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saidevo
29 April 2008, 09:37 AM
Jiva-Atoms: 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 Self, Not-Self, and Negation.



"The One can, when manifesting, become only Three. The Unmanifested, when a simple duality, remains passive and concealed. The dual monad (the 7th and 6th principles), has, in order to manifest itself, to first become a triad". The Mahatma Letters, p. 347; see also p.346. It would be useful for the student to try to translate the symbols used there into the abstract terms used here.


We saw again that
• Self was triple, sat-chid-Ananda;
• Not-Self was triple, rajas-sattva-tamas;
• the affirmative Shakti-Energy of Negation was triple, srshti-sthiti-laya;
• and, finally, that (the negative shUnyatA, 'emptiness', of) Negation itself was also triple, desha-kAla-kriyA.

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 jIva-atom which, because of this fact, contains, in seed, the whole of the World-Process in itself. After this brief resume we may go on to consider jiva-atoms in a little more detail.

Definition of Atom

etat, 'This', is by necessity Many, by opposition to the One-ness of the aham, the 'I', Self, and each of these Many, by opposition to the Self's unlimitedness and changlessness, and, again, by mutual exclusion and limitation, under the stress of Negation, is limited, and trebly limited, in space, time, and motion; i.e., it has got

• a parimANa, dimension, extension, size in space, by limitation on this side and on that;

• a spaMda or sphuraNa, a vibration in motion, a pendulum-swing, a revolution within the area of a radius, limited movement, which is necessarily made rhythmic by the fact of limitation in space and time;

• and an Ayu, a duration, a life-period, a limited succession, in time.

Such is the general description of the atoms which make up mUla-prakrti, 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 defined more simply or comprehensively anywise else.



परिमाण, स्पंद, स्फुरण, आयु

This word आयु, and आयाम, AyAma, extension, and अयन, ayana, movement, seem to be connected together in a suggestive and significant way, (though etymologically different), but the latter two are not very current now in the general meanings mentioned. Hence the other corresponding words have been given above.


Mutual Borrowings of Attributes

But an etat, 'this', cannot exist apart from aham, 'I'; Mula-prakrti is inseparable from PratyagAtmA. Each 'this' is indissolubly connected with '1', 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 'aham-s', jIvas or jivAtmAs; that every 'aham' is em-bod-ied in an 'etat', and every 'etat' is en-soul-ed by an 'aham'; and that every one of these pseudo-infinite atoms that make up Mula-prakrti is therefore living. Each such living atom, combining in itself Pratyag-AtmA and Mulaprakrti, is an individual, an individualised Jiva-atom.



एतन् मिथुनं, यद् वाक् च प्राणश्च; ऋक् च, साम च;
तद् एतन् मिथुनं, औम् इति एतद् अस्मिन् अक्षरे संसृज्यते;
य्दा वै मिथुनौ समागच्छतः, आपयतो वै तौ अन्योऽन्यस्य कामान् सर्वान् ।

etan mithunaM, yad vAk cha prANashcha; Ruk cha, sAma cha;
tad etan mithunaM, aum iti etad asmin akShare saMsRujyate;
ydA vai mithunau samAgachChataH, Apayato vai tau anyo&nyasya kAmAn sarvAn |
--Chandogya Upanishad, 1.1.5-6

"This pair, voice (speech) and breath, hymn and melody, both come together in the Imperishable Word-sound Om (Aum); and when the Two come together, they fulfil all their Desire and desires for each other."


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 consciousness, indicated by the body ('the soul made visible') which it wears, an age or lifetime, and a restless activity of mind. The Samskrta 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 parimANa, dimension, the word kshetra, the 'field' (of consciousness) is more commonly used.



ज्यात्यायुर्भोगाः jyAti-Ayur-bhoga, in the words of the Yoga-sutra. i.e., a sheath or body extended in space, a lifetime, and a sum-total of experiences. For the word kshetra, see Gita, ch.xiii.


These attributes, it is clear, appear in the Jiva with reference to the primary attributes of Negation, viz., space, time, and motion.

With reference to the functions of the Shakti-aspect of Negation, (i.e., the Energy of the I, hiding in M), viz., creation, preservation, and destruction, the attributes of the Jiva-atom may be said to be birth, life, and death; or, in other words, growth, stagnation, and decay; corresponding to attraction, balancing, and repulsion.

One Becomes Many, Many, One

In such a Jiva-atom, mutual imposition of the attributes of each, Self and 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 individuality, the phenomenon of permanence in impermanence and impermanence in permanence, oneness in manyness and manyness in oneness.

The one [b]PratyagAtmA[b] becomes many individuals; the many Mula-prakrti 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 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 yet reproducing the 'universal One'; but as, because of the other law, operating simultaneously with equal force, viz., that the 'this' is limited as against the unlimitedness of 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 Jlva-aspect, 'individuals'; the individual, particular, or definite, being the reconciliation of the extremes of the singular and the universal; which 'extremes meet' however, for in-fin-itesimal centre and in-fin-ite circle are equally in-de-fin-able, and are therefore undistingnishable, equal, identical.

