English
It is in the treatment of dreamless sleep OggfrrO the third stage of the soul, that there is the total extinction of the empirical life along with the dis¬ tinction of subject and object. This does not, however, amount to an extinction of consciousness as well; for, such a supposition is directly negatived by the remembrance of peaceful repose of such sleep on waking ( ). This fact of remembrance unmistakably proves the direct experi¬ ence or perception of such a repose by the self during *jwn MW Com. on V.S., III. 2. iv. i?BOM AUTHOBITif TO FREEDOM 91 dreamless sleep; for memory can be only of a past presentation. This conclusion has however been contested on the ground that it is not a case of bona fide recollection of a past perceived state, but is a case of inference, pure and simple. What we know (here by inference) is not a presentation or consciousness of nothing determinate or particular, but only the absence of knowledge and the perpetual wear and tear of the waking and, to some extent, of the dreaming life as w'ell, in deep sleep. Thus, on waking we have the memory of the state before we retired to sleep and have perception of the state after the sleep—by comparing which we infer the absence of knowledge and other attendant distrac¬ tions of the self during the ad interim period of deep sleep. Samkara rejects this explanation as illogical and unscientific. Inference is impossible, so it is argued, in a case like this which is unique of its kind and the exemplar of itself; for, all inference is possible only on the basis of observed facts, and thus we can infer nothing the like of which was never presented in our experience. But, then, if it be argued that the absence of all determinate knowledge during deep sleep being, after all, a negative concept cannot be presented but has got to be inferred, Samkara would meet the argument by saying that you cannot infer the * ‘ absence ’ ’ in question unless you can conceive it, and to be able to conceive you must have a prior perception thereof. Thus the absence of knowledge cannot be referred to, or even mentioned excepting so far as there is a direct consciousness of it during such absence. 92 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA Now that the persistence of self in dreamless sleep is established, the question that crops up is : ‘ What is the nature of the self in that state? ’ Sarokara answers the query by quoting a 3ruti text which holds that the soul, when in deep sleep and not dreaming dwells in these, i.e., nadis or veins; eventually the soul becomes one with the vital principle (wnri*,). The text does not hereby stand committed to the doctrine of ‘ subconscious mind ’ or of organic memory as maintaining the continuity of mental life, or of consciousness as being the by¬ product of physiological processes. All these con¬ jectures are nipped in the bud by Samkara’s assur¬ ance, and that on the authority of the relevant Yedanta-sutra itself, that the word prana is the equivalent or synonym of Brahman or the Absolute. But there is no denying the fact that the text in question is bent upon assigning the physiological seat of such union of the soul with Brahman. It compares, not unfavourably, with the desperate attempts made by Western philosophers to locate the soul—some in the heart, some in the brain, some in the pineal gland, and so on. What the net result of such localisation is, or what service it renders to the cause of psychology, these thinkers do not stop to inquire. Samkara, however, has not thought it worth his while to waste his ingenuity over questions of this kind, inasmuch as they were found to subserve no scientific interest whatsoever.* * *r f% n*r. gfm* firfai ira'lvmfti —Com. on V.S., ID. 2. vii. RROM AUTHORITY TO FREEDOM 93 What is of psychological as well as metaphysical importance is the recognition of dreamless sleep as the plane of Atman which alone is waking reality The outstanding characteristic of the self in that state is the sublation of all deter¬ minate knowledge (fajfafiniT’ita + and thus the soul seems to regain that original purity and self-sufficiency from which there was a temporary lapse owing to its association with limiting adjuncts of the waking and dreaming life.J Freed from all limitations the soul realises its one¬ ness with Brahman who is undilferenced conscious¬ ness and bliss; and thus shines like Kant’s ‘ Good Will,’ that has its whole value and raison .d’etre in itself. The concept of bliss that we come across in the third state is at best negative; hence the necessity of the Turiya or the fourth state of the soul, which is supposed to be positive bliss itself. Although, there is in dreamless sleep (^fn; ) the, absence of all determinate knowledge, the self persists as subject to witness or illumine this absence itself, this blank or nothing; in the ecstatic con¬ sciousness, however, it breaks through the last vestige of subject-object consciousness and becomes the absolute—a state of which it can truly be said : g AST qf i.e., * Ibid. t Ibid. t wywwram qp Ibid. 94 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA ‘ when, however, all melt into one Atman, who knows what?’ The points raised in connection with the status of the self in dream and dreamless sleep, afford instructive comparison with the corresponding doctrines of certain typical thinkers in the West. Kant, for example, starts in his epistemological analysis with a sense-manifold, as Samkara does with sense-contact (fcqitfigtrehiitar:). It is only when such manifold has been furnished by sensibility that the activity and spontaneity of the soul can be as¬ certained in the synthesis of the manifold, which alone can convert such manifold into the texture of knowledge. The ‘ transcendental unity of apper¬ ception ’ which, according to Kant, accompanies all our representations in the form of ‘ I think,’ appears only as the epistemological correlate of the object—a penumbra or shadowy image of the object. With all his emphasis on the subjective side, Kant could not, it must be admitted, secure an indepen¬ dent status for the self. It might be contended, however, that the self or subject in the Kantian analysis of the epistemological situation is only a thought or logical concept merely, and to present it as an entity or soul-substance is a ‘ Paralogism of Pure Reason.’ When all is said and done, it must be admitted that Kant left it in an unstable equili¬ brium, and, therefore, an advance beyond him was inevitable. The transcendental Unity of Apper¬ ception was thus seized on its metaphysical side by Fichte, not as a fact but as an act (Thathandluny) and by the semi-Kantians and Neo-Kantians of the PROM AUTHORITY TO FREEDOM 95 Marburg school on the psychological side and presented as pure activity, gainkara too has more or less in the manner of Kant presented the self as the unity of the ego or as the correlate of every specific act of cogniti This trend of thought is more fully brought out in another famous context* which runs thus : ‘ ‘ The repetition ‘ to a presentation ’ ‘ to a presentation ’ signifies its (i.e., of the Atman) inter-penetration of all presentations...The inward self which is revealed as the manifesting agent of all determinate acts of cognition is the Brahman —that is truth, that is adequate knowledge, which is the knowledge of the inward self, not the knowledge of the object.”t The standing difficulty in the way of our apprehend¬ ing this pure self-manifest chaitanyam is the halting superstition that knowledge is produced by sensa¬ tions. In dreamless sleep it, of course, reveals itself in its essential nature as self-manifest ( ). The place of dreamless sleep in a metaphysical rendering of experience probably appeared too slippery a ground for Kant, and so he preferred to stick to his transcendental Unity of Apperception—the ‘ dark lantern 1 that illumines the whole world except itself. Such a pure manifestation of the self is con¬ fessedly 'at variance with the Hegelian point of * Com. on Kena Upanisad, II. 4. t . Hfn vW jrfk Tfo #Nrr qdumnwmul i — wflwtaiwre- OwftWH i 96 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA view, according to which all empirical manifestation is not a meaningless contingency, but a necessary phase in the self-revelation of the Absolute Spirit. The Absolute Spirit is not a pure analytic unity of consciousness, in relation to which all synthetic determination is contingent, but is an Analytico- Synthetic unity into which difference necessarily enters. Hence in the characteristic language of Hegel all empirical and synthetic determination is only the analytic explication of its idea—its self¬ evolution and self-explication. Samkara does indeed recognise the inherent psychological difficulty of grasping the status of pure Self. ‘ The self fin dreamless sleep),’ says Samkara, ‘ appears as un¬ conscious, not on account of the absence of con¬ sciousness, but of the objects of consciousness; just as the light pervading space is not apparent owing to the absence of things to be illuminated, not owing to the lapse of its nature.’* But he does not attempt to get over the difficulty by cutting the Gordian knot instead of untying it. The characteristic of ‘ absence of contradic¬ tion ’ ( *rcrre:, ) is, however, less psy¬ chological and more distinctly epistemological. No prima facie case can be made out against dreams that they are wholly illusory or are figments of imagination merely. Bach is true within itself rarom wwwwwliwfliA wwwi toi —Com. on V.S., II. 3 . xviii. FROM AUTHORITY TO FREEDOM 97 tefag ft sfa **§? and each of the dreaming and waking worlds is unreal only in relation to a beyond.