COSMOLOGY
Hindu and Tibetan Traditions haven't lost their cosmology.  They have numerous deities and realms.  When you die, if you have not realized the Self, you will go to the ancestors unless you have come to know a Deity of a higher or inner realm.  With the mantra for that Deity, you can get into that realm.  Seek out a teacher.

You have to acclimatize yourself to the higher bhumikas (worlds), have higher thoughts and become noble.  If the Kingdom of Heaven is within me, I should go within and perceive it.  Otherwise, it is such a predicament: all things have come out of me, yet I cling to objects.  But here is the trick of nonattachment: the object came out of me, starting as my own knowledge/idea; so why should I stress so much about the physical manifestation of it?  Let it be.

People lose their connection to Truth when they lose their cosmology.  Study of cosmology is necessary.  You have to connect your physical reality to the deities (sense of smell to the deity of the earth; sense of taste to the deity of water; sense of sight to the deity of the sun, etc.).  Deity yoga, or upasana, is very important.  So begin to comprehend again the import of a cosmology, and follow that trail of bread crumbs back to your Source.  Everyone rues hearing of a culture that has lost its cosmology.  And here in America we had none to begin with...which is why we find ourselves in the godless state we are presently in.  So transplant one out of your own fertile mind, and use it to connect the self to the Self.

A Seer makes a connection between inner life and external life.  People need to make sense of cosmology, whether they are nondualists or dualists.

• Creation - Lord Brahma - Waking state - Immanent World
• Preservation - Lord Vishnu - Dream State - Transcendent World
• Destruction - Lord Shiva - Sleep State - Absolute/Causal World

Cosmology is very important to connect you back to your Source.  Everything is soluble into Brahman.  When you chant or articulate the Word, Om, that Reality comes forth within your consciousness and you get a taste of your true nature.  This is how powerful the Word is -- or we should allow it to be.  Go ahead and allow it to be powerful.

What are the three worlds?
Immanent (gross): objects, senses, and our preoccupation with them.
Transcendent (subtle): the inner realms of mind.  This is where you "crush the stars to atoms," like when you enter dream and then deep sleep.
Absolute (causal): where objects, senses, and mind are naturally unmanifest, dissolved but free of destruction.

The mind in maya and the mind in laya are two different things.  The mind in maya believes name and form is real and can fulfill you.  The mind in laya (dissolution) sees the unreality of objects.  That the world is "unreal" doesn't mean that it is illusory, like water in a mirage, but that it is changing and ultimately unfulfilling.  We shouldn't dismiss it out of hand, but we can dismiss it out of mind and be free.

If you ask the Vedantist what came first, the chicken or the egg?, he will say "neither; the thoughts 'chicken' and 'egg' preceded the objects 'chicken' and 'egg.'"  Relative to this, if you come into this life and come to believe that you are the result of a sperm's union with an egg, you are a materialist.  Materialists don't have awareness of the subtle causes for physical things, causes such as mind, senses, prana, desire, karma, etc.  Of course, if you ask the Advaitist which came first, the chicken or the egg, he will say, "There is no beginning or end to anything; all is nonoriginated."

You don't need a particle accelerating or de-accelerating machine to know about these subtler particles (causes); your own mind is that machine, and it does this all in the waking, dream and deep sleep states every twenty-four hours.  But we need to engage this process consciously.  The yogi practices projection and withdrawal consciously.  First he gets control of the senses, and then prana, and then mind.

If you haven't connected smell to earth, taste to water, sight to fire, touch to air, hearing to ether/space, then you aren't a yogi.  You are living a random life.  The elements are one thing, senses are another.