CHAPTER XIII.

JlVA-ATOMS. (A) GENERALLY.
Before proceeding further we may make a brief retrospect.
From the confusion of the world we travelled slowly and laboriously to the Absolute. In that we saw the first trinity, of the Self, the Not-Self, and the Negation. We saw again that the Self was triple, sat-chid-ananda ; the Not-Self was triple, rajas-sattva-tamas ; the affirmative Shakti-energy of the Negation was triple, srishti-sthiti-laya ; and, finally, that the Negation itself was also triple, desha-kala-ayana, which constitute almost the most prominent trinity of the world-process. We also saw that each one of this last trinity was again triple in its own turn. We may also have noticed, in passing, that the whole, the aggregate, of any three, might, in a sense, be regarded as a fourth which summarised and completed them all. We also had a glimpse of the fact that these trinities and triplets are all combined in the
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Jiva-atom which, because of this fact, contains, in seed, the whole of the world-process in itself. After this brief resumi? we may go on to consider Jiva-atoms in a little more detail.
By opposition to the oneness of the Aham, the ' I,' the Etat, the ' this/ is by necessity many ; and each of these many, by opposition to the Selfs unlimitedness and changelessness, and, again, by mutual exclusion and limitation, under the stress of the Negation, is limited, and trebly limited, in space, time, and motion ; i.e., it has got a nfOTTO, parimana, dimension, extension, size in space, by limitation on this side and on that ; a ?q^, or ^f"W, spanda or sphurana, a vibration in motion, a pendulum-swing, a revolution within a radius, a limited movement, which is necessarily made rhythmic by the fact of limitation in space and time ; and an ^rrg, ayu,1 a duration, a life-period, a limited succes- sion, in time. Such is the general description of the atoms which make up Mula-prakriti, the very essence of which is manyness, atomicity. The atom is an etat, a 'this,' having limited size, duration and motion ; it cannot apparently be
1 This word and ^TfXfTff* ayama, extension, and ^TXTrT, ayana, movement, seem to be connected together in a suggestive and significant way, but the latter two are not very current now in the general meanings mentioned. Hence the other corre- sponding words have been given above. P
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defined more simply or comprehensively anywise else.
But an etat cannot exist apart from the Aham ; Mula-prakriti is inseparable from Pratyag-atma. Each ' this ' is indissolubly con- nected with the ' I,' by the double bond of ' am ' and ' am not ' — ' am ' representing the ascending phase of the metabolism of the life-process, and ' am not ' the descending phase thereof. From all this it follows necessarily that the one Self becomes limited off into a pseudo - infinite number of ahams, Jivas or Jivatmas ; that every aham is embodied in an etat, and every etat ensouled by an aham, and that every one of these pseudo - infinite atoms that make up Mula-prakriti is therefore living. Each such living atom, combining in itself Pratyag-atma and Mula-prakriti, is an individual, an indi- vidualised Jiva-atom. And we may note that as each atom is a 'this,' having definite size, duration, and vibration, so is each Jiva an ' I,' having a definite extent or reach of conscious- ness, an age or lifetime, and a restless activity of mind. The Samskrit words denoting these aspects of the Jiva are also the same as for the aspects of the atom, except that, in place of the word nfr^ror, parimana, dimension, the word TSfl, kshetra, the 'field ' (of consciousness) is more commonly used.
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These attributes, it is clear, appear in the Jiva with reference to the primary attributes of the Negation, space, time, and motion.
With reference to the attributes of the Shakti- aspect of Negation, creation, preservation, and destruction, the attributes of the Jiva-atom may be said to be birth, life, and death ; or, in other words, growth, decay, and stagnation, as corresponding to attraction, repulsion, and balancing.
