CHAPTER XII.

THE DVANDVAM— THE RELATIVE (continued).
(C. — «.) SHAKTI-ENERGY AND NEGATION — AS THE CONDITION OF THE INTER-PLAY BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE NOT-SELF.
In the last chapter we dealt with the affirma- tive aspect of the Negation, as the energy which links together in an endless chain of causality the factors of the succession of the world- process, as the necessity of the whole which appears as the cause of each part, the relation of cause and effect between all the parts. We turn now to the negative aspect of the Negation, wherein it appears as the condition, or conditions, of the interplay between the Self and the Not- Self, the conditions in which the succession of the factors of the world-process appears and takes place.
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aspects of the same thing. A cause may be said to be a positive condition, and a condition a negative cause.
Let not the objection be taken here that we are transporting, by an anachronism, the notions of our life at the present day to a primal stage wherein pure ultimates and subtle undeveloped essentials of the universe only should be dis- cussed. It has been pointed out over and over again that there is no gradation, no development in time, from the abstract to the concrete. The two underlie and overlie one another and are co-existent. And even were it otherwise, that which appears in development must have been in the seed all along. The world-process is in and is the Absolute. Metaphysic only endea- vours to trace each abstract and concrete fact of our life, taking it, as it stands before us, back into its proper place in the Absolute, in the changeless whole, and so freeing us from the night-mare of change. Therefore taking the words ' cause ' and ' condition ' in the sense in which we find them used to-day, we may legiti- mately try to show that these senses correspond to aspects of the ultimates.
We find, then, as just said, that a cause and a condition may be regarded as the positive and the negative aspects of whatever is required to bring about an event. Other ways
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of looking at them are to regard causes as persisting conditions, and conditions as co-exist- ing causes ; or to say that causes are conditions which cease to exist when the effect begins to exist, and that conditions are causes which persist throughout the existence of the effect as well as before and after ; and so on. Looked at from the standpoint of the Absolute, inas- much as everything is necessarily connected with everything else, and the whole only is the source of each part, all these various ways of describing cause and condition resolve them- selves into merely various ways of describing the different relations, all equally necessary, of facts, or parts, to each other. Out of these various ways we have the many distinctions between final cause, efficient cause, material cause, formal cause, instrumental cause, movement or action, motive, &c., in western philosophy ; and between ftrfto, nimitta, WHlfa or ^qflfR, sama- vayi or upadana, *ra*nnfzr, asamavayi, ^cjrrft, sahakari, ^raniTT^f^Tfinr °r ^3^* asadharana- nimitta or amukhya, 3^3, uddeshya, cufrr, karta, fain, kriya, SRT^, karya, mforrf, prayojana, etc., with their divisions and sub-divisions, in the eastern systems.
The one common characteristic of cause, running throughout all these, is that which is given by the old Nayyayikas : that " which
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being, the effect becomes, and, which not being, the effect does not become,"1 the principle of concomitant variations, in short, as called in western philosophy. The first half represents the positive aspect, the one true universal cause, corresponding to the Self, the affirmation, the Shakti element of the Negation ; and the second half the negative aspect, the one true universal condition, corresponding to the Not-Self, the denial, the negative element of the Negation ; whereas all other so-called particular causes or conditions are in reality only so many effects, which have taken on a false appearance of cause or condition by reflection — in the succession of the world-process — of the true universal neces- sity which makes each particular a necessary fact, and so a cause and a condition, with refer- ence to all other particulars ; that is to say, makes each particular appear as the necessary effect of preceding, and the necessary cause of succeeding, particulars, in an endless and un- breakable chain, the whole of which chain, however, is only one effect which is identical with its one cause, the necessity of the Absolute.
We thus see that the Self or spirit and the Not-Self or matter are, neither of them, either cause or effect ; but that the changes of cogni-
1 Bhimacharya. Nydyaskosha. P. 197. Article karanam, cause.
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tion, desire and action, and of qualities, sub- stance, and movement, of which they are the forum or substratum, are causes or conditions, and effects or results, of one another in turn, and that the totality of these changes, being regarded as one effect and result, has for one cause the Shakti-energy, and for one condition the Negation, embodied in the third factor of the Absolute.
