CHAPTER XV.

JiVA-AxoMS — SUBJECTIVELY, i.e., JIVAS.
At the outset of this chapter we may note that the aspects of size specialised with reference to the Jiva would be ' range or extent of con- sciousness in all its manifestations, cognition, desire, and action,' ' its definiteness or intensity,' and its ' calibre or scope generally '. These would sub - divide into ' broad - mindedness, narrow - mindedness, rationality or common sense ', ' vagueness or weakness, clearness or strength, distinctness or firmness', ' long- headedness or far-sightedness, width of interests, depth ', etc., etc.
As to the specialisations of duration and vibration, it need only be said that the words used in connection with matter in the preceding chapter apply, by ordinary usage, to correspond- ing features of mind also.
With these brief suggestions, we may pass on to the features more prominently characteristic of the Jiva, as the embodiment of consciousness.
The entire nature of consciousness is exhaustively described by and contained in the words : " I-this-not (am)." This is the 261
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Absolute-consciousness, the true f ghana, compacted chit, ^rarfil, maha-samvit, great consciousness, which, in its transcendence of numbers, limitations and relations, includes all that is governed by numbers, limitations and relations, and indeed is all. This consciousness is the Absolute, and includes both the factors of what is ordinarily distinguished as the "tt, dvandvam, the pair, of f«nr, chit, the conscious (corresponding to Pratyag-atma) and »T3 jada, the unconscious (corresponding to Mula-prakriti). It may not unreasonably be objected, because of this fact, that the word ' consciousness ' is not altogether suitable as an epithet for the Abso- lute, even with qualificatory adjectives. But it becomes unavoidable, now and again, to describe the Absolute in special terms borrowed from the triplets of the attributes of Pratyag-atma and Mula-prakriti, which are the penultimates of the world-process, as the Absolute is the very ulti- mate and the all. The nearest approach to the ultimate is obviously by the penultimates, hence the necessity of speaking in terms of the latter ; and this is why Brahman is described, in the Upanishats and other works on Vedanta, now as pure or shuddha-chit, again as the maha-sat or boundless being, and finally as the ananda- ghana or ananda-maya, composed or compacted of bliss ; also as the tamas beyond the tamas,
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the darkness beyond the darkness, the shuddha or pure sattva, and the paro-rajas, the transcend- ing-rajas. And so, for our present purposes, we have to speak of Brahman as the Absolute- consciousness, slightly emphasising the praty- ag-atmic aspect thereof rather than the mula-prakritic, but carefully guarding the while against possible misconstruction by openly stating that fact at the outset.
In its unique completeness, then, this Absolute-consciousness includes every possible cognition, every possible desire, every possible action, all at once and for ever ; even as it includes all possible objects of cognition, desire and action, namely qualities, substances and movements. But taken as consisting of succes- sive and separable parts in the pseudo-infinity of the world-process, it appears as broken up into the three aspects of jflclna or cognition, ichchhci or desire, and kriya or action. How these three and only three aspects arise in the Jiva, on the collision of the Self and the Not-Self, has been already outlined in the chapter on Pratyag- atma where the genesis of sat, chit, and dnanda is explained. It may be briefly restated thus.
An ego bound to a non-ego in the bond of the logion is necessarily bound by a triple bond at three points in contact with three correspond- ing points in the non-ego, viz., jftcina, ichchhci
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and kriyS. on the one hand, and guna, dravya, and karma, respectively, on the other. " I-this- (am)not " — in this fact we see the following :
(1) The ' I ' and the ' this,' being placed oppo- site to each other, are either turning face towards face, or face away from face. The ego cognises, perceives the non-ego, receives into itself the reflection and the imprint of that non-ego (metaphorically as well as literally, as will appear later), or ignores and forgets it. This is (dual or rather triple) jnana.
(2) The ' I ' tends to move towards or away from the ' not- 1.' This tendency is desire, corre- sponding to the affirmation-negation of Shakti. It is (dual or rather triple) ichchha.
(3) The ego actually moves towards or away from, the non-ego. This is (dual or rather triple) kriya.
All these are but modifications, forms, aspects, or degrees of the main fact of identification or separation between the Self and the Not-Self.
Fichte seems to have endeavoured to express the same or a similar idea thus : " (i) The ego exhibits itself as limited by the non-ego (that is to say, the ego is cognitive) ; (2) conversely, the ego exhibits the non-ego as limited by the ego (that is to say, the ego is active)."1
1 Stirling's Schwegler. P. 265.
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In other words, we may say that there is a mutual action and cognition between the ego and the non-ego : the action of the non-ego upon the ego is the cognition of the non-ego by the ego; and the cognition (if the expression may be used) by the non-ego of the ego is conversely the action of the ego on the non-ego. When the ego impresses itself on the non-ego, we have action from the standpoint of the ego and cognition from that of the non-ego. When the non-ego imprints itself on the ego, we have cognition from the standpoint of the ego and action from that of the non-e^o. To this it should be added that the condition intermediate between cognition and action, intermediate between the ego's ' being influenced and shaped ' by the non-ego, on the one hand, and its 4 influencing and shaping ' the non-ego, on the other, is desire. The corresponding condition of the non-ego would probably be best described by the word tension. This desire is always hidden, while cognition and action are manifest.