In such a Jiva-atom the mutual imposition of the attributes of each, the Self and the Not-Self, is complete ; in collapsing together they have taken on the properties of one another ; and the Jiva-atom therefore shows, in its own indi- viduality, the phenomenon of permanence in impermanence and impermanence in perma- nence, oneness in manyness and manyness in oneness. The one Pratyag-atma becomes many individuals ; the manifold Mula-prakriti becomes organised ones, each indestructible, each having a personal immortality, or unending duration, and a pseudo-infinity of endless stretch of consciousness, as also the true eternity and infinity of the Pratyag-atma. In strictness, the reflection of the One in the many should cause the appearance of pseudo-infinite geometrical 'points without magnitude,' true 'centres,' which make the 'singular one,' as opposed to and
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yet reproducing the ' universal One ' ; but as, because of the other law, operating simulta- neously with equal force, viz., that the etat is limited as against the unlimitedness of the Aham, the point must have definite limitation ; therefore everywhere we have Jiva-atoms having size, etc., as said before, in place of points, which, however, always exist as possibilities, as abstract and theoretical centres. Such definite Jiva-atoms, considered with greater reference to the atom-aspect, may be called particulars ; with greater reference to the Jiva-aspect, indi- viduals ; the individual, particular, or definite, being the reconciliation of the singular and the universal.
We see now what the real value of the dis- tinction between animate matter and inanimate matter is. Here, as everywhere else, the truth lies in the mean, and error in the two extremes. There is absolutely no matter at all that is not en-livened by spirit ; and also no spirit that is not in-formed with, inclosed, inclothed in, matter. This — which is proved by its own irrefragable chain of deductions to the inner, the pure, reason, the reason which looks at facts from the standpoint of the universal Self, as opposed to the outer, the impure, reason which looks at them from the standpoint of the individual self — is now being proved even to the
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outward senses by the admirable industry of modern physical science. It has been shown by an elaborate and very instructive series of facts and arguments : " that a fundamental differ- ence, i.e., difference in the elementary materials and the elementary forces, between organic and inorganic bodies, does not exist,"1 and that the differences between them " are no greater than the differences between many inorganic sub- stances, and consist merely in the mode of union of the elements."2 The scientists of to-day have collected facts and performed experiments which show conclusively that so- called inanimate and inorganic matter responds to stimulus and behaves generally in the same manner as animate and organic matter3. Hasty deductions from such facts, e.g., " the soul is but an electric current in another form," " matter and spirit are identical," are liable to miscon- struction, and rest really upon inaccuracy and misunderstanding. It would be almost truer to say that " the electric current is but soul in another form." Minds that have not yet learnt to look leisurely, calmly, and impartially, at both sides of a question, and are still at the stage of taking hurried, passionate and one-sided
1 Max Verworn, General Physiology. P. 136. "Ibid P. 272. 3 J. C. Bose, Response in the Living and the Non-Living.
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views of it with a partisan-zeal, either emphasise matter too much and resolve spirit entirely into it, or emphasise spirit too much and resolve matter away entirely into it. This is the result of looking at only one aspect, at one half, of the two-sided whole. The truth is that all matter is living, and all life material ; that the pseudo- eternal motion of all matter in all its endless complications is throughout accompanied, on an ineffaceable parallel, by the fact of consciousness, the fact of life, now higher and now lower in degree of manifestation, according to the in- creased or decreased elaboration of the compli- cations. The Etat and the Aham can never be separated. And yet they are distinct and can never be identified literally, either, except as they both are ever merged by the Negation in the completeness and self-sameness of the Absolute. This psycho-physical parallelism is the inner meaning of the Sankhya-doctrine, referred to before, viz., the constant concurrence of con- sciousness with all variations of motion in matter, which concurrence constitutes universal life and makes those motions possible. This is all that consciousness does ; the Atm& is the adhara, the base, the support of all these motions ; without it they would have no meaning and would not be. When all vital phenomena have been explained away into
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atomic affinities, as is being done by modern scientists anew, then the question arises : " Whence and how and why these affinities ? " The only answer is : The universal consciousness imposes them on the atoms ; and the result is that the whole series of explanations is reversed, that the belief in vital force is restored on a higher level, and all affinities become resolved into the vital phenomena of one universal Shakti. Of course, initiation of actions and movements by individual consciousnesses is abolished even so ; but what the truth is on this point may be gathered partially from what has been already said about free-will, and may be discussed more fully later on.
