Mythology makes regular references to various levels of consciousness, specially those that range between the super gods and mere mortals like us. The references closest to reality that we know is that of the Shiddhars but the range of celestial beings is far bigger than that.The word Celestial brings to mind a certain kind of imagery, one where they are magical, excessively beautiful and charming, glowing and emitting their own light, blessed with the ability to fly faster than the speed of light (maybe) and of superior intelligence and brilliance that gives them the power to attract others tremendously towards them.
These celestials come with the unique ability to fly great distances in far less time and with a telepathic intelligence that makes them far more inspiring. Hanuman, Garuda, Kinnaras, Gandharvas, Apsaras, and Adithis belong to this realm and they recide in Kimpurusha Loka. Indian art and mythology as depicted in the scriptures brings this world out most beautifully. Ancient stories have referenced strong ties of love across strata of consciousness. In some cases the mortal prince falls for the beautiful apsara longs for her presence and she over hears him while she is flying by in the sky. Her act of reciprocating is by carving her feelings into a beetle leaf and tossing it into his realm and it simply floats to the ground, scaling levels of consciousness before it lands near him for him to pick up and realize she has acknowledged his love.
In reverse cases beautiful princesses have been described as being shy and coy in their bridal finery as they were visited by a passing Gandharva who fell to their mortal charm and beauty. Having spent tender moments with him through the night, she awaits his presence in her chamber every night hoping to translate this into a mortal/celestial wedlock.
In other references hybrids have been given a special place in religious scriptures across religions like Hinduism, Christianity, Egyptian, Greek and Assyrian to name a few. Cupids play an important role and so does the sphinx. Hanuman and Garuda belong to this hybrid world and come with supreme human and spiritual qualities.
So what makes these mystical creatures so important and why are they referenced in such vast scale? This for now at least solves our question about their existence and the level of consciousness they belong to. Indian temples across all styles of architecture - Dravida, Nagara, Vesara and Bhumija, have made it a point to elaborately sculpt the exteriors of temple walls with these celestial beings. The various levels of the temple walls indicate the various strata of consciousness. The bottom belongs to animals and is by far most insignificant followed by mortals, kings men and depiction of regular life. This is followed by intellects(Sages) and river goddesses who occupy the brackets of various pillars. Celestials are mostly used as space fillers around the main iconographical deity housed within these niches. The great Gods occupy the center in all the niches with the celestial beings flying and pouring flowers and singing over head.
With such rich depiction on our ancient temple walls, with such meticulous effort put in to motivate us and pass the knowledge forward to the coming generations, these temples stand as an open book revealing one of the greatest secrets of Hinduism - that is the value of self evolution. Why then is it so difficult for you and me to understand and appreciate this, realizing this truth and wanting to be a part of it? We currently stay happily sucked into our realm of worldly role play!
We need to care to step into this real world that we call imagination, and as the Vishnudharmottara indicates that it takes imagination or divya drishti to catch these sparks of enlightened experience, we need to realize the true potential of the mind. What a completely different world it will be if we were able to see celestials flying across our skies in all their purity, dancing and singing, dressed in flowers and celestial ornaments, draped in clothes that glowed in their brilliance like a hundred suns together, emitting light beyond our imagination and descending to have a conversation with us in a divine telepathic language where sound has a different meaning altogether. And at the end they fly away leaving no trace of a shadow or a foot print behind.
What miserable state of worldly blindness are we in that we complete do not tune our minds into this frequency. This is just a hint to indicate that the world we belong to is so vastly different from the world our mind is capable if tuning into to achieve greater heights of spiritual evolution. The world of the celestials is one such example of magic, mysticism and superior power we can hope to achieve if we contemplate hard enough to discover this world our forefathers left for us to discover.
