Our Metaverse: A Modern Metaphor for Ancient Wisdom

Fortunately, we are reaching a stage where practical, mass-adopted virtual reality seems like a near-term possibility. The early experiments of the 2000s laid the groundwork. I still remember my first excursion through "Second Life," where IBM (my then-employer) had built a virtual space, but the technical plumbing was still a couple of decades behind. As expected, "Second Life" and a similar initiative, the Sony PlayStation Home project, didn't gain much traction. Now, however, we are at the cusp of a VR/AR revolution. It’s no wonder Facebook has rebranded itself as "Meta."

I am not trying to sell you on Facebook's VR gear. Rather, I want to use the architecture of a virtual world as a metaphor to explore the eight fundamental principles of nature, or Ashtadha Mool Prakriti, as described in the Bhagavad Gita. I hope you will bear with me through this extended comparison. In this article, we will imagine ourselves as architects of a new metaverse to understand these ancient laws from a different angle. The intent is to create a mental map; we can explore the finer details later.

The best way to grasp the idea of the laws of basic nature, as described by the Gita, is to imagine we are building a virtual world ourselves. If we were to design a metaverse for the Oculus Quest, what rules would we choose? You could call them the core services of our metaverse.

The Core Services: Elements and Energy

Spatial Mediums (Pancha Bhoota)

First, we would need a physics engine to build a non-living space like the one surrounding us. This means simulating the rules of physics by provisioning solids, liquids, and gases.

• Solids are what you cannot pass through.
• Liquids are what you can pass through but can still feel.
• Gases are what you can pass through, often without any sensation of touch.
• The absence of these three we can refer to as space.

To interact with these, we would also need to provision corresponding sensors: touch (for solids), taste (for liquids), and smell (for gases). We will discuss senses and sensors in more detail in subsequent chapters.

Energy (Tejas)

Since our virtual world has rules of physics, we must introduce the concept of energy to allow its inhabitants to abide by them. You can't sell a refrigerator if there is no electricity. Every time you need to move, to feel solids, liquids, and gases, to cut through them or reshape them without bending the laws, you need energy. We could harness this energy by lighting a fire or drinking a potion. We could channel it through a wire as electricity or as a train of photons, much like the energy that reaches us from the sun.

This is, of course, a mental construct. We are not trying to challenge Einstein's energy-mass equivalence. Instead, we are taking a focused view of energy's purpose from a conscious agent's standpoint: I need energy to follow the universe's rules. You cannot ask me to walk on a gravity-laden land if you do not give me energy in my muscles.

The Conscious Agent: Mind and Identity

So far, we have the non-living things—what the Gita refers to as the five great elements, or Panch Bhoota: solids, liquids, gases, space, and energy. But what about the manifestation of us, the conscious agents?

Intelligence (Buddhi)

The next step is to determine how a conscious agent remembers its interactions with objects and other agents. We need to provide agents with memory to understand their immediate reality and use it for survival.

This memory must be "real-time" to allow for spontaneous action, which is crucial for survival. Of course, agents can use it for other needs when there is no threat. When this real-time memory works like a background process, we call it intelligence, what the Gita refers to as Buddhi. It’s not hard to imagine that if we overload this intelligence with desires, we lose our ability to act righteously. In this state, desires govern our actions, leading to a new set of actions every time we see something that glitters. The Gita addresses effective memory management through what is called Samattva Buddhi Yoga, the foundation of many common meditative processes today. The purpose of this Yoga is to reach the stage of Sthit Prazna—the stable mind.

The Fickle Mind (Mana)

It turns out that even with sensors and intelligence, the agents aren't excited to engage with the virtual world. Our metaverse is at risk of becoming another "Second Life"—lacking transformative engagement. To fix this, we need to do two things: first, incentivize developers to build more immersive experiences, and second, create a fickle mind in the conscious agents. This is a faculty that prevents them from seeking peace and instead makes them chase new things, explore new places, and desire new experiences. This is what the Gita calls Mana.