The distinction between animate and inani- mate then amounts to this, that to the person noting the distinction at any particular time and place, in the former the element of Pratyag-atma is the more prominent and mani- fest, while in the latter the element of Mula- prakriti is the more apparent.
The reason for this alternate predominance, now of the one and now of the other, is the alter- nation of the ' am ' and the ' am not.' When the ' am ' is strong we have the appearance of ' the living,' of crescent ' life,' of anabolism. When the 'am not' prevails, then we have the phenomenon of ' death,' ' the dying,' ' the dead, the inert,' of
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katabolism. In the strict sense of the words, ' life ' and ' death ' are not correct here ; only living' and 'dying' are correct. The scientific doctrine of necrobiosis, of gradual death, is voucher for this fact. But like ' animate ' and ' inanimate,' ' life ' and ' death ' have, as con- venient words, a practical value, though the facts can never in reality be separated ; living and dying are going on constantly, incessantly, side by side, and also one after another, because of the general principles which underlie, as explained before, the triple sub-divisions of time, space and motion ; for, (i) to say, " I am this etat," is also to say at the same time, in the same space, and by the same motion, " I am not thus other etat ; " and so, to say, " I am not this etat," is also to say, " I am this other etat." Again, (2) to say, " I am this," is to say later, in another time, space, and motion, " I am not (the same) this," and vice versa. And, finally, (3) it is unavoidable to be saying, everywhere and always, either " I am this," or '' I am not this." Thus it comes about that every organism is living and dying, i.e., changing, at the same time, and has also successively ascending and descend- ing phases of metabolism. Thus are spirit and matter, life and death, ever connected like the two ends of the beam of a balance ; if one rises, the other falls in equal degree ; if the one falls,
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the other rises similarly, but entirely separated they never can be.
It may be gathered from the above, that the word ' life/ as currently employed, means ' living and dying,' and ' death ' means ' dying and living.' Let us now see more fully what death really means. When we have done that, our information as to the essential significance of one prominent aspect of the Jiva-atom, the aspect of animate-inanimate, will have been rounded out and completed in a way.
By the law of ?\qTO, adhyasa, mutual super- imposition of attributes between the Self and the Not-Self, the Jiva-atom must begin and end in time, i.e., be impermanent, and, must at the same time be permanent. The reconciliation of this contradiction lies in ever-recurrent begin- nings and endings. But how is this possible ? How can a thing, an etat, having once been, ever cease to be, and if it once actually ceased to be, how could it be again ? The necessity for the obviation of this objection creates at once new laws and facts. In the first place, the difficulty is solved by (apparent) dissociations of ensouling inner Jiva and ensheathing outer body, i.e., the transfer of the individual consciousness from one body to another.
But having said this, it now becomes necessary to explain here what is meant by inner Jiva and
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outer sheath, where we have been speaking of a single and apparently homogeneous Jiva-atom so far. Although the Jiva-atom is a one, yet again within that one there is an irreducible and irrepressible duality — strictly speaking, indeed, a trinity, as may appear later in connection with the explanation of the metaphysic of the expres- sion f3»p»T, tribhuvana, the triple-world. The ' I ' is joined to the etat by the ' am ' in "I (am) this"; and yet they are only joined; the two cannot be literally identified. The consequence of this is that we have an inner Jiva, self or soul, and an outer upadhi, sheath or body. This inner self is something which by its very pratyag-atmic nature and constitution is always eluding sensuous grasp and definition. " How and by what may the knower be known ? " as the Brihaddranyaka says.1 It is self-luminous. Whenever we seek, consciously or unconsciously, to define it, we at once find in its place an upadhi, a sheath, as Indra found Uma Haima- vati,2 a sheath subtler than the previous one, from the standpoint of which as ' outer ' we started to secure this ' inner ' self ; subtler no doubt, but yet as undoubtedly material. This ' inner ' self, the ' abstract,' would lose its very nature and falsify itself, would no longer be