This Shakti-energy, we have seen, has three aspects : attraction, repulsion, and rhythmic alternation or revolution — or creation, preserva- tion, and destruction. The Negation proper has also three aspects : ^51, desha, space, WR?, kala, time, and ^ni«T, ayana, motion. These are the triple gunas, or aspects, of the Negation, in the same way as sat-chid- ananda and sattva-rajas-tamas are the gunas of Pratyag-atm& and Mula-prakriti respectively. The Negation, with respect to the one limitless Self, in whose consciousness the Not-Self, the endless many, are co-existent, is negation every- where, is the utter blankness of pseudo-infinite and kutastha-seeming space. The Negation, with respect to the Not-Self, the pseudo-infinite many, which find themselves realised in that consciousness turn by turn, is negation in succession, is pseudo-infinite and flowing time. The Negation with respect to Negation, is the
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endeavour to affirm, to justify, the consciousness of the inseparable connection between Self and Not-Self everywhere and always ; this can be done only in and by means of an endless motion, which is the one way to encompass all space and time — motion, in and by which only space and time are joined together and realised, even as the Self and the Not-Self are realised in and by the Negation.
Let us dwell for a moment on the fact that space, time and motion are the gunas, the qualities, of the Negation. We see readily, on even slight reflection, that space and time are mere emptinesses, vacua, which may appro- priately be regarded as phases of the Na, the Not, the naught. Motion presents a little more difficulty. We seem to feel that it is some- thing positive. Yet this is due only to the fact that we are thinking more of the moving thing than of its motion. Let us try to think of motion as separate from the moving thing, even as we think of space and time as separate from, extended or enduring things, and we shall see at once that it is as much an emptiness as the latter ; indeed is nothing else than an emptiness which combines in itself the empti- nesses of the other two, since we know space and time only by motion. It is thus doubly empty. Space seems, time seems, to leave a
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trace behind. More, we feel as if space is, there, always, before us ; we feel that even time is, there, always. We speak of even the past and the future as if they were something positive, something recoverable, something contained, locked away, in the present which we hold in our hands. But motion ? — it is gone and has left no trace ; lines traced on running water. Of course the moving or the moved thing may remain, but that is not motion, any more than it is space or time. Motion, then, is verily the most negative of negations.
Another point. Space, time, and motion have been shown here as corresponding to Self, Not-Self and Negation respectively. But too much stress should not be laid on, nor too much precision expected in, these corres- pondences. Where everything is connected with everything, the distinguishing of such correspondences can only mean that certain facts, as viewed from a certain standpoint, are seen to be more specially in connection with each other than with others. Change the standpoint slightly, and new connections are thrown into relief and old ones retire into the shade. This is seen to be the case more and more as we proceed from the simple to the complex. In the very instance now before us> for example, with reference to the fact that the
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Negation is the nexus between the Self and the Not-Self, motion may be said to correspond to Negation, as also being a nexus between space and time. But take another triplet into con- sideration now : jnana-ichchha-kriya. Here, while it may be said that the condition of chit or jfiana is space, implied in the co-existence of subject and object, knower and known, it does not seem quite fitting to say that the condition corresponding to sat or kriya is time, and to ananda or ichchha is motion. Of course it would not be altogether incorrect to say even this ; yet it seems more obvious to say that kriya corres- ponds to motion, and ichchha to time, which, in terms of consciousness, is memory of past pleasure and pain, and present expectation or wish to secure the one and avoid the other again in the future. On the other hand, we may not unjustifiably say that motion corresponds to ichchha, because ichchha implies a movement from the past through the present towards the future ; and that the succession involved in kriya is time. Or, again, we may consider the matter without inaccuracy in this manner : space is something overt, almost visible one may say ; motion is also overt, some- thing visible ; but time is hidden, it is a matter for the inner consciousness only, as ichchha is the hidden desire between an overt cognition and
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an overt action ; therefore, while space and motion may correspond with the overt Self and Not-Self, time should correspond with the hidden Negation. Arguing from the mere words also, one may say that the Self and the Not meet in the Not-Self, therefore space and time, meeting in motion, should be assigned to Self and Negation, respectively, while motion should be assigned to the Not-Self. Still again we may correctly say that time is realised only by change, i.e., motion, and motion is possible only in space, therefore space is the meeting- point of the two and so should correspond to the nexus, i.e., the Negation. And so on. We see thus that from different points of view, one and the same thing appears in different aspects. For the present, seing that motion has almost unanimously been regarded, in the east and in the west, as incorporating both space and time, we may accept the correspondence noted first, viz., that of space, time and motion, to Self, Not-Self and Negation, respectively, as the most prominent.