Multifarious triplets arise under cognition, desire, and action. (i) ' Waking, sleeping, dreaming ; ' ' presentation, oblivion, representa- tion ; ' ' knowing, forgetting, recollection ; ' truth, error, illusion ; ' ' sensation, conception, perception ; ' ' term, proposition, syllogism ; ' 1 n^, pada, TR5J, vakya, *TR, mana ; ' ' con-
T
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cept or notion, judgment, reasoning;' 'reason- ableness or sobriety, fancy, imagination ; ' ' real or actual, unreal or fanciful, ideal ; ' ' observation, thought, science ; ' ' concentra- tion, meditation, attention ; ' ' attention, dis- traction, research, or rapport, or union, or hate, indifference ; ' ' partiality, carelessness, justice;' ' desire, emotion, will ;' etc. (3) ' Action, yoga,' etc. (2) ' Like, dislike, toleration ; ' ' love, reaction, balance;' 'activity, indolence, effort;' ' restlessness, fatigue, perseverance ;' ' act, labour, industry ;' ' action, plan, scheme ;' ' evolution, involution, revolution ;' etc. These may be treated of in detail later on. In the meanwhile, some observations as to the general relations of subiect and object, individuals and the sur- roundings they live amidst, the more prominent conditions of the life of the world-process, may be recorded here.
It has been said that an ego is literally imprinted with and modelled to the shape of a cognised non-ego, and that cognition by an ego means and is the action of a non-ego upon it. It might be questioned how it is that action, cognition, and even desire, which are the attributes of Self, subject, can ever belong, or be spoken of as belonging, to Not-Self, object ; and, conversely, how the capabilities of being acted on, cognised, and desired, which are the
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attributes of Not-Self, can ever belong, or be spoken of, as belonging to Self. The answer is this. If we were speaking of the universal Self or the pseudo-universal Not-Self, then it would be perfectly correct to say that jfiana, ichchha, and kriya, or rather their root-principles, chit, ananda, and sat, belong exclusively to the Self; and guna, karma, and dravya, or rather their root-principles, sattva, rajas, and tamas, belong exclusively to the Not-Self. But we are now in the domain of the limited and the particular, and are dealing not with abstract Pratyag-atma and pseudo-abstract Mula-prakriti, but with limited, separate, selves and not-selves ; and it has been amply shown in the last two chapters that a limited self means a composite of Self and Not-Self, a Jiva-atom, wherein the Jiva-aspect is predominant ; while a limited not- self equally means a composite of Self and Not-Self, but a composite in which the atom- aspect is predominant. The consequence of this is that we find both the triplets of attributes present in every such composite, although of course one triplet always predominates over the other, thereby giving rise to the distinction between animate and inanimate.
Thus it comes about that each separate not- self, being ensouled by a self and therefore being a pseudo-self, assumes by the connection of iden-
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tity with the universal Self, the characteristics of the latter, and this assumption takes on the form of a pseudo-infinite endeavour to find, and there- fore to spread and impose, itself everywhere and always. Hence a pseudo-infinite radiation, by vibration, of each and every not-self, that is to say, of each and every piece or mass whatsoever of Mula-prakriti, out of the pseudo- infinite permutations and combinations of all possible sizes of such pieces or masses, to which it is at all possible to apply the adjectives ' each ' and ' every.' In other words, each and every not-self is endeavouring pseudo-infinitely to reproduce itself and fill infinity with its own form, as is now nearly established even by physical science in the doctrine of the incessant and endless mutual radiation and registration by all objects of their own and of all others' pictures of all qualities whatsoever, sights, sounds, smells, etc. ; and this is the action of the not-selves upon the selves, which action, in the selves, appears as cognition.
This reproduction, it is obvious, takes place literally. When we see an object, the picture of the object is imprinted on our eye, on the retina; that is to say, the retina (or the purpurine, with which, as the latest researches go to show, the retina is covered), takes on, becomes modified into, the very shape of the object seen ; and the
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eye is, in the life of the physical plane, veritably the very ego that sees. In the moment of seeing with the physical eye, it is impossible to say : " My eye sees and not I." What is invariably said and meant is : " / see." The I and the organ of vision are here literally identical for all purposes. It is the same with every other sense. The immediate reason of this is that while in the converse case, the activity of the apparent not-self is due to its hiding a self within, in this case the shapeability, which is cognition, of every self is due to its hiding within a not-self, a sheath, an upadhi. As in the one case the not-self strives to achieve infinity in pseudo-infinite reproduction, because of having become identified with a self, and therefore the universal Self ; so, in this case, the Self becomes limited and reflective, because of having become identified with a not-self.
In order that the Self and the Not-Self, so entirely opposed to each other, should enter into dealings with each other, it is necessary that each should assume the characteristics of the other, and so, abating their opposition, come nearer to each other. The interchange of substance between nucleus and protoplasm is a good illustration.1 In this fact we see before us
1 Verworn. General Physiology. P. 518.
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the principle of the genesis of upadhis, sheaths, organisms, and organs of sense and action. The ego becomes (of course, illusorily and apparently, and for the time being) the organ of sense or action, in order to perceive the sensible or act upon it. " The Atma who knows (z>., under the stress of the consciousness) 'may I smell this' (becomes or is) the nose (the organ of smell), for the sake of (experiencing) odour." '
Such is the metaphysical significance of the organs of sense and action. They are the very Jiva for the time. The Jiva is identified with them entirely while they are working. Other- wise there is no sufficient reason for a third something, an instrument of mediation, not only a relation but a thing, between the only two factors of the world-process, the Self, on the one side, and the Not- Self, on the other. That they are at all distinguished as instruments is only from the standpoint of the abstract Self.
