Confusion arises from the tendency, due to our life-long conditioning, to regard dimensions as appertaining to the external world, whereas there can only be dimensions of mind. It is in us, not in what we perceive, that dimensionality functions.
The men of mathematical and scientific discipline who first thought of studying the possibility of hyperdimensions inevitably regarded them as appertaining to phenomena (which to them were reality). That, no doubt, is why their investigations remained theoretical.
For us no such error should be possible, though it was less an error than a faulty approach to the problem, for we have been told that Mind itself is Reality, and that nothing can exist outside it.
If we care to consider consciousness as having four states or degrees, stretching from the lowest form of life to the highest, and if we choose to equate each with a dimension - remembering that a dimension is nothing magical or even complicated but merely means a direction of measurement - we arrive at a table of equivalents that has a nice air of verisimilitude:
1st state of consciousness - instinctive, or D.1,
2nd state of consciousness - perceptive, or D.2,
3rd state of consciousness - conceptual, or D.3,
4th state of consciousness - intuitive, or D.4.Let us take this analysis still further in the hope of seeing more clearly.
We may attribute to Mind Itself (universal, cosmic Mind) a state of extra-dimensionality, comprising all possible dimensions, like the Plenitude of the Void. That is Non-Manifestation. But Mind-in-manifestation can be given categories for our convenience, based on the degree of evolution of consciousness, from that which we attribute to the plant, via that which we attribute to animals, to that which we attribute to ourselves. To each of these categories a measurement of the evolution of consciousness may tentatively be applied, and each such measurement, apart from degrees of development within the category, may imply what is called a dimension. And, corresponding to each such dimension there may be a fuller mode of comprehension as suggested in the above table.The tridimensional consciousness not only has percepts, as the animal has, but also concepts, and the result of such concepts is the objective world as we see it.
But the quadridimensional consciousness acquires knowledge directly, by what we term intuition, and we all have that faculty as a potentiality. The enlightened human being has realised that potentiality and lives in that higher state of consciousness which we regard as having four dimensions.
The Sages and Prophets who have taught mankind from that state of consciousness, including the founders of the great religions, make it clear that this potential consciousness is available to all of us, is indeed our natural state and our heritage. And we have only to look in the right direction, and open our eyes, in order to enjoy it. But the right direction is at right-angles to all others (for every dimension by definition is that) - and that is what we call 'within'; we cannot open our eyes as long as they are clouded by false notions, or look in the right direction as long as our attention is fixed on a fictitious ego apparently 'without'.
Real religion may be recognised as approximately this, and not the disciplinary application of an artificial system of ethics, for the recorded words of their founders point to it.
'Dimension', then, is just a technical term we use to indicate states of consciousness increasing in scope, from one to four, of Mind-in-manifestation. The phenomena of which we become conscious by these means increase in scope as each potential dimension is realised, for they are Reality imperfectly apprehended.
But we too are phenomena, and we too are Reality imperfectly apprehended; and Reality and Mind Itself are one and all that IS.
The fulfilment of this potentiality, called enlightenment, satori, etc., is said to be the realisation of this. As long as it remains a potentiality we can know it conceptually (that is know about it) only; to know it (by intuitive cognition) is realisation of the quadridimensional state of consciousness.
I have said that the fictitious ego is apparently 'without'. But to us, on the plane of phenomena, it seems to be 'within'. We are mistaken, however, and the mistake is crucial. Reality alone is 'within'.