Mana is the seat of curiosity. What intelligence (Buddhi) is to the global compute (Chitta), curiosity is to the fickle mind (Mana). Stabilizing the curious Mana is a prerequisite for achieving a stable mind (Sthit-Prajna). As the Gita says:

Prajhati yada kaman, sarvan partha manogatam

Krishna uses the word manogatam, which means one who has gone beyond the fickle mind.

It is important to note that both Buddhi (intelligence) and Mana (curiosity) are aspects of our material nature. They are tools to decrypt knowledge (Atma), not knowledge itself.

Identity (Ahamkara)

Implementing a fickle mind isn't hard; it is essentially randomizing focus. But how do we incentivize developers to build more attractive and immersive manifestations? It turns out an amazingly simple idea works like a charm: a "like" button.

This simple button captured the imagination of the entire metaverse because if you don't vote for something with a "like," it inherently implies a "dislike." This binary choice led to an inflation of judgment, distorted our immediate reality, and morphed into something called identity. The Gita calls this Ahamkara (literally, "the I-maker"). This is our identification with friends, family, nation, tribe, race, and species—the things we like and the things we don't. This is how we perceive who we are.

Purists called it a bug; others called it expression. Purists call it "ego"; others call it "freedom." The jury is still out, but the "like" button is already embraced by billions of agents. This growth of identity also creates other bugs: desire, fear, anger, and jealousy. Collectively, these give rise to the Matrix—what the Gita refers to as Maya.

So now we have a conscious agent equipped with senses, intelligence (Buddhi), a fickle mind (Mana), and an identity (Ahamkara). It seems we have a good design.

The System: Autonomy, Time, and Perpetuity

Autonomy and Sleep

We cannot put too much bulky storage in our agents because we need to optimize for survival, which means optimizing for mobility and spontaneity. Why not give them a small, fast, real-time memory (like a computer's RAM) and a mechanism to process data with a global compute resource when they are inactive? Let's call this mechanism "Sleep."

The design of this sleep interface is probably the most complex part of our virtual world. It ingests data, processes it, and rebuilds scenarios for the next set of actions. It is also an opportunity to maintain the physical body. Sleep is not just for rejuvenating tired muscles; if we were to waste a third of our lives simply on maintenance, it would be an awful design. Sleep deprivation is more rapidly fatal than starvation. Sleep is our connection to the divine internet, where our bodily applications are updated over the air.

This asynchronous design—where our avatars are autonomous but sync with a central system during sleep—is what allows for the illusion of autonomy or free will, the greatest gift of our lives. Even if it is an illusion, it is something to cherish. In a way, sleep is our autonomy shield.

Time (Kala)

Because we have a small but efficient local memory, we need to offload irrelevant data quickly. The mechanism to purge old, useless data and retain what is relevant is what we built as the notion of time. It is a chronological system to keep track of our experiences, like a spinning vinyl record.

This explains why we cannot traverse time physically as we do space. Time is a construct of memory, not a physical element. We can travel back and forth in our memories, but we have not been provisioned with a physical medium for time. We want our agents grounded in the three dimensions of physical reality. Therefore, in our current design, time is a derived idea, not a fundamental aspect of material nature. It is a mechanism to keep our intelligence fresh.

Physical Perpetuity and Reincarnation

How does this system perpetuate itself? The drive for survival is built into our design. But survival is fundamentally about perpetuating our identities. We are willing to sacrifice parts for the sake of the whole. This is why our intelligence devised a way out of physical limitations: procreation.

Intelligence prioritizes reproduction by attaching orgasmic pleasure to it. It is as deep-rooted as hunger and thirst. We protect our children more than our own lives because they are the keepers of our identities. They are our true selfies. Raising them is our window of opportunity to reflect on the mistakes we made and teach from our experiences.

But what about the perpetuity of our inner knowledge, our Atma? The Gita proposes that we can change bodies like we change garments.

Vansansi jeernani yatha vihaya, navani grihnati naro ‘parani; Tatha sharirani vihaya jirnany, anyani sanyati navani dehi.

"As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones."