The metaphysical significance of sense-media, odorous particles, saliva, air, ether, &c., is similar. The systematic and psychologically consistent names for these media, in Samskrit, whatever their exact nature may be ultimately determined to be, are prithivi (earth) for the medium of odour, apas or jalam (water) for taste, tejas or agni (fire) for vision, vayu (air)
1 Chh&ndogya Upanishat. VIII. xii. 4-5.
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for touch, and akasha (ether) for sound. These media are, according to the Vedanta, the five pervading root-elements — and not the com- pounds we live amidst — distinguished and defined radically by their special sensuous and active qualities, which are said to go in pairs ; thus, sound and speech with ear and vocal organ belonging to akasha ; vision and figure-formation with eye and hands belonging to agni ; and so forth. And their agency, to secure communion between organ and sense-object, is metaphysic- ally necessitated in order, by the fact of per- vasion and diffusion through space, to give to the sense-object the semblance of the universal Self, which reaches and includes all and is within the reach of all. This pervasion, which, metaphysically, is pseudo-infinite in extent, is actually reproduced in the fact of each brahmanda, world-system or macrocosm, being pervaded by one individuality, just as much as the pindanda, the microcosm, a human organism, is pervaded by one individuality. The vast masses of the root-elements that serve as the sense-media of the organisms inhabiting our brahmanda, for instance, constitute, in their totality, the body of the tshvara who is the brahmanda ; the unity of his indi- viduality brings together our senses and sense- bjects in these sense - media, he himself
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being but as an infinitesimal Jiva in a vaster brahmanda, and so on pseudo-infinitely. This is why the Ishvaras also are called •flw, vibhu, pervading. It is only the principle of overlapping individualities in another view. Later chapters may contain more on this point, viz., how communion between two separate things, subject and object, in the way of cognition, desire, and action, is possible and takes place only because the two are also one as being, both of them, parts of a higher individuality, a larger subject.
The remarks made in the preceding chapter as to the pseudo-infinite series of involucra of the Jiva, one within another, should be recalled in this connection. Taking the case of vision, for instance, we find as the first step, that the act of seeing means the picturing of the object seen on the retina, which at that stage is for all purposes identical with, and is, the seer. But analysing further we find that, in the human being, the act of vision is by no means completed with this picturing on the retina. Vibrations of nerves convey the picture to a further centre in the brain — not yet definitely determined by physio- logical investigations. Physical research leaves the matter here for the present. But metaphysic deduces, as an inference frcm the inseparable conjunction of dravya, guna, and karma, that,
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whatever that brain-centre might be ultimately decided to be, it will be found that just as the vibrations and particles of the outer visible object, transmitted through the ether (or what- ever other element may finally be determined to be the medium of light, and however it may be named, the Samskrit name being tejas as said before), make a picture of that object on the retina, so the retinal picture, which has now in turn become ' the outer visible object ' to the more-inward-receded Jiva, is transmitted in still more minute particles, by nerve-vibrations, to a corresponding subtler organ or brain-centre which is now masquerading as the seer in place of the eye, in the present condition of organisms. And further research will show the process repeated pseudo-infinitely inwards, taking the sheath into subtler and ever subtler planes of matter.
But while this series of sheaths, one within another, is theoretically pseudo - infinite, in practice and as a matter of fact — if we take any organism, in any one cycle of space and time — we shall necessarily find it consisting of only a limited and countable number of such sheaths with one unanalysable core, the very filmiest of films it may be, but unanalysable any further for the time being, which in that cycle represents, and for all purposes is, the very self of the Jiva.
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From another and higher standpoint, embracing a wider cycle of space and time, that film will also be analysable, and be seen to be not the innermost core but only an outer sheath, hiding within itself another core which will then be irreducible. Evidence of this we find even physically in comparing the earliest available unicellular organisms of our terrene life and evolution with the latest most complex ones. In the human being the brain with its centres takes the place of the Self, and is the main seat of con- sciousness (from the standpoint of physiology), but is hedged round and overlaid with numbers of other parts of the body, nerves, ganglia, senses, etc., through which only it can be reached. In the unicellular organism the nucleus is probably the centre of consciousness,1 and is, as it were, all the brain, the sense organs, etc., in one; in its case the Jiva has not yet learnt to make the distinction — involved in the expressions, ' my eyes' 'my ears' — between the Jiva (identified with the brain as centre of consciousness) and its sense-instruments ; and hence it has got no centre of consciousness which may be separate from sense-instruments. But when the consciousness begins to make such distinction, the nucleus at once resolves into a subtler core (apparently, but not yet positively determined to be the
Verworn. General Physiology. P. 508.
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nucleolus) with different parts wrapping it round ; and under the continuing stress of the individualised consciousness, there appears the progressive development and differentiation of functions and instruments which is called evolution.
It should be noted here that the expression ' my brain ' has not the same significance as ' my eyes ' and ' my hands." Of course it has a certain meaning, but the consciousness of my brain being distinct and different from me is by no means so definite, full, and clear in the ordinary man as is the consciousness of the eyes and the hands being thus different and distinct. The expression gains fuller and fuller signi- ficance as the ' I ' retreats further and further inwards, and is able to separate itself more and more actually from the physical body. ' My clothes' has a much fuller and clearer meaning than ' my hands and feet ; ' ' my hands and feet ' has a much clearer and fuller meaning than 'my brain.' ' My sukshma sharira,' ' my karana sharira,' ' my soul,' are practically (but not theoretically) meaningless in the mouths of people who have never succeeded, by means of yoga, in separating them from the outer physical body.
This development of the complex from the simple, this opening up of separated individual
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consciousness through layer into inner layer, this gradual growth of nerve within nerve and instrument within instrument, this definition of body within body, constitutes the evolution of the individual from the standpoint of limited cycles. To take a fanciful illustration : it is as if we should, to increase the power and range and minuteness of our vision, first put on a pair of spectacles, then add a telescope, and over that a microscope, and so on indefinitely. In this imaginary illustration the additions are out- wards. In evolution, by deliberate yoga, on the nivritti-marga, the re-ascent into spirit, they would be inwards, a retreating within into subtler and subtler planes of matter ; on the pravritti-marga, the descent into matter, they would be outwards too, each self taking on denser and denser veils of matter to enjoy the experiences of a greater and greater (seeming) definition of itself — ' I (am) this, ' I (am) this' From the standpoint of the absolute, on the other hand, all cycles and all evolution, all functions, all instruments, and all functionings and actual workings of them on all possible planes of matter, are ever completely present in the transcendent consciousness : "I — This — Not (am)."