Let us now take up each of these three separately.
(A) SPACE.
Space is the co-existence, TT^Tftcfifl, saha-stita, , saha-bhava, of the many. It is the possi-
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bility of the co-existence of the many, and the actuality of their non-existence. The Self is one and opposed to the many at once and eternally ; hence the co-existence of the countless not- selves as well as their endless succession. The form and result of their co-existence is mutual exclusion, which produces the duality of ' side by side,' 'one beside another,' with the inter- vening space ' between,' as the completing third which connects the two, one on each side. This triplicity of ' side, beside, and between,' irr*t or r^, parshva or paksha, ^TCRTir*f> °r ^H^^W apara- parshva or apara-paksha, and ^TTIT> antara, appears in space as viewed from the standpoint of the Not-Self.
Viewed from the standpoint of the Self, space may also be said to be the co-existence of the Self and the Not-Self. But the co-existence of these two is scarcely a ^-existence. Such co-existence can properly be ascribed only to things of the same kind and nature, on the same level, and side by side with each other ; while Self and Not-Self are opposed in nature ; the one is Being, the other is Non-Being Their co-existence is only through and in the way of the third factor, Negation ; i.e., the Not- Self does not exactly ^-exist with the Self; it rather exists in it, in its consciousness, and exists only to be denied. Hence we have
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another form, though not essentially different in nature, of spatial relations, than that described above as ' side, beside, and between.' This other form is that of ' in and out,' VJTI, antah, and ^ff: bahih, ' internal and external,' ' core and sheath,' both held together in the ' through and through,' *nhr:, sarvatah, the ' pervading,' **ITW, vyapta, the ' whole.' Thus we have another triplicity in space as with special reference to the Self. In this, again, from the standpoint of the universal Self, that Self is the enveloping space, pure, colourless, abstract, in which the etats live and move, and so it may be said to be the outer and the Not-Self the inner. It is this aspect of the Self, the Pratyag-atma, which has probably given to the Param-atma its best-known name of Brah- man, boundless immensity, from the root ^?, brih, to grow, to expand, to be vast. But from the standpoint of the individual, an aham limited by an etat, Self is the inner core and Not-Self the outer sheath.
We may distinguish another form of the triplicity of space, as with reference to the Negation, viz., ' point, radii, sphere,' f4«J, bindu, 1TO, vyasa (strictly, *qrar$, vyasardha), ift??, gola. The other triplets of words too express nothing else than emptiness and negation, but this mathematical triplet seems to be even more abstract, more empty of content, if possible ;
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hence the propriety of regarding it as arising from a view of space with special reference to Negation.
Other ways of expressing the triplicity in- volved in space may be said to be ' behind, here, before,' and ' length, breadth, and depth, which last is the best known and most commonly mentioned form of the dimensions of space.
As the mathematical kinds of motion are pseudo-infinite, as the standards and measures of time are pseudo-infinite, so the degrees and measures of space or extension are also pseudo- infinite. There are always, and ad infinitum, etats minuter than the minutest and vaster than the vastest. As minute vibrations of motion permeate grosser sweeps, as subtler standards of time permeate larger measures, so smaller sizes and dimensions permeate and pervade larger sizes and dimensions. In this sense, as with motion and time so with space, there are not only a certain number, but necessarily a pseudo-infinite number, of dimensions. Other- wise, the triplicity described above, in various triplets of words, represents the three dimensions proper of space, all other dimensions, subtler or grosser, being but permutations and com- binations of these three.
