English
Thus in the Upaniahad of the Ckdnddgya it is written, 'As water wets not the leaf of the lotus, so sin touches not him who knows God ; as the floss on the carding-comb cast into the fire is con- sumed, so are his sins burnt away.' Thus again it is said, ^ All 92 HIGHEST LIBERATION. sins depart from him ; * and again, ' The heart's knot is broken^ all doubts are split, and his works perish, when he has seen the Supreme Being *.' For indeed, my friend, we are not ignorant any more than yourselves, that neither sin, which is of passion and darkness, nor any earthly act, which must be of imperfect goodness, can abide in the heart and consciousness of him who has looked upon the xmveiled being of the blessed and indivisible ; but rather such things are burnt away by gazing on that heavenly presence, as alloy is purged by fire out of gold. Only perhaps the consequences of past sins may remain even with pure knowledge for a little time in life, as a wheel continues turning from some former impulse even after the hand which turned it is removed. But at least, when liberated from the body, the soul of one who has attained such blessedness of knowledge goes straight by the shortest way, whether it be, as some hold, through the solar rays and the realm of fire, to the abode of the Gods, and from thence, being helped at each stage by the presiding dei- ties who for that object chiefly dwell at convenient distances, it is conducted, like a faint person by a guide, until it enters the realm of Indra, and thence attains the very abode of Prajdpati, who is no other than pure Brahm— or even if the path of spirit should be in any respect different from that which our sacred books have presented to the imagination in wise parables — still in any case the soul which has never prostrated itself in worship to any meaner or more earthly being, but gazed steadfastly with the eye of devout knowledge upon That ineffable, which is without stain as it is without duality, goes straight whatever may be the shortest way, to reunion with the pure and divinest being of Brahm, and having been long ago freed from every trammel, or impression, or personality, is restored to Oneness, becoming therein not a thinker, but thought; not omniscient, but om- niscience ; not joyftil, but very joy. Not indeed that I myself. * These striking passages are quoted in Colebrooke*s Enay$, Vol. I. ' On the Yed^ta.' TRANSMIGRATION. 93 my friend, (would that it were so !) profess to have attained as yet the certainty of this blessedness, but rather shall count myself happy if I gain possession of the lower liberation which belongs to the humbler feelers after immortality. Yet the im- pediment alike to greater achievement by myself, and which prevents so many men from even thinking of these things, or suspecting their own glorious capacities, resides chiefly in that which we have already spoken of as the first when we began with the outer world, but which now having begun with That ineffable, we shall inversely and less properly call the fourth, namely, Mdyd : for the human soul, being cased in a body, as in a succession of sheaths, the first of which is intellectual or apprehensive, and the second affectionate or capable of joy and grief, and the third merely psychic or vital, unites itself with these so as to form a personality, and thus individualises itself in isolation from the supreme soul ; therefore also in its many passages from life to life the unhappy soul of man carries with it this subtle body above spoken of, and thereby is constituted what we call a person, being subject to many pains and be- reavements, as well as necessities of sinning, each of whic^ in turn entails, by the ri^teous decree of the Gods, a necessity of also ii£Fering; so that for many ages, to which I dare not ascribe either beginning or ending, it is possible for a wretched soul, thus carrying with it that subtle body which makes it a person, to be bom in various stages of less or more degradation, as well as between each birth renewed to undergo whatever scourges the invisible Justicers may inflict. But besides this subtle body is also the grosser frame, which perhaps the very ignorant or animal among men would consider as our true body, by which men feed and grow, and do all things animal, whether seemly or unseemly. Of course it is evident that of such bodies as this outer frame, one soul may inhabit many in turns, being bom either among the bmtes, if it has so deserved, or again in the human form among MIechhas or Ch4nd&las, if it be somewhat better; or again, among those races which have not fallen so far from the 94 DEITY AND WORLD. Divinity, and whose bodily frame is somewhat less coarse, and affects less injuriously the operations of the soul. We need not then wonder if any particular soul, being incased in so many sheaths, becomes obscured so as to bum dimly; or if, in its ignorance, it converts the impressions, whether dreams, or pic- tures, or shadows, or by whatever name you please to call them, of the outer world, into substantial realities, thereby creating what some men absurdly call matter, fancying perhaps that the primeval Spirit is inferior to Pracriti ; or even dreading, with the Ch&rv^U^as, lest, consisting itself of mere material atoms com- bined, it may perish, when the grossest and most external of all its bodies is dissolved. Such and so great may be the ignorance of any particular soul ; and the ignorances of all human souls together compose, as it were, what they call the world, out of Mdyd; whereas the world is really, if you can apprehend it, only the body of Brahmd ; that is to say, it is the aggregate of ap- pearances, which He, the Creator, the Lord, and the Omniscient, has thrown around Himself as the embodiment of His thought, and even associated Himself therein, as intelligence, with all the forms of organisation. Supposing, therefore, any one chooses to call what some persons call matter by the more philosophical term of ignorance, I see no objection to such a mode of desig- nating it. Perhaps also now you begin to xmderstand with what meaning I declared the world to be created in part by intellect and in part by ignorance. Just as it was the heat contained in the iron which burnt, so it is inteUect expressing and embodying itself in appearance which creates ; or in other words, that which is truly creative is either Brahm, or partakes of Brahm ; yet as man might affinn, the heated iroi buL, so it may be asLted that ignorance, that is, what some call matter, being impregnated, or more correctly it should be said animated, by intellect, bodies forth the world; and here you will no longer doubt that you have together the body and the soul of Brahmd the Creator; nor will I run the risk of confrising you, as perhaps I might do by many distinctions, if I paused to explain nicely how, as the CONCEPTIONS OP SOUL. 95 human soul has four sheaths of body, so the Creator also has ▼arious bodies, more or less subtle or gross ; [and indeed some wise men represent four forms of intellect, all distinguishable from Majd, namely^ the feeble in each man (jyrdfna), and the collectiye in all humanity {vaiswdnara), and the divine intellect pervading creation {Ghaitanya^ as Iswara) and then the Fourth, which is That unutterable One, nor do I say that such is not the most correct distinction ;] but it is now clear to you in what sense ignorance as well as intellect creates the world." " I have been humbly and sincerely endeavouring," here said Blanoombe, ''to understand you; but I fear that the partition wall is not yet broken down between the British and the EUndd intellect, or else perhaps you use the word ignorance in a some- what di£ferent sense from any we are accustomed to, such as possibly putting an active substantive for a passive verbal, and by the term unknowingness meaning rather what we should call nnknown.