Thus we come back again and again to the fact of endless plane within plane of matter, all
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permeated and pervaded by the consciousness in its triple aspect of jnana, ichchha, and kriya. Let us see now how these pseudo-infinite planes of matter can be co-ordinated and brought into organic unity with each other. Co-ordinated in fact they must be ; for the etats — separate in their pseudo-infinity though they are by very consti- tution— are not and cannot be mutually entirely oblivious and independent, when the thread of the one Self runs through them all, and strings them together like beads.
Different planes of matter, though separate from, and, from one standpoint, independent of each other to such an extent that they may even seem to violate the axioms of geometry, cannot escape these axioms altogether. As usual, we have disorder as well as order, negation as well as affirmation, defiance of law and yet sub- mission thereto, here as well as elsewhere. Con- sciousness appears to transcend mathematical laws ; but it is only the universal consciousness of Pratyag-atma that can at all be said to do so, and this too only when it is considered as a whole, comprehending and at the same time negating the whole of Mula-prakriti. Otherwise, it itself is the source and the embodiment of the unity, the uniformity, the regularity in diversity, the fact or brief description of which is called a law, and which appears
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when the Self is intermingled with MOla- prakriti (as it always is), under the changeless stress of the Absolute-consciousness, the Brahman. Limited individual consciousnesses are inseparably connected with limited etats, and hence can never actually transcend those laws. That they appear to do so from some stand- points is due to their identity with the Pratyag-atma. The world of the astral plane, whose normal inhabitants are said to be yakshas, gandharvas, kinnaras, nagas, kushmandas, gnomes, undines, fairies, and such other nature- spirits, may seem, to literally ' occupy the same space ' as the physical world whose normal inhabitants are humans, animals, plants, minerals, etc. But this is not really so. All the facts available point to the conclusion that as soon as the human developes the body and the instruments which enable him to begin to live consciously in the astral world as he does in the physical, he sees that the two worlds, at the most, interpenetrate, as sand and water, or water and air, and do not actually and literally occupy the same space In other words, planes of matter, that appear utterly disconnected from the standpoint of individual consciousnesses limited to each plane, become only grades of density of matter from the standpoint of a consciousness that includes all of them.
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This thought may now be expanded as follows :
The simile used above, of the thread and the beads, illustrates the fact of order amidst disorder, and also covers another fact which is essential in the work of co-ordination. In the chaplet each bead touches but two others, one on each side, and not more than two ; and so too we find that samsara, the world-process, is triple, f*»rw»T*T , tri-bhuvanam, ^jsfoll , trai-lo- kyam, whenever and wherever we take it. This fact, that it is always a triple world, whenever and wherever we take it, gives the -method of the co-ordination, for each factor of each such triplet is also concurrently connected with two other triplets ; and as this connection extends pseudo-infinitely, it results that all possible planes are ringed together always. Thus taking the three planes of our world- system, viz., m$, sthula, ^gf?, sukshma, and cirrou, karana (roughly corresponding to the physical, astral and mental of theosophical literature) and naming them F, G, and H, we should find, on research, that F is simultaneously connected with three triplets, D E F, E F G, and F G H ; so G with E F G, F G H and G H I ; so H with F G H, G H I and H I J ; and taking any of these triplets, say H I J, the mutual relation of these three would be found to be the same as
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that of F G H ; that is to say, to a Jiva to whom J represented the physical, I would represent the astral and H the karana plane. And this series of triplets extends endlessly before D and after J. Before passing on to the reason of this state of things, it may be well to note that the interpretation of tri-bhuvanam, ' the triple world,' or ' the three worlds,' advanced here, is not exactly what is commonly understood by the word, just as the inmost meaning of the sacred word, Aum, is not what is com- monly given. Yet there is no conflict or inconsistency between the two interpretations. On the contrary, the other interpretations all follow necessarily from the inmost one. Students wonder now and then how it is that resemblances occur in different depart- ments of nature; and when it is said that one and the same statement may be interpreted in many ways, each correct and each applying to one class and one department of pheno- mena, sober people generally suspect some sleight-of-hand. As a matter of fact, a statement of a real true principle of nature, concerning one of the ultimates, or, rather, strictly speaking, penultimates, naturally applies to all the different series of phenomena derived from and constantly embodying those penulti- mates ; and the wonder may as well be
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how there is difference between part and part of nature as how there is resemblance. Mula-prakriti explains the difference ; Pratyag- atma the resemblance. The law of analogy, " as above so below," is capable of a far wider and truer application than is now charily given to it, and it provides the reason of the existence of allegories and parables, in which there is as much literal fact as metaphor. Because of this universal applic- ability of basic laws, ' tri-bhuvanam,' when it means only three different but interconnected worlds or planes of matter, according to the ordinary explanation of the word, means something which is the necessary result of the metaphysical triplicity of all the life of united Jiva and atom, i.e., of the Jiva-atom. In this metaphysical triplicity, which is the inmost meaning of tri-bhuvanam, lies the reason for the state of things > described in the pre- ceding paragraph.
Everywhere we find the world and the things of the world divided into an inner and an outer, a core and a sheath, and a third something, a principle, a relation, rather than a fact or factor, binding and holding these two together. This is due to the very constitution of the Absolute as shown in the logion, viz., an inner Self, an outer Not- Self, and the third something, the
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affirmative-negative Shakti, which ties the two together indissolubly, and yet is not a third strictly, but only a repetition of the positivity, the being, of the Self and of the negativity, the nothingness, of the Not-Self. So we find, in the department of consciousness taken by itself, an outer or real world and an inner or ideal world, and a third something, the abstract conscious- ness, or self-consciousness, or apperception, or pure and abstract reason, as it has been variously named, holding the two together. This pure or abstract reason is the embodiment and source, as said before, of all abstract laws and principles, which are but forms of this self-consciousness in its relations to the objects by means of which it may be realising itself at the time.
