breath just a    little, what we get is its aspirate sound ‘ah’. This is the visarga sound, and is grouped as ‘a-yogavāha’ meaning : “those (sounds) that occur (in the actual language) without being part of the alphabet”…another very interesting aspect of the structure of Sanskrit language! If we see the Figure above – another level of symmetry emerges – ‘ah’ closes the circle pictorially signifying the internal – external division . The ‘individual ego’, the ahamkār has taken form – there is an inside and there is an outside – with the language of consciousness as the dividing membrane !This coincides with Wilder Penfields’ [36] research on the ‘homunculus’ or a little man that he found is located on the cortex of the brain hemispheres on both sides. He was studying the sensory nerves on the skin and found a one-one correspondence for the entire body with this ‘homunculus’ that hangs into the central fissure at the crown of the head – precisely where the sahasrār chakra energizes. As we will see, the bhūtākāśa is centered at the navel or the maṇipūra chakra and gives birth to the physical body. The functions of the brain, its autonomous sensibilities, the ‘awareness’ of the self etc. emanate from the cittākāśa. The self is the ahaṁ; the nasal (anunāsik) sound is added to the ‘ah’. And this nasal resonance at the end of ‘aum’, the universal mantra, is the beej sound for the ājna chakra.

5. The ājna chakra
   The ājna chakra is located in the centre of the forehead, exactly where the traditional tikā is to be placed in the Hindu religious practices. This is the seat of the cittākāśa and is denoted by the chandra-vindu that signifies the nasal sound in the symbol of auṁ – the beej mantra for this chakra. This is the 6^th chakra and as the learning process of the mind begins in childhood the multidimensional external reality reflects into holographic inputs through the senses [37]. This breaks up the ‘outside universe’ into the various levels of consciousness and the process of assimilation begins in the brain. The ‘mind’ takes shape. The binduh of the bodhi chakra is ‘condensed dimensions’ and the ‘bâ’ sound in binduh is ‘labial plosive’ i.e. it is pronounced by pursing the lips and forcing the breath outwards. The ‘va’ of vinduh of the ājna chakra on the other hand is a ‘labio dental’ belonging to the class of antahsthah or semi-vowels and is pronounced by cutting the lower lip with the upper teeth and pushing the breath inwards and upwards. This is the nād-vinduh of the Shiv sūtras [38]– “the pulsation of the unstruck sound”. Actually, nād itself is not just sound but the entire aspect of semiotic expression including dance, drama etc. [39] Thus binduh signifies an evolution of dimensional energies, whereas, vinduḥ is the involution of external energies.Whereas ‘ah’ stands for the entire alphabet in a circle, aum can be understood as the pratyāhāra for all the vowels plus the mute-consonant sounds. Thus the sound of auṁ traces out the vocal apparatus starting from the glottis to the lips viz. ‘a’ to ‘mâ’.  Symbolically, the sibilants or the śhakti letters (sh, shh, sa, ha) and the semi-vowels or the antaḥsthaḥ letters (ya, ra, la, va) are not part of auṁ. This nād-vinduh enfolds the three śhaktis (sh, shh, sa) as the three levels of consciousness given in the Mandukya Upanishad [40] viśwa, suṣhupta and swapna; the fourth sibilant is the aspirate ‘ha’ and it is the enfolded visarga ‘ah’ sound. The fourth level is turīya, the final abode, and it literally means “the fourth”. The attached figure shows these vedic layers of consciousness. The antahsthahs (ya, ra, la, va) are also called the yam symbols and they frame the material support of the body. They are the beej sounds of the 4^th, 3^rd,1^st & 2^nd chakras respectively. If we go one step further, we observe, that in the vedic sense mind and body symbols added together complete the cittākāśa or the chaitenya the Consciousness. In other words the Vedas treat the mana or the mind, its inner divisions – the shaktis and the body as one unit. There is no room for mind – body dualism of Descartes. The cittākāśa includes the antahkrana and the bhūtākāśa.  There is a clear distinction between the Individual consciousness, the chitt, and the Collective human consciousness, the chaitanya. The former is subdivided into four layers [41] viz. mana or mind, buddhi or intellect / id, ahamkār or ego and ‘ah’ or super-ego. The chaitenya is given in the figure.