1 II. iv. 14. a Kcna. iii.
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' inner ' and ' abstract ' if it could be grasped. To be grasped means .to be outer. Therefore this self ever recedes further and further inwards, within a literally endless series of veil after veil, as we try to follow it with the eye of sense, while to the eye of the pure reason, that is to say, to itself, it is always present, immovably stationary. The physical reflection of this law, as found by physical science, is that " there exists upon earth at present no living substance that is homogeneous throughout," and that " the living substance that now exists upon the earth's surface is recognised only in the form of cells," each of which " contains, as its essential constituents, two different substances, the proto- plasm and the nucleus ; " l and the nucleus has been found, on further investigation, to contain still inner cores and sheaths, etc., viz., the nucleolus and other substances.2 The truth is that, as more or less openly described in the Yoga Vdsishtha 3 and other works on Yoga and Ved^nta, and in theosophical literature, the constitution of man, and, indeed, of all living matter, is a plantain-like system of leaf-sheath within leaf -sheath, layer within layer, fold
1 Max Verworn, Getteral Physiology. P. 296. 2 Ibid P. 91 ; see also H. W. Conn : The Story of Life's Mechanism.
8 Vide the story of Lila in the Utpatti-Prakarana.
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within fold, and shell within shell, all inter- penetrating each other, but each distinct from each. And metaphysic adds that this must be so, not up to any limited extent or definite number, which would be arbitrary (except as regards any particular world-system which must necessarily deal with definite time, space and motion, and therefore definite numbers of layers and planes of matter), but pseudo-infinitely, which only is in accord- ance with reason, when the whole of the world - process is taken into account. More about this may appear later ; in the meanwhile what has been said may suffice to show how we have the possibility, and therefore the necessity (for in the sight of metaphysic to be possible is to be), of the phenomenon of death by the passing of the Jiva from one body to another inner and subtler body. This outer body, which, then, is left behind, is called dead from the standpoint of the inner Jiva, which has now passed on to another sheath. And the inner Jiva may similarly be called dead from the point of view of the body. There is a reciprocal severance of association and reciprocal death, a reciprocal cessation of interchange, interplay and inter- vivification. The opposite of death in this sense is ' birth ' and not ' life ' ; and it may be defined in the same terms. If ' death ' is the transference
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of the individual consciousness from one plane of etat to another, birth is the same transference from another into the one. The same event means a death in one plane or world, and a birth in another. In other words, as death is recip- rocal, so is birth ; each dies to the other ; each is born away from the other. The sleeping of the Jiva in the physical body, on the physical plane of the *nu^, jagrat, waking-consciousness, is its awakening in the astral body, on the astral plane of the ^?ni, svapna, dreaming-conscious- ness ; its sleeping in the latter, again, is its awakening in the WTG8, karana, causal body, on the corresponding plane of the SJjffl, sushupti, ' deep-sleep '-consciousness ; and so on pseudo- infinitely, and in the reverse order, vice versd, also, pseudo-infinitely.
But, again, the totality of etats can never be really separated from the one indivisible Self, nor an etat from an aham, from its own particular aham, so to say, vis., the one with which it was identified in the beginning of beginningless time, any more than it can be really unified and identified with such. There is no sufficient reason why an etat should be really separated — especially remembering that it has to be reunited with it as said before — from any aham with which it has once, at any time, been in junction. Once, therefore ever, is the require-
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ment of the first principles of logic, the first laws of thought : ' A is A and not not-A.' The result of these acting and counteracting necessities of reason is that we have the periodic definite, overt, and patent^ severance and connection of each aham with one particular etat in any one particular limited cycle of space and time ; and the undefined, hidden, and latent connection of it constantly with all other etats, in the past, present and future. (Compare the teaching in The Secret Doctrine on the subject of the auric egg, and in the Vedanta on the subtle atomic sheaths carried by a Jiva in its passage from lower to successively higher worlds.)