The meaning of this will appear further in connection with the pseudo-infinite ^rVcjrr:, lokah,
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i.e., planes, grades, kinds or regions of matter, each made and marked by a differently vibrating atom ; each supporting, serving as the "WTVR, adhara, the substratum, of the next so-called lower and grosser, and each supported in turn by the preceding so-called subtler and finer ; each behaving in an apparently mysterious, superphysical and space-transcending way, because of the subtler and penetrative nature of its vibrations, from the standpoint of the lower, but becoming a part of, one step of, the ordinary, familiar and ' well-understood ' scale of matter, including the lower planes, from the standpoint of the higher.
In the language of symbology, which yet seems intended to describe the literal facts of the subtler planes of matter also, this space may be regarded as meant by the garland of human heads, individual-points of consciousness and atom-points of matter, that Shiva, embodiment of the negative ichchha, ever bears upon his breast ; each head separate from the other, each side by side with another, yet all united together by the strong single thread of the desire- consciousness of mutual desire. It may also be symbolised by the dark and giant mammoth- skin that is the outer envelope of that inner God, for ichchhcl cannot manifest except in space.
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(B) TIME.
As the movement between the Self and the Not-Self is the basic principle of all motion, so the succession, "aw, krama, of this movement, of the affirmation and the negation, is the basic principle of, indeed is, time. Time is nothing else than the succession of events. It may also be described as the possibility of the succession of events, changes in the conditions of objects, and the actuality of their non- cession, non-procession, non-duration, the ever-standing witness of their non-permanence, their non-existence. That is to say, as space is emptiness which is the possibility of the co-existence of objects, which, regarded in itself and as differing from these objects, is only defined and thrown into relief by them and is not them, which, indeed, looked at thus, is their absence and their opposite ; so time is an emptiness, which is the possibility of the succession of events, is only defined and thrown into relief by those events, and is not them, but their absence and their opposite. As this succession of events, i.e., experiences, identifica- tions and separations, slackens or quickens or ceases (comparatively and apparently), so the standard of time changes ; it appears to be long or short, or even disappears altogether as
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in the case of sound slumber, before mentioned, to the individual and limited consciousness. This is verifiable by anyone in the experience of dreams, reveries, and other extraordinary or abnormal psychic conditions, as in hypnotism and trance. The same is the case with the standard of time with reference to consciousness ; quick steps make short distances, slow paces make long ones. In view of the increasing rapidity of means of transit, people speak of distances in terms of time — ' it is so many hours ' to a place — rather than in terms of space, so many hundred miles.
With reference to the Self, time may be said to present the triplicity of beginning, end, and middle ; beginning, ^rrf^ or ^TfH, adi or arambha, ie., the affirmation of the etat or its origin ; ' end,' ^JT or 4N3l«f, anta or avasana, its negation ; and the ' middle,' ^ui, madhya, which holds together both.
The constant appearance and disappearance, and disappearance and re-appearance, of each etat, necessarily due to the double necessity of being limited on the one hand, and yet being also, on the other hand, in the indissoluble relation of contact with the eternal Self, forces upon it a pseudo-eternal succession of its own, apart, as it were, from its identifications and disjunctions with the
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Self, and gives us another aspect of the same thing. This is that most current form of the trinity inherent in time, viz., ' past, present, and future,' »Jir, bhiita, ^TIT, vartamana and HfsrajiTN) bhavishyat, or ' before, now, and after,' as viewed from the standpoint of the Not-Self.