6. The maṇipūra chakra
   Situated at the navel or the nābhi this chakra is the life support point of the human body. This is where the umbilical cord connects to the unborn child and this is the center of the forming foetus. The bhūtākāśa is constituted of the lowest three chakras –  the mūladhāra, the swādiśṭhān and the maṇipūra. The first letters of the swādiśṭhān and the mūladhāra give us the clue to its continuity – they spell sam which is the prefix meaning ‘uniformity’. This is what makes samsāra a ‘uniform verse’ – the universe. For, in the vedic tradition the entire creation has emerged from complete order and an Unknown perfection – a ‘uniformity’, the Brahmn. This timeless sam of order is the gene. Similarly, the acronym for the sahasrār and viśuddhi chakra is sva which means the self. Just as the gene maintains its order and carries the stages of the evolution of life within it, similarly, the sva or the ‘meme’ [42] carries with it the body of knowledge from memory to memory i.e. generations to generations. This was the oral tradition of the transmission of the knowledge of the Vedas.The beej mantra for the manipūra chakra is ‘raṁ’ which means ‘complete absorption of thought’ and in fact the mythological name Rāma means ‘the one who is so perfect that he absorbs your entire being’. The higher dimensions in terms of the Vedas are beyond time and space and the seeds of higher consciousness are present as ‘symmetries’ in our limited experience. Life and the mind are inextricably interlinked and the symmetries are ensconced one within the other like ‘the endless dance of Chinese dolls’. You remove one symmetry and a smaller one appears. This universe is non-linear and our sensuous limitations make the unfolding dimensions linear.[43] The womb protects the cell multiplication of the ‘conceptus’ [44] and the collective symmetries of the entire emergence of life on earth come to play. I quote from [45]:-The Nirukta (2.8)[46] first relates the root √ma to mātā which literally means “the atmosphere” encircling the earth. This also means the “mother’s womb”; in it the ātmā, the soul takes shape and form and is born in this world. Just like the womb encloses the child and protects it, similarly the atmosphere covers the earth. Note that māta – ātmā are conjugal words.The next level of symmetry is the ‘visible universe’ or āpo. The visibility is due to the dispersal of energy from the time of the ‘Big Bang’ that has ultimately germinated the cellular revolution on this uniquely placed planet. The region that is visible is therefore termed as vyāpak [47]. The region beyond this is called mar which literally means ‘death’. The latter is the realm of the ‘dark matter’. It is interstitial with the ‘shining galaxies’ and cannot be seen because it absorbs light instead of emanating it. The two together have constituted all matter that supports our being and continuously flows through us – changing every atom within our body completely every seven years or so. This is the limit of the bhūtākāśa that has constituted the very structure of our body and brain. The primary consciousness rests on our ‘looking back’ at the vyāpak universe and it unfolds the layer of viśwa in the antahkrana or the ‘inner self’ as we accumulate knowledge through our senses. The autonomous nervous system is related to the subconscious mind that controls the basic bodily functions. This is resident in the inner cortices of the brain that have developed in the first animals and frames the ‘archicortex’ and the ‘mesocortex’ of the mammalian brain.[48] This subconscious layer gives rise to the sushupta. In the Vedic sense the souls that do not evolve in their daily lives and are immersed in these two levels, go back and forth between the mar – āpo region in an endless cycle of reincarnation. The ‘neocortex’ gives the ability to the mammalian brain to evolve to even higher forms and thus connect with regions of the multiverse beyond our ken.
7. The Vedic Multiverse The Aitareya Āranyaka II.4.2 or the Aitareya Upaniṣad I.1.2 explains this and more: sa imān lokān asrjat ; ambho, marīchīh, maram, āpo ; ado ambh paren divam dhyau pratisṭhā antarikśammarīchyah prthivī maro ya adhastāt tā āpah (2)
8. This particular shlöka cannot be translated simply and has to be understood pictorially. The region that is beyond the mar is marīchi and this is the circle of light again. This is the dev-lök alluded to in many a myth. The access to this is through intent that creates a desire and its ‘need to happen’ dichotomy in the mind. This is the saṁkalpa – vikalpa of the Upanishads and occurs in the swapna layer of the consciousness. The latent desires of the mind are probabilistic in occurrence – they may or may not happen in the larger world. However, in the micro-world of Quantum Mechanics (QM) extremely rapid fluctuations of matter precipitate these probabilities almost instantaneously because a very large number of ‘particles’ are involved in all processes. The entire material reality is based on these QM uncertainties and many a popular text has been written on the wave-particle duality[49] and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. In mathematical terms, in QM, all possibilities can be said to be present simultaneously as a ‘probabilistic wave field’ and the one chance that precipitates action causes an ‘instantaneous collapse of this field’. This has created huge conceptual and philosophical ‘waves’ of their own in the field of Physics and to address this problem Hugh Everett III in 1957, a 19 year old graduate student of Princeton University, came up with “The Many World Theory”. This has been recently elaborated by Max Tegmark[50] in 2003 and also presented by Time Magazine in a Dec 2004 article. The concept is now called “Parallel Universes”. In his introduction of the Scientific American article Tegmark says:-Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you but lives on a planet Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets…..The idea of such an alter ego seems strange and implausible, but it looks as if we will just have to live with it, because it is supported by astronomical