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152 false notions of the personal sentiency and of the world of phenomena are sublated, one's own Self ( i. e. the highest Self) alone remains behind. ( 12 ) The sublation ( ura ) of the first two ( Jagat, Jiva ) does not consist in our not being conscious of them, but in the certain knowledge of their unreali- ty (13); S'lid 'the remaining behind of the highest Self’ means the certain knowledge, the firm conviction of Its reality ; not the entire forget- fulness of the world of experience ( 14 ), (as in the state of dreamless sleep or in a fainting fit). Such knowledge is called ( ) intuitive knowledge ( 16 ). For acquiring this knowledge the real nature of Self is examined. Because by this true knowledge, one is at once freed from all further transmigration, and attains the final beatitude.’ (17). In the Chhdndogya Upanishad ( VIII, 7,1 )’ it is declared that ‘( eTTciTT ) the Self which is free from evil, undecaying, undying, free from sorrow, &c., that is what is to be sought after, and must be under- stood. One who has sought after this Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and all desires.’ (See also Br. S. IV, 1,1 ). Of what nature the sublation or so-called an- nihilation of Jiva- Jagat the apparent world is 2 The actual annihilation of this whole existing world, with all its animated bodies and all its elementary sub- stances, is impossible for any one, and is not meant. What is meant is this: — The phenomenal world is super-imposed upon Brahman by Nescience, which 1. The ChhAndogya Upanithad, with S'ankara’s commentary is translated into English by Mr. Oang&n&tha Jhft, M. A., F. T. S., 153 should be sublated by the knowledge of Brahman, such as, ‘ Brahman is one, without a second,’ ‘ It is the true, It is the Self.’ (ChMndo. Up. "VI, 2, 1; 8, 7. ) As soon as Brahman is indicated in this way, knowledge arising of itself discards Nescience, and this whole world of names and forms, which had been hiding Brahman from us, melts away like the imagery of a dream ; just as the pointing out of the true nature of the rope has for its imme- diate result the cognition of the true nature of the rope, and the dissolution of the appearance of a snake or the like. And what is done once need not be done again. ^ It may be remarked here once for all that this subject being most sublime, difficult, and unfamiliar, what is to be said has been, and is, and will be repeated in various ways so as to secure intelligibility. The Nature of the Individual Soul or Jiva- The Vedllnta assrimes, as has been mentioned at the outset, that (^) the pei’sonal transmigrating sentiency, man, is a combination of the following: — ( 1 ) Intelligence, Brahman, ( ) as the substrate ( in Which is surmised ( 2 ) the subtle body and ( 3 ) the reflexion of Intelligence (f^TS^BIT) upon this subtle body.^ Or ( 1 ) ( ) the Self, which is internal to (i. €. the witness of) that complex whole body, and which shines forth in its own light, { 2 ) ( ^<01 ) the internal organ with the reflexion of the 1. See the Brahtna-SiUras, III, 2, 21. 2. See the Panchada$% Dvaitaviveka, IV., 11. 154 Self, and ( 3 ) the body, all these are called ( ifN") ‘I’, man, individual soul.^ Or, ( ) Jiva, man, is a complex being, a com- pound creature, consisting of (t) the Spirit, the im- mortal part, ( 2 ) the Soul, the animal or sensitive part, ( 3 ) the body, the earthly or mortal part. The rays of the primal unity, Atman, are deflected by the above (f^) trichotomy. Thus the aggregate of man consists of the physical part, viz., ( ) the body, sense- organs and mind, and ( antin’ ) the spiritual part, the Self, whose true nature is existence-intelligence- joy. The former is always changing and mortal; the latter unchanging and immortal, eternal. The former hides the true nature of the latter, whose specific qualities become non-apparent by the contact, just as the true nature of gold becomes hidden by quick-silver. But A the true nature of the Atman and the gold becomes manifest when they are cleansed by knowledge and fire respectively. The immortal spiritual part, Atman, is ( ) the substratum on which man’s Nescience has super- imposed adjuncts, the mortal physical part. 2 This Upddhi is also divided into three bodies and three states veiling the Self. By the removal of the veil of the Upddhi super-imposed by Avidyd, — Nes- cience, the Self is revealed. 1. The Panchadas'i, Mahav&kyaviveka, V., 7. 