In this second aspect is contained the secret of personal inmortality in brief. Every etat, being once in touch with the eternal, must be marked with that eternity forever. There is no succession of once and twice and thrice, etc., in the Eternal; but every separate etat is under the sway of such succession, and there is a con- tradiction, an impossibility indeed, involved in the juxtaposition, the coming together and the contact, of the successionless and the successive. But the two are in contact, there, before us, all around us, irresistibly bound together by the nature of the Absolute. This antinomy of the reason is soluble only by imposing, on the successive, the false and illusive appearance of the successionless, the eternal, which simul- taneously includes all moments of time, once, every etat pseudo-eternal, for - ever - eternal, twice, thrice, first, second, third, etc., by making everlasting, in short. Therefore, every etat appears and vanishes and reappears throughout all time (i.e., in the endless consciousness of a Jiva), again and again, as a firefly in the o
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black darkness of a cloud-shut night of the rain-time in the tropics. Hence, while in one sense mukti is eternal or even timeless, having no beginning and no end, as viewed from the standpoint of the Pratyag-atma or the Param- atm& respectively, in another sense it is always beginning and always ending, from the standpoint of Mula-prakriti. In other words, the individual Jiva, viewed as identical with the Pratyag-atma, and so with the Param-atma, is never bound and never freed ; so that then it can scarcely be said even to have mukti ; as such it is above and beyond both 'faR, bandhana, bondage, and *tof moksha, liberation, indeed both are in it always rather than it in them ever. But viewed as identical with a piece of Mula-prakriti, an etat, it is always, in literally endless repetition, falling into bondage, i.e., into identification with, and voluntary imprisonment in, a body, and getting out of that bondage again into liberation, i.e., separa- tion from, and out of, that prison-house. This is why we read in the Puranas that the highest Gods and Rishis, although all muktas, still, without exception, return again and again, cycle after cycle, kalpa after kalpa, passing and repassing endlessly through the spirals, retaining, every one of them, like all other Jivas, their centres of individuality
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through the pralayas as through ordinary nights, despite the apparent loss (from the standpoint of lower planes of matter) of their defining and demarcating circumferences. But immense complications — which are indeed pseudo-infinite and therefore utterly unre- solvable and incomprehensible in their entirety by any individual within limited time and space — are introduced into this incessant evolution and involution, because of the ever- mutable and ever-changing nature of every etat.
To illustrate the reflection and re-reflection of the triplicity of the Absolute everywhere, as of a light between two mirrors, and also the changes, in correspondence with changes in points of view, we may say that in this triplet of 'past, present, and future,' yielded to us by looking at time with reference to the Not-Self, the present is the nexus, or the Na, between the past as jnana and the future as kriya ; or, again, the future may be regarded as the nexus which will connect together and reproduce both past and present ; or, the past may be thought of as having contained both the present and the future. The three are a circle, and we may start at any point in it.
Finally, time, viewed with reference to the Negation, may be said to yield the mathe-
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matical triplet of ' moment, period, and cycle,' W8, kshana, WHT, samaya, and ^T, yuga.
In symbology, time is the Kala, the ' dark,' the ' mover,' and the ' destroyer, death/ all three in one. It is pictured as the vast-sweeping Garuda that conveys, from place to place as need for giving help arises, the God of jnana, Vishnu ; Garuda, the eagle with the two all- covering wings of the past and future, whose sole food and means of maintenance are the small cycle-serpents (that, though belonging to the family of the endless Ananta, form part of the retinue of Shiva, the God of ichchha), one of whom he eats up every day of his life by ordinance of the Creator. It may also be the vana-mala, the wreath of forest-flowers, that Vishnu wears, representing the endless chain of life-moments strung together by the thread of the cognitive consciousness. And yet again, it is the thousand-hooded serpent-king, Ananta, ' without end,' Shesha, ' the ever-remaining,' who on his countless heads and coils supports with ease the divine frame of Vishnu as well as the globe of this earth, and whom alone of all the snakes the eagle Garuda is powerless to touch.