observations. The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the power of 10²⁸ meters from here. This distance is so large that it is beyond astronomical but that does not make your doppelgänger any less real. The estimate is derived from elementary probability and does not even assume speculative modern physics, merely that space is infinite (or at least sufficiently large) in size and almost uniformly filled with matter, as observations indicate. In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere. There are infinitely many other inhabited planets, including not just one but infinitely many that have people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices.The frontiers of physics have gradually expanded to incorporate ever abstract (and once metaphysical) concepts such as a round Earth, invisible electromagnetic fields, time slowdown at high speeds, quantum superposition, curved space, and black holes. Over the past several years the concept of a multiverse has joined this list. It is grounded in well-tested theories such as relativity and quantum mechanics…. Scientists have discussed as many as four distinct types of parallel universes. The key question is not whether the multiverse exists but rather how many levels it has. Motilal Shastri (1908 – 1960), a Vedic scholar of rare insight has written vigyānbhāsyam or scientific treatise on a number of Upanishads and the Śatpath Brāhmana. Explaining the hiranyagarbh or the ‘Golden seed’ of the Universe (Multiverse) he explains the four regions in great detail[51]:-First we must understand that the terms prthivī, antarikś and dhyauh are generic. The first comes from the root √prath which means a level region. The word prthivī therefore connotes ‘an extremely large sphere that locally gives the impression of flatness’. The second region, antarikś comes from the word antara that means both ‘in between’ two regions and ‘interior space’. The third, dhyauh comes from the root √div which means ‘expansive radiation’ and is often translated as the ‘light of knowledge’. Each of the regions has this trio and the dhyauh of the āpo is the prthivī of the next region i.e. mar and so on and so forth). The āpo region has the Earth as pṛthivī and the antarikś is the inter galactic space. The dhyauh is the limit of the visible universe and it is the Hubble volume of the Multiverse theory. The play of energy here is between the sūrya, the sun and som, the moon. These are the tides that directly play on the creation at this level. The gāyatri vyāhrtyah are seven in number and the pṛthivī here is the bhuḥ, the antarikś is the bhuvaḥ and the dhyauh is the svah). The mar region again starts with pṛthivī, that is the dhyauḥ of the āpo. This is the end of the Hubble sphere and is beyond our senses. This is where the Multiverse Level I of Tegmark begins. The inter-space between them is the antarikś and the dhyauh is the limit of the ‘Our Level I Multiverse’ as shown in the bubble in the picture here. This then becomes the prthivī for the next region marīchi. The energy in mar springs between Viṣṇu and Shiv. Note that at the external level this is the limit of the bhūtākāśa and there too the ruling deity is Viṣṇu. At the internal level Shiv also rules the sva of the cittākāśa along with śakti. In Hindu mythology Shiv is the chaotic destroyer and Viṣṇu is the one that preserves order. In the Multiverse, above the visible universe, tremendous energies are released by the ‘big bangs’ of each Hubble volume, and their black holes are coalescing the multiple galaxies back under crushing gravitational forces. The expanding energies are Viṣṇu that are always depicted with agni or fire emanating from his head. The root verb ‘ag’ means ‘a tortuous movement’ and the suffix ‘ni’ means in this context ‘to throw out’. So, agni is ‘the flickering of the flame’ that shines and spews forth energy. The opposite is n-agni or nagini that means a snake, literally ‘a black tortuous movement’ that absorbs energy. Thus Shiv is portrayed with snakes around his neck.The three gāyatri vyāhrtyaḥ here are svah, maha and janaḥ. Note that the fourth vyāhrtyah , maha is aham backwards and the two are conjugal words.
   c)       The marīchi is the Multiverse Level II of Tegmark with the round Multiverse Level I globe as its prthivī, the space between two such globes as its antarikś and again at a higher level a dhyauh. By now the number of possible Earths and our doppelgängers has increased so large that it can take care of all the alternatives that we may take in our limited lifetime! This is the dev lök where Lord Indra holds his sway of merry song and dance in the myths. When you get a knock on the head and see light, you experience a very brief ‘Altered State of Consciousness’ [52] for a split second. If extended in experience it is an ‘insight’: a divyajyoti. At the time of meditation and repetitive chanting – it is this region that comes into play. The ruling energies are Indra and Vāyu. The Aitareya Upaniṣad I.3.14 [53] explains why Indra is so named. Idam means ‘this’ and ‘that which can be seen’ is idam adarśam. This is shortened to idamdra and further to Indra, a cryptic version ‘because the Gods like mysterious names’. In essence Indra is the perceivable aspect of the Unknown, Brahmn. The Vāyu is also an attractive force and in the Aitareya Āranyaka I.1.4.4 the Hotr priest offers honey to the Indra and Vāyu “Now food verily is honey, for all is honey, all desires are honey, and thus if he recites the madhuchhandas, it serves for the attainment of all desires.” [54] Honey is used as a metaphor because its drops coalesce and satiate hunger. This is the essence of this region. The three gāyatri vyāhrtyah here are janah, tapah and satya. The last is the realm of Brahmn, that besides being the Unknown is also the eternal truth, for satya means truth.

So, in the Vedic essence, the spark of the soul survives death and sits in the marīchi – the Multiverse Level II, where all intentions are feasible. A region way beyond our direct senses but yet inextricably linked to our minds through our desires, the swapna. And here the antic waits its turn to re-incarnate…….