" I see this book before me " — this conscious- ness is a consciousness of the real, the outer world. " I remember the book, in memory ; I have thoughts about it, i.e., I call up mental pictures of the book in relation to other things, its author, the country, press and people in which and by whom it was printed and pub- lished and read and criticised, the other books on the same subject which have been written in other times and places, the whole history of the gradual growth of learning on the subject treated of in the book and the causes thereof, etc., etc.,"- -these are facts of the inner, the ideal
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world. Lastly there is the consciousness (corre- sponding to the Absolute) which joins together and connects, in my own self, these two sets of facts, those belonging to the ' me ' and those to the ' not-me,' and weaves them into the one process of my life. That the thread of the Self through the beads of the Not-Self is, or appears as, buddhi, laws, principles, apperception, self- consciousness, &c., may become clearer if the matter is considered thus : " I know and wish and act, and / know that I know and wish and act" — this is self-consciousness. " I know also that I knew and wished and acted before, and shall know and wish and act afterwards, in the same way, when the circumstances are the same " — this is the same self-consciousness modified into reason, ratio-cination, rationality, the per- ception of the ratio, the relation, of sameness, of similarity, amongst not-selves, because of the persistence and sameness, through past, present, and future, of the Self. " Such an experience, knowledge, desire, or action, is ahvays followed by such another " — this is the same self- consciousness modified into and stated as a law, a principle.
How and why does this state of things come about ? Why is there an outer world and an inner world ? How does this distinction between the ideal and the real, ideas and realities, arise
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at all and what is the distinction between them precisely ?
For answer we have to refer back to the principle which is always turning up on every side under every complication of phenomena, when that complication is sifted. Pratyag-atma is the unbroken continuity of the one. Mula- prakriti, on the other hand, is the utterly discontinuous brokenness and separateness of the many. The two have nothing in common with each other ; in fact they are ever and at every point entirely opposed to each other. And yet they are violently brought together into inviolable relation by the might of the Absolute-svabhava, the changeless nature of the Absolute. The reconciliation of these warring principles, each equally invincible, necessitates the further principle of 'continuity in discreteness,' whereby each discrete thing is in turn a thread of continuity to even more minutely discreted things and lower sub-divisions ; and, conversely, each thread of continuity is in turn a discrete and sub-divisional item in a higher thread of continuity — and this endlessly. This principle applies to the constitution of a so-called atom as also of solar systems which include smaller systems and form part of larger ones in a series that is endless either way ; and
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it underlies the continuously overlapping series of individualities which make up the Jiva-half of the world-process.
This same principle applied to the psychic half of samsara, that is to say to conscious- ness, and even there to the cognitional element specially (in connection with which it is most manifest), explains why there should be two worlds to consciousness, an ideal and a real, memory and sensation, and a third something holding the two together. The application may become clear if we endeavour to understand in a little more detail what is the significance of memory and the other allied psychological processes, and how and why they come into existence.
The Absolute may be correctly described as an eternal sensation in which the universal Self in one single act of consciousness senses the non-existence of the Not-Self; that is to say, of all possible pseudo-infinite not-selves in all the three divisions of time — past, present and future ; of space — length, breadth and depth ; of motion — approach, recess, and rhythmic vibration. Now each individual, separate, Jiva or self, out of the whole mass of pseudo-infinite Jivas or selves, the totality of which is unified in and by the Pratyag-atma, must also necessarily reproduce in itself this one single act of consciousness, this
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truly unique sensation, this all-embracing, all- exhausting experience, by reason of its identity with this universal Self; and yet it is impossible also for it to do so, because of its limitedness. The reconciliation of these opposed necessities gives rise to the ideal world in which we can ' look before and after ' simultaneously (compara- tively only), as distinguished from the real world in which we can have only one sensation at a time (again only comparatively), successively.
Thus, to begin with, the individual self requires two acts of consciousness to sense the non-existence of a single not-self. It cannot compass this in one act, like the universal Self. It must first sense the existence, and then sense the non-existence of that not-self. In the second place, it has to deal with pseudo-infinite not- selves ; it can sense them all only in, so to say, twice pseudo-infinite acts of consciousness, which means, in other words, in endless acts of con- sciousness, extending through endless time, through endless space and through endless motion. Confining ourselves for the moment to the case of one self dealing with one not-self, we see that that self first senses and asserts the existence of that not-self (as identical with itself), and secondly senses and asserts the non- existence of that same not-self (as non-identical with itself). The word ' same ' here embodies
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what we know as memory. The imposition of continuity on an ever-changing not-self by a self, in consequence and by virtue of its own continuity, is memory of that not-self. Putting the matter in another form, while all the possible past, present, and future of the world-process is completely and simultaneously present in the consciousness of the Pratyag-atma, it unfolds, as a mayavic or illusive appearance of procession, only gradually and in succession in the actual life of the individual ; and the constant partici- pation of the individual self in the omniscience latent and ever-present in the Pratyag-atma constitutes the inner ideal world which is made up of memory and expectation and derivative mental processes. Consider, in this connection, the fact that, even in ordinary usage, the word present never means an imaginary point of time dividing, as with a razor, the past from the present, but always a period, thus, ' at the present time * ' at present,' ' in this present life,' ' the present circumstances', etc., etc.
This statement is, however, not complete by itself.