It may be noted here that the pauranic story assigns Garuda, here regarded as corresponding to time and the Not-Self, as vehicle to Vishnu,
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the God of sattva and jftana, corresponding to the Self. It similarly assigns the rosary of human heads, here said to correspond to space and the Self, to Shiva, the God of ichchha, corre- sponding to the Negation. Even more per- plexing than these, it assigns Lakshmi-shakti, the Goddess of wealth and activity, to Vishnu, and Sarasvati-shakti, the Goddess of jnana, to Brahma, the God of action. The shakti of Gauri-Kali, (white-black, affirmation and nega- tion), the Goddess of ichchha, is of course obviously assigned to Shiva, the God of destruction, and also of all ' auspiciousness ' and blessings. In the Rahasya-traya} Sarasvati is said to be the sister of Vishnu and Lakshmi the sister of Brahma ; and Vishnu takes Lakshmi in marriage and Sarasvati is given to Brahma.2 All these and similar other apparent inconsistencies may be reconciled by the consideration that while one factor of any trinity is predominant in any one individual, and is regarded as essential to that individual's being, as constituting his peculiar nature, still the other two factors are also necessarily present in or about him (otherwise
1 Ch. i. See also Nilakantha's commentary on the Devi- Bh&gavata III. 1. 85.
2 Devi-Bhdgavata. III. vi.
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his peculiar nature too could not manifest and would not be), and then they are symbolised as shaktis, vehicles, apparel, ornaments, &c.
(C) MOTION.
We have seen above how the eternal negation of the Not-Self by the Self appears as a movement, ^R?f, chalana, ffir, gati, ^R, ayana, of mergence and emergence between the two because of the limitation of the etat. The third which completes and binds together this duality of ' mergence and emergence ' f«W*5R nimajjana, and ^wi-s**!, unmajjana, may be re- garded as the ' continual recurrence ' of the process, as continual juxtaposition, tfTSR sammajjana, permeation, or jiq{*CT samsarana, procession. This movement, considered meta- physically, in the abstract, is the primary and essential principle which underlies and deter- mines all the motion that appears in the world-process, and it gives us the triplicity inherent in motion as appearing from the standpoint of the Self.
From the standpoint of the Not-Self we derive another aspect of motion. It is embodied in, and derived from, the fact that each ' this,' etat, besides the movement into and out of the Self, which it is continuously subject
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to in consequence of the whole-law of the logion, has also a special motion of its own, in consequence of the part-law of that logion. The ' this ' is the opposite of the ' I ' in every respect, and the eternal completeness and fulness, the freedom from change and motion, of the ' I ' is necessarily matched by the limita- tion and therefore imperfection of each separate ' this ' ; and the motion of each separate ' this ' is the necessary expression of its endless want and changefulness. If the etats could be really steady and unmoving points in endless space, not feeling any want, and therefore not moving, then the contradiction would arise that the whole and each part were equal, being both perfect. Hence the whole, i.e., the absolute Brahman, the Param-atma, and, as identical with it, the Pratyag-atma also, is often described as the centre without a circumference, or conversely, a circle without a centre, or as that which is all centres only, and so on. This is verifiable practically by everyone without much difficulty. Sitting in a quiet place, shutting in the senses, fixing the consciousness upon itself, i.e., the Pratyag-atma, the universal inward Self, and regarding and denying the whole mass of particulars summed up as a single Not-Self, the man loses all sense of time and space and motion, and the whole of the universe, Not- Self
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and himself, seems shut up into a single move- less point of consciousness. Space and time would not exist if such motion, as between a particular etat and another particular etat, and, indeed, between all possible etats, did not exist. In other words, this second motion is necessarily due to the fact that each etat, being opposed to the omnipresent, the infinite and eternal, the unlimited, ' I,' has to oppose it at every point of the whole of its endless being, and so reproduces and reflects in itself a pseudo- omnipresence. This pseudo-omnipresence of the limited etat takes shape as, becomes, is, endless and perpetual motion everywhere, from place to place, from point to point, of space. It cannot accomplish the law and achieve its nature in any other way.
Other ways of describing the fact are these : motion is the perpetual endeavour of the limited to become unlimited ; of the successive to achieve simultaneity ; of the finite to secure infinity ; it is the constant struggle of space, or extension, and time, or intension, to coincide and collapse into the perfect rest, the single point, the rockboundness of the Absolute- consciousness.
