etaphysics

The Hindu system of physics, on which the metaphysical thought of
the East is based, does not in its beginnings differ widely from
the latest physics of the West; but it goes so much farther that
our physics is soon lost sight of and forgotten. The Hindu
conception of the material universe, taken from the Upanishads
and some open teaching, will serve for an illustration. They
divide physical matter into four kinds--prakriti, ether, prana,
and manasa--which they call "planes." These differ only in the
rate of vibration, each plane vibrating through one great octave,
with gulfs of "lost" octaves between. The highest rate of
vibration of prakriti is measured by the thousand, the lowest of
the ether by trillions, and the lowest of prana by--never mind;
they have, and we have not, the nomenclature.

The earth, they teach, is a globe of prakriti, floating in an
ocean of ether, which, as it has the sun for its center of
gravity, must necessarily be a globe. This etheric sun-globe has
a diameter of over 300,000,000,000 miles. All the planets
revolve around the sun far within its atmosphere. The etheric
sun-globe revolves on its axis once in about 21,000 years, and
this revolution causes the precession of the equinoxes. This
etheric sun-globe is revolving around Alcyone with other etheric
globes having suns for their centers and solar systems of
prakritic globes within them in a great year of 5,640,000,000 of
our common years. Its orbit has a diameter of
93,000,000,000,000,000 miles.

Beyond the etheric globes, and between them, is a third form of
matter called prana, as much rarer and finer than the ether as
the ether is rarer and finer than prakriti. As this prana has
Alcyone for a center of gravity, it is necessarily a globe; and
there are many of these pranic globes floating in a vast ocean of
manasa--a form of matter as much finer than prana as prana is
finer than ether, or ether than prakriti. With this manasa
(which is a globe) the material, or physical, universe ends; but
there are spiritual globes beyond. The material universe is
created from manasa, downward, but it does not respond to or
chord with the vibration of the globes above, except in a special
instance and in a special way, which does not touch this inquiry.

The physical universe of the ancient (and modern) Hindu physicist
was made up of these four kinds or planes of matter, distributed
in space as "globes within globes."