Firstly : if the separate self can freely parti- cipate in the omniscience of the Pratyag-atmS, how is it that our recollection and our prevision are so very limited, so very erroneous ? Not one in a million can remember or forecast any
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facts behind and beyond this present birth ; and even the facts of the present life are but very imperfectly remembered and prevised. The answer to this is that while, metaphysically, this continuity of memory and expectation in the individual self is derived from the con- sciousness of the Praljag-atma, practically and actually it is derived from the consciousness of the individual of the next higher order,1 the Ishvara or Sutratma, just as in the case of the connecting unity of sense-media ; whence limitations. And as to the positive errors and forgettings within those limitations, they are due to the general causes which make know- ledge and ignorance, recollection and forgetful- ness, truth and error, possible, nay, necessary, in the world -pre cess at large ; these causes may be dealt with later in the chapters on cognition. Secondly (and this is the more relevant to our present purpose), there is the difference between the possibility of participation and actual participation. As soon as there is a positive act of memory, or positive act of pre- vision or expectation, it becomes distinct from the possibility of such recollection and prevision. One piece, so to say, of the latent has become
1 See Chap, xiii., supra, for the significance of the expression, 'the next higher individual.'
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patent, and the general latency remains a latency as ever before. And all this while, from the standpoint of the Absolute, there is no difference at all between latency and patency ; for, in the Absolute, all things which are limited and can be distinguished are exactly on the same level of etat, in the same way, and not one within or higher or lower than, or in any way different from another. The answer to this question, the reconciliation of these inconsistencies, can lie only in this, that what is latent to one is also patent to it in turn and simultaneously to others, while what is patent to one is also latent to it in turn and simultaneously to others ; and thus the equality of all is brought about, all existing simultane- ously from the stand-point of the Absolute, all serving as latent and patent, ideal and real, one within another, at the same time. The facts recorded by physical science as to the (pseudo- infinite) registration by each atom of all sights and sounds, etc., are helpful in understanding this.
We may endeavour to illustrate the fact thus. If a spectator wandered unrestingly through the halls of a vast museum, a great art-gallery, at the dead of night, with a single small lamp in one hand, each of the natural objects, the pictured scenes, the statues, the portraits, would
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be illumined by that lamp, in succession, for a single moment, while all the rest were in dark- ness, and after that single moment, would itself fall into darkness again. Let there now be not one but countless such spectators, as many in endless number as the objects of sight within the place, each spectator meandering in and out incessantly through the great crowd of all the others, each lamp bringing momentarily into light one object, and for only that spectator who holds that lamp. This immense and unmoving building is the rockbound ideation of the change- less Absolute. Each lamp-carrying spectator out of the countless crowd is one line of con- sciousness out of the pseudo-infinite lines of such that make up the totality of the one universal consciousness. Each coming into light of each object is its patency, is an experience of the Jiva ; each falling into darkness is its lapse into the latent. From the standpoint of the objects themselves, or of the universal conscious- ness, there is no latency, nor patency. From that of the lines of consciousness, there is. Why there is this appearance of lines of consciousness should be clear from all that has gone before.
We see then that whenever and wherever we take the world-process, we shall find it to consist of an outer plane of grosser matter which corresponds to and makes up the real
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world, the patent, and an inner plane of subtler matter which makes up the ideal world, corresponding to the latent. At each stage, the Jiva-core consists of -matter of the inner plane while its outer upadhi consists of matter of the outer plane ; and when a person says : " I think," " I act," it means that the matter of the inner core, which is the I for the time being, is actually, positively, modified by, or is itself modifying in a certain manner, the outer real world, literally in the same kind of though vastly subtler, way as a glass may reflect an image, or a compressed wire-spring may push back the object which compresses it. The ideality of the inner processes is due to the fact that the inner film of matter is posing and masquerading, for the time, as the truly immaterial Self.
Let us take some concrete facts to illustrate the above remarks. The lower we descend in the scale of living organisms, the less we find of that individuality, that self-consciousness, which looks ' before and after,' of memory and expectation in short. And the less we find of these, the hazier is the distinction between inner and outer, ideal and real. But as in no living organism which persists through even two moments of time can there be an utter absence of a unified consciousness, of an
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individuality, of the sense of ' before and after,' however vague and dim it may be, so can there not be an utter absence of inner core and outer sheath. But in the higher organisms, this distinction of a persisting core and a more or less changing sheath is much more definite. In the average man the sukshma-sharira (so named in the Vedanta system, and corres- ponding to the astral, or rather astro-mental, body of theosophical literature), made of a finer grade of matter than that which composes the physical plane we know of, is the inner core. This forms the individuality, the thread of continuity, the ' present,' in which the past and future, the before and after, of one physical life-period of a human being are conjoined, amidst the changes of his physical body and surroundings. The physical body itself has a certain ' form and shape ' imposed upon it by this inner body, which form, roughly speaking, persists like an external thread of continuity, through the constant changes of the material of the body. This but illustrates the pseudo- infinite repetition of every principle in nature. The physical body is sheath to the astral ; but in the physical body itself a still further dis- tinction is made between a grosser and a finer, and the former, the grosser, portion becomes sheath to an inner less gross, which becomes
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distinguished as a f body (or etheric double, in theosophical literature).