This second view of motion, with reference to the Not- Self, gives us the triplet of 'approach, recess, and revolution,' or 'centri-
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petal, centrifugal, and orbital motion,' upa-sarpana, ^H sarpana, or TfftWflU, pari-bhramana.
Finally, with reference to the Negation, we have the mathematical triplet in motion of 'linear, rotatory and spiral,'1 ^«J, riju, ^H, chakra, and ^18 or ^f^5W5J, vakra or kutila bhramana, corresponding to Self, Not-Self and Negation. These three motions sum up in themselves all the possible movements of samsara, as may be pictured by the diagram at p. 434, Vol. ii., of The Secret Doctrine, if the spines shown therein along the outer side of the single line, whose convolutions make up the whole diagram, were also made parts of, and continuous with, that same single line, and the line were shown as constantly coiling and turning round and round upon itself, like a spiral wire-spring, and all this line and process of coiling were produced and carried round and round pseudo-infinitely.
1 Some physicists regard vibratory or oscillatory motion as a third primary form of motion, side by side with the trans- latory, freepath or linear, and the rotary or rather rotatory or circular. ( Vide Dolbear. Ether, Matter, and Motion, iii. ) But it will probably be found on analysis that vibratory motion is also made up of elements from the linear and the rotatory, as the undulatory is compounded out of the rec- tilinear and the vibratory.
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This motion, the first factor of the second trinity, seems to be figured in the Puranas as the hamsa, the swan-vehicle of Brahma, the lord of action, which hamsa (under another inter- pretation of the Upanishat-text quoted before) circles with double beat of wing incessantly in the great wheel or cycle of Brahma. It may also be the rosary of crystal beads that Brahma ever turns around and tells in his right hand, in constant movement, weaving all single vibrations into one on the thread of the action-consciousness. It may, yet again, be the ever twisting, turning, rolling stream of holy Gaftg£ stored within the same God's bowl of sacred waters, the kamandalu.1
Before passing on to our next subject of discussion, the individual self, or Jiva, we may note that although space and time and motion have, like Pratyag-atma, Mula-prakriti and Negation, been treated of in successive order,
1 The statements made in this work as to symbology, it should be home in mind, are only suggestive. They have no immediate importance here with reference to the gtneral principles underlying the constitution of the kosmos, which alone are attempted to be outlined in this work. That they are made at all is only in the hope that the suggestions may be of use, and possibly give some clue to students who may take an interest in working out, with the help of pauranic legends, the details issuing out of the general principles described here.
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this is only because of the limitations of speech, which, as has been said, can proceed only in succession : m^ ftfi imagined, any more as regards the former trinity than as regards the latter, that there is any precedence or succedence amongst the three. They are perfectly synchronous, perfectly inseparable, all equally important and all equally dependent with and on each other, and also with and on the primal trinity, of Self, Not-Self, and Negation. And all these trinities again co-inhere in and are inseparable from the Jivatma, the Jiva-atom, the Jiva-unit, which combines and manifests in itself all of them, and therefore is 'the immortal beyond doubt and fear,' if it will only so recognise itself.
He who grasps this secret of the heart of motion, time, and space, will understand Vasishtha's riddle that ' all is everywhere and always.' For the Jiva is the tireless weaver that, on the warp and woof of time and space, with the shuttle of motion, weaves eternally the endless-coloured tapestry of all this multi- farious illusion-world, carrying the whole plan thereof incessantly within himself, and so carrying 'all' ' always ' and ' everywhere ' in one. If we turn our eyes to the warp and the woof and the shuttle, we see but the
196 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE.