All Matter Animate

We see now what the real value of the distinction 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-liven-ed, ensouled, inspired, animated by spirit; and also no spirit that is not in-form-ed with, inclosed, inclothed, ensheathed, embodied, in matter. [achaitanyaM na vadyate |--Mahabharata, Shanti-parva, ch.184]

This--which is proved by its own irrefragable chain of deductions to the inner, 'pure', or higher 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, and with the egoistic clingings and limitations, of the individual self--this is now being proved even to the 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 difference, i.e., difference in the elementary materials and the elementary forces, between organic and inorganic bodies, does not exist", [Max Verworn, General Physiology, p.336.] and that the differences between them "are no greater than the differences between many inorganic substances, and consist merely, in the mode of union of the elements".

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 matter. [Sir J.C.Bose, [i]Response in the Living and the Non-Living]

False One-Sided Views

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 misconstruction, 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 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 whole Truth is that all Matter is living, and all Life material; that the pseudo-eternal Motion of all Matter, in all its endless complication, 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 increased or decreased elaboration of the complications.



See The Mahatma Letters, pp.60,63,65,66,67, and other pages
referred to in its index, against the words Matter. Spirit, Force; and
endeavour to reconcile the seemingly inconsistent statements. The present work may perhaps be of some use in the endeavour.


Etat and Aham can never be separated.



Therefore every mood of mind has a corresponding mode of matter, in and through which it manifests. As countless radii meet in the centre, so countless worlds meet in the soul-Jiva, mind-body. And the soul can pass from any radius to any other by coming back to the centre, i.e., it-Self, and issuing forth again thence.

Hence, the scriptures say that persons who cultivate such-and-such virtues or vices, noble or ignoble sentiments, passions, feelings, emotions, tastes, interests, go to such and such worlds, physical and superphysical, 'heavenly' or 'hellish', by sheer attraction in that direction. Consider how persons gravitate towards the worlds of science or art or literature or business or administration, and to one or other of the numerous sub-sub-divisions of these.

The fact that the nervous system (predominantly) serves the 'intellectual'; the muscular, the 'actional'; the glandulo-vasculor, the 'emotional', illustrates the same fact.

A western writer has recently invented the words 'cerebro-tomc', 'somato-tonic', and 'viscero-tonic' for the three main temperaments and types of humans. Overloading of a language's vocabulary with a plethora of new coinages which are not really necessary, is not desirable; and the French are wise to keep their diction and dictionary pure and limited, by the censorship of their Academy; though Herbert Spencer disapproves such limitation. But in this particular case, an advocate of Manu and Veda may welcome even the three strange words as supporting his arguments.

The reader may see, in this connection, pp.355-356 of The Science of Social Organisation, vol.I; pp.32-34 of The Superphysics of War (Adyar Pamphlets), and p.79 of World War and its Only Cure.


Yet they are distinct also and can never be identified literally, except as they both are ever merged, by Negation, in the completeness and Self-sameness of the Absolute. They are distinguishable, but not separable, in brief.

Psycho-Physical Parallelism: Animate and Inanimate not Distinct

This psycho-physical parallelism is the inner meaning of the Sankhya-doctrine, referred to before, viz., the constant con-currence or co-efficience of Consciousness with all variations of Motion in Matter, which con-comitance or co-incidence constitutes universal Life and makes those Movements possible. This is all that Consciousness does; AtmA is AdhAra, base, 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 atomic affinities, as is being attempted by modern scientists anew, then the question would arise: 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; belief in Vital Force is restored on a higher level; and all affinities become resolved into the vital phenomena of one ever-living Universal Shakti.

Of course, real initiation of actions and movements by individual consciousness is abolished even so; but apparent initiation remains untouched. What the whole truth is on this point, may be gathered partially from what has been already said about free-will, and. for the rest, from the fuller discussion which may be held later on.

Znanna
30 April 2008, 08:07 PM
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Perhaps it is the reflection which qualifies the reality of the image :)



Namaste,
ZN

saidevo
30 April 2008, 09:01 PM
Namaste Znanna.



"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Perhaps it is the reflection which qualifies the reality of the image :)
Namaste,
ZN

The image is that of the ever-real Absolute, therefore the reflection too is as much real, only conditioned by the medium it is reflected on.

The Sun is reflected as countless tiny suns by countless watery and other polished media: only some of the reflections are the brightest and steady.

aNoraNIyAn mahato mahIyAn Atmasya jantor nihito guhayAm
--Narayaneeya Upanishad

"Smaller than the smallest atom is the Atman. Most expansive is He, greater than the great. Because He is the innermost existence in every thing, He is seated in the hearts of all beings." -- Swami Krishnananda's commentary

saidevo
01 May 2008, 01:56 AM
Inverse Ratio: Necrobiosis

Distinction between animate and inanimate 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 more prominent and manifest, while, in the latter, the element of Mula-prakrti is more apparent.

Reason for this alternate predominance, now of the one and now of the other, is the alternation of 'am' and 'am not'. When 'am' is strong, we have the appearance of 'the living', of crescent 'life', of anabolism. When 'am not' prevails, then we have the phenomenon of 'death', 'the dying', 'the dead', 'the inert', of katabolism. In the strict sense of the words, 'life' and 'death' are not correct here; only 'living' and 'dying' are proper.