To put the matter in other words : of the pseudo-infinite variations of the logion, due to the pseudo-infinite variations of the ' this ' con- tained in that logion, each variation may be regarded as representing one life-course, one line of consciousness. This one life-course, one line of consciousness, taking the case of the average human individual, is represented by the inner sukshma-sharira which contains latent in itself the whole of the unfoldment of the actual life of that individual, as the seed contains the tree. As one single ' present,' it includes all the time-divisions, past and future, of that life within itself. Because of this fact, the Jiva can range in memory and expectation over the whole of this one physical life ; to him the whole of it is in a manner present at every moment of his life, because it is all present in the sukshma-sharira which is the ensouling core of his physical sheath and is himself. But his memory and expectation cannot go beyond the limits of the present life, because the individuality of the sukshma- sharira does not extend over other physical births. If, however, by development of mind, by persistent introspection and metaphysical or
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even psycho-philosophical and abstract thought, helped by yogic practices (which are only scientifically systematised processes of education of special faculties), a Jiva advances in evolution to the stage when he separates himself as much from the sukshma-sharira as from the sthula- sharira or physical body, then the sukshma- sharira loses, in and to him, its character of inner core, and becomes merged with the physical into the outer sheath, and another body, now called the karana-sharira, made of a still subtler grade of matter, takes the place of the inner core. This process is repeated ad infinitttin in the endless spirals of evolution including system within system. Such is the metaphysic of the facts stated in The Secret Doctrine (iii. 551 et seq.) that, to the Logos of our solar system, all the planes of that system are as the sub-planes of one plane. They would be to him, one outer real world ; his own inner, ideal, world would be a grade beyond. It is like this : if there were beings who had sense-experience of only solid matter, to them liquid matter would be in the place of soul, spirit, inner or ideal substance ; but if they should gradually grow very familiar with water, and begin to have some experience of gaseous matter, then solid and liquid would become ranged as degrees or sub-divisions of the
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outer plane to them, and air would take the place of soul, spirit, etc. ; as air grew familiar, radiant matter, or ether, or whatever other name might be given to the next degree of matter, would take its place as principle of continuity and support and unification, in actual life and in general estimation. Witness, in illustration of one aspect of this fact, the various theories of the earlier Greek philosophers, who endeavoured to reduce the universe to one single element, earth, water, fire, air, etc., successively ; and in illustration of another aspect thereof, the modern scientific theories with respect to ether. Modern scientists l have collected together and discussed all the attributes assigned to this hypothetical ether, and pointed out that they are in most instances exactly the opposite of those assigned to the known kinds of matter. As a matter of fact, the list of attributes thus given, e.g., continuity, unlimitedness, homogeneity, non - atomicity, structurelessness, gravitationlessness, friction- lessness, etc., etc., is not a list of attributes of any kind of matter or Mula-prakriti, but of Pratyag-atma. But it always happens in the history of evolution, that each subtler and more pliable grade of matter, in its relation to the
'See f.i., A. E. Dolbear. The Machinery of the Universe. P. 93 (Romance of Science Series).
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next denser and more resistent, displays the characteristics which Pratyag-atm^ generally displays towards Mula-prakriti, viz., the characteristics of being a source of existence and support, and of supplying a basis of continuity, of lubrication, whereby the resis- tant and separate are brought into relation with each other with the least possible friction, are unified. It is worthy of remark in passing that the Samskrit word *??, sneha, means oil, or moisture, or water, as well as love, which is Pratyag-atma in the desire-aspect, desire for unity. We may well entertain the supposition, therefore, that when modern science, becoming more and more familiar with radiant matter and protyle and ether, etc., shall have discovered their real properties, they will all fall into line with the kinds of matter now better known ; and a new and hypothetical element will have to be assumed, with these same characteristics of Pratyag-atma, to explain the otherwise para- doxical behaviour of the known kinds. Pauranic and theosophical literature speaks of two such elements, after ether or akasha, to be discovered within the limits of our manvantara, which have been already referred to before, viz., the mahat or adi-tattva and the buddhi or anupadaka- tattva.
The co-ordination of these pseudo-infinite
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planes of matter, then, is to be found in the fact that, whenever and wherever we take it, we find the world-process as a limited brahmanda, a world - system, small or large, which is a tri-bhuvanam, a tri-loki, a system of three worlds or layers or planes of matter, and neither more nor less. That is to say, every Jiva, wherever and whenever he lives, lives in a world-system which to him has three factors : an outer or real world, an inner or ideal world, and the all- embracing consciousness — which connects the two, and which, being itself essentially and fully ever-present, is the basis of every ' present,' whatever stretch of time and space and motion that lower present or ideal may include. In our system, to average humanity, the outer world is the world of the physical plane and the sthula- sharira ; the inner, of the astro-mental plane and the sukshma-sharira ; the abstract conscious- ness (the principles or outlines on which the individual is constructed, the basic constituents of his nature, the special aspect or mode of the one consciousness which that individual is intended to manifest, anger, or love, or art, or philanthropy, etc., in pseudo-infinite variety), of the karana-sharira, the causal body, which is the cause of the others, in a way corresponding to that in which the Absolute-consciousness is the cause of all that occurs within it. When, by w
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evolution and the opening up of the paths of individual consciousness through the layers of the sukshma-sharira, the latter and its material will become as much ' object ' to the conscious- ness as the physical body and its material are now, then the karana will take the place of the sflkshma, and the abstract consciousness will retire to a subtler plane of matter, which has been called the buddhic, or JT^Tsnrrir, maha- karana, or gr^T, turiya, etc. ; and then the range of memory and expectation will extend beyond the present life to past and future births, because the karana-body has a more extensive ' present,' and lasts through many physical births, even as the sukshma-sharira lasts through all the changes of the physical body in one birth. From the standpoint of the karana-body, physi- cal births-deaths are as bright-dark fortnights, or even day-nights, of physical life would be to the sukshma-sharira.
More as to the full significance of the 'present' may appear later in the chapters dealing with cognition in a second part of this work. We may now pass on to certain inferences from the facts stated above ; but before doing so it may be noted that a fact — useful to bear in mind in systematising apparently disjointed and otherwise inconsistent-seeming and confusing statements in old Samskrit and theosophical
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literature— is that the same words are employed, and for reasons existing in the nature of things as shown above, to indicate abstract general principles and types which have a universal application, and also special facts which are peculiar only to a particular locality or system. Thus (a) atma, (b} buddhi, (c) manas — each having one universal sense, viz., (#) the Self, (b] the unifying reason, which is but the Self holding together the many and so appearing as a network of laws, and (c) the distinguishing and separat- ing intelligence — are occasionally used in theo- sophical literature in another sense, viz., the three subtlest planes of matter out of the seven of which our solar system consists. When all the seven planes are taken as sub-planes of one cosmic plane, these may be regarded as composing the inner core to the outer sheath made up of the other four ; even as the three subtler sub-planes of the physical plane supply the material for the ' inner ' etheric double, that pervades and holds together the outer body com- posed of the four grosser sub-planes of physical matter, viz., solid, liquid, gaseous, and etheric.