2. Or, we may liken the two constituents of man, — the phy- sical one to a harp, and the other to the breeze, ‘ at once the soul 155 The Three Bodies and Four States of Man. The following brilliant resume from (^ankara’s Tattvabodha — 'Awakening to Reality’ — will elucidate the above idea more clearly and intelligibly to the reader. Man is represented as a prismatic trinity, veil- ing and looked through by ( STcJnTTrffl ) a primordial unity of light — ( 1 ) gross outward body ( or ) (2) subtle internal body or soul ( or ); (3) a being neither body nor soul, but absolute self-forgetfulness, called the cause-body ( or ), because it is the original sin of ignorance of his true nature ( Self ) which precipitates him from the spirit into the life-condition. These thi’ee bodies, existing in the waking, dreaming, sleeping states, are all known, witnessed, and watched by the spirit (sTTrJTT, Atman) which standeth behind and apart from them, in the unwinking vigilance of ecstasy or S]:irit-waking. "There are four spheres of existence, one enfold- ing the other — (1 ) the inmost sphere of Turiyd, in which the individualized spirit lives the ecstatic life; (2) the sphere of transition, or Lethe-(g^f^^ Sushujpti, in which the spii'it, plunged in the ocean of (^njTSl) Ajnnna, or total unconscious- ness, and utterly forgetting its real self, under- goes a change of gnostic tendency; and from not knowing at all, or absolute unconsciousness, emerges on the hither side of the Lethean boundary to a false or reversed knowledge of things ( ), under the influence of an illusive ( ) Prajnd, or belief in, and tendency to, knowledge outward from 156 itself, in which delusion it thoroughly believes, and now endeavours to realize; whereas the true know- ledge, which it had in the state of Turiyd, or the ecstatic life, was all within itself, in which it intui- tively knew and experienced all ( real ) things. And from the sphere of Prajtid, or out-knowing, — this struggle to reach and recover, outside itself, all that it once possessed, within itself, and lost, — to regain for the lost intuition an objective perception through the senses and understanding, — in which the spirit became an intelligence, — it merges into the third sphere, which is (3) the sphere of dreams ( svapna ), where it believes in a universe of light and shade, and where all existence is in the way of ( STTflra' ) Abhdsa, or phantasm. There it imagines itself into the Linga Deha { m ) ( Psyche ), or subtle, semi-material, ethereal soul... From this subtle personification and phantasmal sphere, in due time, it progresses into the fourth or outermost sphere, (4) where matter and sense are triumphant ; where the universe is believed a solid reality; where all things exist in the mode of ( ) Ahdra, or substantial form ; and where that which successively forgot itself from spirit into absolute unconsciousness, and awoke on this side of that boundary of oblivion into an intelligence strug- gling outward, and from this outward struggling, intelligence imagined itself into a conscious, feeling, breathing nervous soul, prepared for further cloth- ing, now out- realizes itself from soul into a body... “The first or spiritual state was ecstasy ; from ecstasy it forgot itself into deep sleep ; from pro- 157 found sleep it awoke out of unconsciousness, but still within itself, into the internal world of dreams ; from dreaming it passed finally into a thoroughly waking state, and the outer world of sense." ^ It will be evident from this that the primeval veil of (arf^Hr) Nescience is at the bottom of all false or reversed knowledge, which is the source of all the misery and suffering that man undergoes. The VedS-nta knowledge ( ) removes Nescience, and then the knowledge arises of the true nature of the Self as free from all wants, raised above the distinctions of caste and creed and outward cir- cumstances, transcending transmigratory existence. Thus Atman (aTTrtni,), the Self, is a far more abstract name than the soul. It has no predicate except existence — immortal existence, knowledge and bliss. As the sun is distinct from the earth which it A fills with life, light and warmth, so the Atman,t\iQ Self, is distinct from the body which It fills with existence, intelligence and happiness. Atman is the essence of man and nature as well as of God. When it is spoken of in relation to God, It is called Para- mdtman, the Highest Self. When the same is objectively seen in nature It is called ( ) the Universal Self. When subjectively perceived in the soul of man. It is called ( sir^FTTcJIT ) the inward or Interior Self. It is ( ) Self-evident. To borrow poetical language, the soul is different from the body, yet closely allied to it. What the 1. Quoted by G. E. S. Mead, B. A., from “ The Dublin University Magazine ” of 1853-54, in his Preface to Select Works ofPhtiwm. Bohn’s Philosophical Library.” Page xxv. 14 158 fragrance is to the flower, or what the oil is to the oil-seed, or what butter is to the milk, the Self is to the body. It is a common law of nature that all things which participate in anything which is common to them all move towards that which is of the same kind with themselves, when the hindrance is re- moved.