In other words, the one Aham in its pseudo- infinite pseudo subdivisions is in unceasing and yet recurrent conjunction-disjunction, ^hfoT-fatftf, samyoga-viyoga, with all pseudo-infinite etats ; each etat, or rather each conjunction and each disjunction of the pseudo-infinite number of such, representing, nay, being, a special expe- rience, and the whole being one constant and changeless experience ; so that we come back, as we shall always, again and again, with fuller and fuller knowledge of the content, to the fact that "all is everywhere and always."
One more statement seems to be needed before we pass on to other aspects of the Jiva- atom. What is the true significance of the
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words ' nature,' ' inanimate nature,' as ordinarily used to signify lands and mountains, clouds and rivers and oceans, the light and heat and fire of the earth's volcanoes and of the sun and the stars, the airs and gases of the atmosphere, and the ether of the spatial regions ? These appear to stand out in sharp contrast, as vast masses of inanimate matter, to the human and other Jivas deriving their sustenance from them ? How are these masses to be explained? Where is the Aham in them ? Or if it is there, why so latent in so much the larger portion of Mula-prakriti ? The question seems at first sight to be exclu- sively within the province of mere speculation ; but a true metaphysic should include the prin- ciples of all physics and all sciences whatever, for the ideal standard thereof is that it is the system of universal principles which underlie all the world-process, as the architect's plan under- lies the building. The explanation of this question may, therefore, properly be sought for in physical science. If found, it will help greatly to enlarge and confirm our grasp of the nature of Aham and Etat, and their pseudo- infinite variety of extent in space, time and motion, and therefore their pseudo -infinite overlappings.
Physiological science says : " individuals of the first order are cells ; . of the second
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order are tissues . . . associations of indi- viduals of the first order ; ... of the third order are organs . . . associations of indi- viduals of the second order ; of the fourth order are persons . . . associations of various individuals of the third order ; of the fifth order are communities . . . associations of individuals of the fourth order."1 There is no reason why this chain should not be lengthened pseudo-infinitely. It is very probable that physical science will some day discover defi- nitely that the vital connections between the members of a community are of a nature exactly similar to, if, perhaps, weaker in intensity than, those between the organs in a person, the tissues in an organ, and the cells in a tissue. And thus it will discover that the solidarity of the human race, as made up of communities, is not a merely poetical metaphor or political abstraction or religious ideal but a physical fact ; and, still further, that the various kingdoms, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, &c., have a common life as well as special lives, in endless continuity, so that even ordinary pantheism is vindicated, in a very literal sense, as being one part, but not the whole, of the body of truth which makes up metaphysic. ' Individuals ' in the preceding paragraph
1 Max Verworn. General Physiology. P. 62.
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really signifies selves, and the quotation shows how larger and larger masses of ' animate nature' are included within larger and larger ' selves.' We may now select some other extracts which will show how large masses of ' /^animate nature ' may be inspired by single ' selves,' while the preceding paragraph, by its explanation of the flux and elasticity of ' individuality ' in animate nature, helps to make clear the possibility of ' individuality ' in inanimate nature, and so helps to abolish the distinction between animate nature and inani- mate nature. Preyer thought that " originally the whole molten mass of the earth's body was a single giant organism ; the powerful movement that its substance possessed was its life."1 Pfliiger opined that " living proteid . . . is a huge molecule undergoing constant, never-ending formation and constant de-com- position, and probably behaves towards the usual chemical molecules as the sun behaves towards small meteors."2 Of course there is difference of opinion and mutual discussion going on amongst the holders and opponents of such views, but the result of the discussion can only be that new details and fuller signifi- cance will come to the surface, and the general truth pervading and reconciling all opposing
Q l Ibid. P. 303. * Ibid. P. 307.