The necessary corollary from the above state- ments is : that planes of matter which may be very different from each other, which may be mutually uncognisable by, and even as non- existent to, the Jivas ordinarily inhabiting them,
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i.e., having sheaths and bodies made of or corre- sponding to them, will always be seen from the standpoint of a higher Jiva, having a sufficiently extensive consciousness, to be graded or related to each other in some way or other. We can conceive of beings whose bodies are made of air, and of others made of fire-flames. These two sets of beings might even interpenetrate without being conscious of each other. But a Jiva who was familiar with both kinds of matter in all their forms would be able to distinguish between the two, and see the gradation between the atoms* composing the one and the other kind of matter. A mosquito can walk upon the surface of water ; for all practical purposes, the water is to it just as hard and resistant as stone. It is not so to the fish. The fish and the mosquito may not be able to understand, the one how the other lives and moves in water, and the other how the one can walk upon the the surface of it without being immersed. Man can understand both things. Pseudo-infinite necessarily are these diversities of consciousness, and each plane and each kind of matter corre- sponding to each variety of this diversity is again pseudo - infinite in extent of space, time, and motion, as already said. From the narrow standpoint, which knows of only one, each may seem to exclude even the possibility
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of others ; so that if one said that there were living beings whose bodies were composed of subtler matter, that our earth was thronged with them so that our bodies and theirs were passing through each other very often and in entire unconsciousness of each other's existence, the statement would ordinarily either not be believed, as involving a breach of geometrical axioms, or if believed, would be regarded as disproving those axioms. But to a higher and broader outlook both kinds of matter and their corresponding lines of consciousness fall into their proper places, and the graded relations to each other of these planes of matter, by inter- penetration, without violation of any mathe- matical laws, also become apparent.
And thus another connected corollary is seen to be that, by metaphysical deduction, the so-called fourth and fifth and higher dimen- sions of space can really not be anything differing in kind from the known three dimensions. These three dimensions them- selves, length, breadth and depth, are but varieties of the one faci of co-existence which is the essential and the whole significance of space. Three straight lines intersecting each other at right angles at one central point give us these three dimensions. But a million, a billion, a pseudo-infinite number, of such
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triplets of lines can intersect each other at the same central point ; that is to say, a pseudo-infinite number of straight lines can intersect each other at that point at angles of all possible degrees ; and we can therefore justifiably speak of a pseudo-infinite number of dimensions of space. In any other sense, all so-called new dimensions resolve them- selves into cases of interpenetration in various ways ; and interpenetration itself, it is clear, is but the co-existence of atoms, or molecules, or component particles, in special positions towards each other. The case would be exactly similar with dimensions and divisions of time and motion.
The question of how the consciousness of a Jiva expands so as to embrace more and more planes of matter is one of general evolution, or of practical yoga when endeavoured to be accomplished deliberately.
The nature itself of the process of expansion of consciousness is nothing particularly recon- dite or mysterious. All education is such expansion. A Jiva takes up a new subject of study, a new line of livelihood, a new department of life and mode of existence, and forthwith a new world is opened to him, and his consciousness flows out into, and becomes co-extensive with, and assimilates, that new
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world. In its other aspect, of (comparatively) simultaneous communion, we find other illus- trations. Take the case of an ordinary govern- ment. The consciousness of an officer in charge of the police-administration of a sub- district is co-extensive with the police-affairs of that district ; that of another in charge of its revenue-administration is similarly co-extensive with its revenue-affairs ; and so with a number of other departments of administration, medical, educational, arboricultural, commercial, muni- cipal, etc., side by side in the same sub-district. But there are larger districts made up of numbers of these sub-districts, and still larger divisions of country made up of numbers of these districts ; and at each stage there are administrative officers in charge of each depart- ment, whose consciousness may be said to include the consciousnesses of their subordinates in that department, exclude those of their com- peers, and be in turn included in those of their superiors. The more complicated the machinery of the government, the better the illustration will be of inclusions and exclusions and partial or complete coincidences and over-lappings and communions of consciousness. At last we come to the head of the government, whose conscious- ness may be said to include the consciousnesses, whose knowledge and power include the know-
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ledges and powers, of all the public servants of the land, whose consciousness is so expanded as to enable him to be in touch with them all and feel and act through them all constantly. An officer promoted through the grades of such an administration would clearly pass through sxpansions of consciousness. A more common illustration, which may appear to show out the so-called immediacy of consciousness better, is that of friends and relatives. Two friends may be so intimate with each other, husband and wife, and members of a joint family, may love and be in rapport with each other so much, that they have a ' common life,' a ' common feeling,' a 'common consciousness.' But it should be borne in mind that, strictly speaking, there is no more immediacy in the one case than in the other, but only quicker cognition. Consciousness of the particular, the limited, working unavoidably through an upadhi, necessarily deals with time as with space, and the time-element is always a definite element, however infinitesimal it may be in any given case. The word ' immediate ' in such cases has only a comparative signi- ficance, as is apparent from the fact that the time of transmission of a sensation, from the end of a nerve to the seat of consciousness, has been distinctly and definitely calculated in the case of living organisms.
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Such expansion of consciousness, then, is not in its nature more mysterious and recondite than any other item in the world-process, but a thing of daily and hourly occurrence. In terms of metaphysic it is the coming of an individual self into relation with a larger and larger not-self. The processes of yoga are no more and no less methods of education — using the word in its true significance of strengthening, developing, e-ducing or forth- leading of faculties already existent but weak or latent — than the processes followed in the million schools and colleges of modern life, for developing the physical and mental powers of children and youth. Every act of attention, of concentration, of regulation and balancing, of deliberately ' joining ' and directing the self to an object, or to itself, of con-^'z^-ating or en-gag-'mg it to or in anything, is an act of yoga, in the strict sense of the word, and every such act is a help to the development and expansion of the individual consciousness.