Updated: April 2, 2025
I am the field and I'm also the knower of the field. Bhagavad Gita – Chapter 13 The field is pure consciousness and the knower of the field is also pure consciousness, but it knows experience and it does so through modifying itself into the 24 modes of knowing and experience that I’ve mentioned. So today, I'd like to address if you get to it, the mode of knowing that we call Tanmatras, in Sanskrit.
So I thought before I do that, I would share with you some queries that I put to an advanced AI which is more advanced than chat GPT. And I'm kind of an early adopter and looking at how good it is. Thanks to the developers. So today I asked many questions of this advanced GPT or AI and the first question I asked is, is, does motor activity, motor activity means anything that involves movement through the motor cortex including speech, you know, and according to the Vedanta, the Brahma Sutras, there are many modes of motor activity: hands, feet, reproductive organs, evacuation and speech are primary motor activities. So and then there's sensory activity through the five senses. So I asked this advanced AI does motor and sensory activity activate genes. And here's what I got gene activation is the process of turning on a gene so that it is expressed at a particular time.
Gene activation can be involved in motor and sensory activities such as neuronal differentiation, locomotion and somatosensory processing. For example, some studies have shown that CRISPR gas transcriptional activation, CRISPR A, can induce neuronal differentiation by activating specific genes. Other studies have shown that neuronal activity is primarily somatosensory cortex. And it correlates with locomotion and modulates the spinal locomotor network through a direct cortical spinal pathway.
Moreover, some studies have suggested that gene activation by transcription factors can regulate the development and function of primary sensory neurons. Therefore, gene activation is involved in various aspects of motor and sensory activities. Ok. So that's here, gene activation is involved. So then I asked another question and that was do thoughts and imagination and emotions affect gene activity. I'd already asked this question before, but I focused on imagination and the answer was possibly imagination can affect gene activity. Imagination is the ability to create mental images or scenarios that are not present in reality. Imagination can and so-called reality of course.
Because everything that we call reality is also a product of imagination. But anyway, imagination can involve cognitive, emotional and somatic components, similar to thoughts and thoughts can also activate gene activity. Imagination can affect the expression of genes by influencing the level of neurotransmitters, hormones and other factors that modulate gene activity. For example, some studies have shown that imagining an action, you know, like say throwing a ball into a basketball into the basket can activate and strengthen regions of the brain involved in its real life execution, improving on performance. Other studies have shown that imagining a scene can activate similar brain regions as perceiving it suggesting a shared neuronal mechanism. Moreover, some studies have suggested that imagination can even alter memories by inserting new ones and new details of changing existing ones. Therefore, imagination can affect gene activity and influence various aspects of cognition and behavior.
And then I took a kind of a a chance and asked, what is the English equivalent of the the subtle senses that are mentioned in yoga and the and the Brahma Sutras and of course, the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads and I got a reference from yogapedia and said, and this is what it said Tanmatras are subtle elements that are the objects of the five senses, sound, touch, sight, taste, sound, touch, sight, or form, taste and smell. They are the way in which people sense the objective, tangible world.
The word tanmatra comes from the Sanskrit root, root words, meaning tan, tan, meaning subtle and matra meaning element. The tanmatras is also the basis of all physical existence as they combine and recombine in different ways to produce the five gross elements, ether, or space, air, fire, water and earth. So there you are my friends. This is the solution to the hard problem of consciousness. So the five tanmantras include of course, sound, touch, sight, taste and smell in consciousness. You see, but there's no physical scene. You hear, but there's no physical hearing. You touch, you experienced sensation, but there's no physical sensation and you taste and smell without the actual physical component to it. In fact, the physical component is a projection of the tanmatras. So if this is interesting to you, let's do next installment, the tanmatras, let’s to a meditation on the tanmatras, activate certain tanmatras, to change not only gene activity but ultimately epigenetic activity that it can be transferred to future generations and also to change our experience of physical reality. I'd like to do this a meditation on tanmatras to change gene activity, gene expression, even epigenetic memories for future generations and how that can be understood as influencing what we call experience of the physical world, including the experience of our body and everything that we call perceptual experience, which you know, the physicalists call the physical or material universe.
More to come..