This is a flawless design. After reflecting on our lives through the replicas of our children, we have gained a better view of our reality. The new vessel we receive is based on our Karma. The system that brought us here also ensures an appropriate destination. The cycle of our inner knowledge (Atma) through infinitely many births is the wheel of time, or Kaal Chakra. As Krishna tells Arjuna:

Na tv evaham jatu nasam, na tvam neme janadhipah; Na caiva na bhavisyamah, sarve vayam atah param.

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.

With this design, we have a self-sustaining, everlasting metaverse, both for our physical bodies and our internal knowledge (Atma). The eight-fold nature, the Ashtadha Mool Prakriti, ensures perpetuity and defines our grand universal manifestation.

The lingering question, however, is how to achieve a true exit—Nirvana. The Gita says the exit lies in understanding this system and playing it like a game. That journey begins by observing the actions driven by our own inner black box. This is the path of Karma Yoga.

This concept of creation, where consciousness precedes matter, is a cornerstone of ancient Indian thought. The evolutionary sequence holds that from a divine or primordial ground, Cosmic Intelligence (Mahat) is the first to emerge. This intelligence then gives rise to the ego-principle (Ahaṃkāra), which in turn generates the subtle sensory and action capacities (Indriyas) as well as the subtle potentials for sensory experience (Tanmātras). It is from these subtle sensory potentials that the gross physical universe is formed. This sequence powerfully suggests that the universe we perceive is fundamentally a projection of our own sensory and mental faculties. In a profound way, we are co-creators of our experienced reality.

The intricate cosmological framework presented by the Samkhya and Vedanta philosophies, centered on the dynamic interplay of the three Guṇas – Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas – offers a profound and systematic explanation for the genesis of the "eightfold material nature." This eightfold constitution, encompassing the cosmic intellect (Buddhi/Mahat), the principle of individuation (Ahaṃkāra), the processing mind (Manas), and the five great elements (Pañca Mahābhūtas), emerges through a structured, hierarchical process driven by the varying preponderances and interactions of these fundamental cosmic forces.

The Guṇa theory thus provides a sophisticated and unifying lens through which to understand this deep interconnectedness of the psychological and physical realms. It demonstrates how the same underlying principles—illumination and purity (Sattva), activity and passion (Rajas), and inertia and form (Tamas)—shape both the subtle landscape of our inner experiences (thoughts, emotions, intellect, ego) and the tangible characteristics of the outer material world (the properties of space, air, fire, water, and earth). Each of the eight Tattvas is not an isolated entity but a specific Gunic configuration, a unique expression of this tripartite systemic activity.

The philosophical implications of this Guna-based cosmology are far-reaching. It offers critical insights into the perceived nature of reality, the complex constitution of the individual being, the root causes of existential suffering and bondage, and consequently, the pathways to liberation. In Samkhya, liberation (Kaivalya) involves the discriminative knowledge that separates Puruṣa (consciousness) from Prakṛti (the Gunic matrix and its evolutes). In Advaita Vedanta, Mokṣa is the realization of the non-dual identity of the Ātman (individual self) with Brahman (ultimate reality), recognizing the Gunic world of Māyā as an apparent superimposition.

The entire eightfold manifestation, driven by the Guṇas, can be understood as a progressive "veiling" of the underlying, pure consciousness (Puruṣa in Samkhya, Ātman/Brahman in Vedanta). The journey towards liberation, therefore, is often described as a process of "unveiling," of discriminating the immutable Seer from the mutable seen, a process that necessitates understanding the mechanics of the Guṇas.

The enduring relevance of this ancient cosmological model lies not only in its comprehensive explanatory power, which bridges metaphysics, cosmology, and psychology, but also in its practical applications. The understanding of the Guṇas and their influence on the mind, body, and environment forms a cornerstone of applied Indian sciences such as Yoga and Ayurveda. These disciplines utilize the knowledge of Gunic balance and imbalance to guide practices aimed at fostering physical health, mental clarity, and spiritual growth. The "system" of the Guṇas is thus not merely an abstract philosophical construct but a lived reality, the dynamics of which can be consciously observed, understood, and influenced, paving the way for holistic well-being and the ultimate attainment of spiritual freedom.