endless tapestry of Penelope that never pro- gresses and never regresses, though worked incessantly. Law requires more law and that again more still ; to fulfil and justify the opposed necessities, to reconcile the contra- dictions of the constitution of the Absolute, one process is invented ; that shows defect, another is invented ; that breeds only new grievances, they are amended ; ten more start up, new laws appear to cover them ! A laughable yet very serious, a fearful yet all- beautiful, an exceeding simple yet most awesome and stupendous and child's-play. An untold and untellable, a veritably exhaustless richness of variety, which is yet but the thinnest maya and pretence to hide the unruffled calm and sameness of the Self. A heart of utter peace within mock- features of infinite unrest and toil and turmoil. Thus ever goes on this endless, countless, strictly and truly pseudo-infinite complication, this repetition over repetition, reproduction of reproduction, and reflection within reflection. And yet is it ever reducible — at any moment of space and time and motion, as soon as the Jiva really chooses to reduce it so, by simply turning round its gaze upon itself — into the eternal peace of the simple formula of the logion : Aham Etat Na. And this is so, because the
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complications are not outside of the Jiva, but, as soon as it realises its identity with the universal Self, within it1 ; forgetting, as it were, its own true nature, it creates them in and by the very act of running after them till it becomes giddy, ready to fall down in despair with its own whirlings, all in vain, like a snake chasing its own tail, which it would find and seize more surely as part of its own self if it but gave up its mad gyrations, and turned back upon it quietly and peacefully and rested still. " The Self-born pierced the senses outwards, hence the Jiva seeth the outer world, and not the inner Atma. A wise one here and there turneth back his gaze, desirous of immortality, and beholdeth the inward Self."
" O silent Sleeper in this seething Sea ! Plain we behold and yet speech may not be. We wander, wonder, search and then we find, But find it in the silence of the mind. Who will believe the marvel, if we say,
1 Katha. iv. i.
198 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE.
Though it be plain, plain as the light of day, That on the boundless wall of nothingness, A Painter full of skill but bodiless, Limns phantom figures that will never fade, Though to efface them time has e'er essayed, Limns forms of countless colours ceaselessly, O serene Sleeper of this stormy Sea ! "
Tulasi Das. Vinaya Patrikd. Hymn No. 112, to Keshava, i.e., Vishnu 'sleeping in the waters'.
NOTE. — Many kind friends have suggested that the word ' pastime ' is likely to jar the feelings of at least some earnest-minded thinkers, holders of serious views as to the destinies of man, his relation to God, and the general purpose of creation or evolution. Readers who, not content with the solutions now extant of the problems of life (as mentioned in the preface), find it worth their while to read to the end of this book systematically will I earnestly believe, find that the view of life advocated herein is not inconsistent with, or exclusive of, any, but rather includes all the deepest views of and the highest- reaching wishes for the future of man, so far as such may be ascertained from published writings. For an endless progressiveness, an infinite perfectibility, an ever closer approach to the ever-expanding Divine, are hoped for here also for the human race most sincerely and strongly. Only, in this work, this view is regarded as constituting not the whole, but only half the truth, as being that aspect of the truth which is visible from the standpoint of the individual Jiva. The other and supplementary half is that, from the standpoint of the universal Self, there is no progress and no regress, no change of any kind, so that if that condition may be described at all in terms of the changing, then the only words to use are ' pastime,' ' play,' ' unfettered will,' ' uncontrolled outgoing of life,' ' unresisted and irresistible manifestation of the inner nature,' ' the unquestionable will of God,' ' Thy will be done,' ' Who shall question
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Him ? ' etc. Are the free rompings of the child, and the vigorous games of youth, and the vast industries of peace and war of a nation's matured manhood, that are but as means to the child's rompings and the youth's games — are these such a slur upon life that the word ' pastime ' should jar upon the serious-minded ? Are not rather the happy homes the very essence of a nation's life, and the child's bright smile and laugh and play the very essence of the home ? Play is a thing as serious at least as work, in the well-balanced life. And, while this idea is yielding up its full significance, let the reader bear in mind that, as shown by the above inadequate translation from Tulasi Das, a devotee of devotees, whose book, the Rdmdyana, is the Bible of a hundred millions of the Hindus, this idea of the world being the pastime of the Self has been entertained with loving fervour by at least some of the most earnest- minded of men. This book will truly have failed in its purpose if it leaves behind the impression that devotion to individual Ishvaras, embodying universal and imper- sonal ideals, has been scoffed at and belittled herein, rather than made infinitely stronger and deeper and more un- shakeable by being placed on the firm foundations of reason.