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views will be realised in a higher degree. Individual students of science may now and then secretly believe or openly call each other fanciful or unscientific, in the excusable heat of the race after truth, and under the influence of the zealous faith of each (which sometimes helps by putting vigour and energy into the chase) that his own path is the shortest cut. But truth lies in the net result of the whole, and, from this standpoint, the mere fact is enough, for the present, for our purposes, that such views are entertained by scientific men, in whose sobriety as a collective body the lay public implicitly believes. This fact softens, and makes possible the assimilation of, the view which otherwise would look exaggerated and weird and unsober, that the earth and the moon and the sun and the stars might each be — they are, by the deductions of the reason — as much individual beings as the matter-of-fact citizens of a civilised town of to-day ; and again, not only individuals, but individuals within indi- viduals, so that a large number, or, strictly speaking, a pseudo-infinite number, of distinct lives, *. ministered to by apparently the same etat, while at the same time all the pseudo-infinite etats are, vice versd, ministering to the one life of the one Self.
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This will become clear when the student casts entirely away from him the associations of time, space, and motion, those arch magicians, mystifiers and illusion-makers in this Maya's playhouse of the world-process. He should consider the facts solely in their mutual propor- tion and relation. Thus considered, millions of such heavenly bodies might as easily float in the veins of the ' Virat - Purusha with the thousand heads and thousand feet and hands,'1 as leucocytes and phagocytes and bacilli and bacteria and microbes in the veins of a single human being ; and they may very well dis- charge similar functions also. Each of such has its own life, and also forms part of the life of another which, in turn, has its own special as also a subordinate life, and so on in a chain which extends literally endlessly.
The apparently inanimate masses of material nature may thus all be regarded as parts of some one or other smaller and larger ' individual.' Their inanimateness is at the most no greater than the inanimateness of a human being's nails or hair or epidermis or blood or bone, each of which may, nay, does, harbour and nourish multifarious minute lives, while also connected on the descending or ascending phase of meta-
1 Purusha-S&kta. See also Bha£avad-Gftd. xi.
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holism with a larger life. This is but another illustration of the law that an etat cannot stay devoid of an aham ; if one aham, one line of consciousness, deserts it, another or others take up its place immediately. In daily experience we see this, in the springing up of new lives in disintegrating organic forms that have served their purpose of sheath to a larger life and so 'died.' And what the Upanishat declares,1 that "this world appears forth from the Unperishing as hair and nails from the man," is probably declared in a similar sense, with reference to the Virat-Purusha.
The result of all this in the words of physical science is that, as Preyer said : " as . . . the matter of the universe ... is in eternal motion ... so life, which itself is only a complex process of motion, is as old as matter."2 The student of metaphysic has to read ' pseudo-eternal ' in place of ' eternal,' and 4 conscious motion ' in place of ' motion.'
We have floated away very far on the stream of the discussion of animate and inanimate ; but we have seen again in the course thereof, what was stated before, how law begets law and fact, and these more laws and facts, with prolific, indeed endless, multiplicity, and we are now in a position to understand how, if the necessary
1 Mundaka. i. 7. 2 Max Verworn, General Physiology. P. 309.
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means for the knowledge of concrete details, now said to be known to only occult physical science, were available, Krug's famous quill, before referred to, could be deduced with even complete minuteness of steps. Thus we may realise how the whole of the solid-seeming of this world is hung on to, or indeed is entirely made up of, the airiest of cobwebs of laws and principles (that are always getting metamor- phosed into facts), which the silkworm of the Pratyag-zitma spins into an endless cocoon out of and around itself, and which disappears at once, together with the silkworm, replaced by the gorgeous and free - feeling and free - flying butterfly, as soon as it realises and undergoes the perishing, the death, the nothingness, of both, as soon as the individualised Pratyag-atma understands the endless interplay of mutual termination and determination between the Self and the Not-Self, and so becomes the mukta, the liberated.
The Upanishat-verse just referred to has thus another and deeper metaphysical significance besides the literal one before mentioned : "As the spider casteth forth its web and rolls it up again, as the herbs rise up from out of the earth, as hair and down grow from the life and being of the man, so doth this universe appear from and within the Unperishing and Unchanging."