Vashishtha Maharishi tells Sri Rama about the deep state of reality which is unchanging and majestic. Then, how from this truth can come this world of changing names and forms? He replies saying that the creation we see of five elements is nothing other than that very life force called the self. It only appears as if it is different and reaches a state of existence as a mountain, river, ocean, sky, fire, air, animal, fish, tree, plant or human. It is only an appearance and not the truth.
Modern day science, particularly quantum physics, has arrived at an explanation of this phenomenon with respect to the world. We can take the sunlight, for instance. What we see as the sun and its light that is evenly diffused around us are not two different things. They only appear to be different. They are one and the same.
In the same way the life in me, in you, in the plant, the tree or the animal appears to be different. It is in reality made of one same material called prana or molecules of energy. In a condensed state, it appears to be an object, in its expanded state, it is present formlessly everywhere. The divine consciousness appears to be as if it is consciousness and matter separately.
Once seeming to appear different, by constant contemplation, the same consciousness grossifies and is born as a physical body. This can be easily understood with the example of our thoughts. Take for instance a particular desire. There is no desire in my mind at a particular point of time and so I am free and not tormented by any thought. Then I see the picture of an ice cream or I see someone eating an ice cream. That thought along with the feeling of coolness enters my mind through the eyes and the sense of taste.
I put some energy into that thought of I plus ice cream. The I and ice cream thoughts fuse together in consciousness and it becomes stronger. After this marriage of I and the object in my mind, I cannot sit quietly. That very same thought which was stable has now become restless. It sends waves of agitations all around and I get up. I intensely wish deeply, even without my awareness that someone should bring me an ice cream or that I go to the shop and buy it or order one over the phone.
From no thought, the ice cream thought came. Life force was added to it and it turned into an intense feeling. That intense feeling gave an individual existence to the thought, endowed with life. Once that individual entity is born, it gains for itself the pressure to go after the object and bring it close to the person who wished for it. When this too is accomplished, I constantly contemplate upon the ice cream—wishing for it, praying for it, adoring it, visualising and fantasising about it and that thought eventually becomes gross and an ice cream is actually there in my hand.
While modern western world new age books advise people to go after their desires and manifest them, our Vedas show the path to achieve desires but constantly keep warning us that it is a distraction on the path.