The scientific truth of necrobiosis, 'dying life' or 'living death', of gradual death, is voucher for this fact. But like 'animate' and 'inanimate', 'life' and 'death' have, as convenient 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 subdivisions of time, space, and motion; for,

(1) 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 this other etat'; and 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.

Finally, (3) it is unavoidable to be saying, everywhere and always, either 'I am this', or 'I qm not this'.

Thus it comes about that every organism is living and dying, at the same time, i.e., changing, and has also successively ascending and descending 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 one falls, the other rises similarly; but entirely separated they never can be.

Mutual Borrowing of Attributes

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 adhyAsa, mutual superimposition 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. Reconciliation of this contradiction is achieved in ever-recurrent beginnings and endings.



1. adhyAsa, अध्यास. The word 'im-position' is peculiarly ap-posite here. Maya is the Great Impostor or Impostress, who 'imposes' upon people; makes the false look like the true to them; 'imposes' false beliefs upon them.

The Greek word antidosis seems to mean the same adhyAsa. Footnote 4 on p.17 of Gibbon's Roman Empire, vol.V, (Everyman's Library series) says: "The antidosis of the Greeks, a mutual loan or transfer of the idioms or properties ('idios', one's own peculiarity) of each nature to the other--of infinity to man, possibility (pass-ingness. transience, finiteness) to God, etc. Twelve rules on this nicest of subjects compose the Theosophical Grammar of Petavius." See p. 11, supra.

2. आत्मनियत्वे प्रेत्यभावसिद्धिः

Atmaniyatve pretyabhAvasiddhiH --Nyaya-sutra, IV.i.10.

"Because AtmA, Self, is eternal, therefore, it follows as a necessary consequence, that after having departed from one body, it becomes again, i.e., comes into another body".


Triple World

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? Necessity to obviate this objection creates at once new laws and facts.

Firstly, the difficulty is solved by (apparent) successive dissociations and reassociations of ensouling inner Jiva and ensheathing outer bodies, i.e., transfer of the individual consciousness from one body to another, and thence to yet another, and so on. But having said this, it becomes necessary to explain what is meant by inner Jiva and 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--indeed, a trinity, strictly speaking; as may appear later in connection with the explanation of the metaphysic of the expression tri-bhuvana, the triple-world. 'I' is joined to etat by 'am' in 'I (am) this'; 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.

Veil Upon Veil

This inner self is something which, by its very PratyagAtmic nature and constitution, is always eluding sensuous grasp and definition. "How and by what may the knower be known?" (Brhad-aranyaka, 2.4.14).

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 (Kena Upanishad, 3), 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 undoubtably material.

This 'inner' Self, the 'abstract', would lose its very nature and falsify itself, would no longer he '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 It-Self, 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 protoplasm and the nucleus", (Max Verworn, General Physiology, p.296), (with a connecting third kind, viz., chromatin-network); and the nucleus has been found, on further investigation, to contain still inner cores and sheaths, etc., viz., the nucleolus and other substances." (Ibid., p.91; see also H.W.Conn: The Story of Life's Mechanism)

The truth is that, as more or less openly described in Yoga Vasishtha (Vide story of Lila in Utpatti-Prakarana; Mystic Kxperiences, or Tales from Yoga-Vasishtha) and other works on Yoga and Vedanta, and in theosophical literature, the constitution of man, and, indeed, of all living matter, is a plantain-stem-like system of leaf-sheath within leaf-sheath, layer within layer, fold within fold, and shell within shell, all interpenetrating one another, each distinguishable from each, yet not wholly separable from each other, but fringing off into each other by indefinable gradations.

Reciprocal Birth and Death

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, e.g,, litho-, hydro-, igni-, atmo-, ethero-, etc., spheres); but pseudo-infinitely, which only is in accordance with reason, when the whole of the World-Process is taken into account. More about this may appear later (See the remarks on 'the three worlds or planes' and 'the three bodies' in Ch. XV, on Jlvas, infra.); 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 outer and denser 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 dense body. There is a reciprocal severance of association and reciprocal death, a reciprocal cessation of interchange, interplay, intervivification.

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 of the individual consciousness from one plane of etat-matter to another, birth is the same transference from another into the one.

Threefold World is Like Triune Man

The same event means a death in one plane or world, and a birth in another. In other words, as death is reciprocal, so is birth; each dies to the other; each is born away from the other. The sleeping of the Jlva in the sthU1a or physical body, on the physical plane of jAgrat, 'waking' consciousness, is its awakening in the sUkshma or astral body, on the astral plane of svapna, 'dreaming' consciousness; its sleeping in the latter, again, is its awakening in the kAraNa, 'causal' body, on the corresponding plane of sushupti, 'deep sleep' consciousness; (and so on pseudo-infinitely, in a special sense), and in the reverse order, vice versa, (also, pseudo-infinitely, in that special sense).

All Everywhere, As Latent

But, again, the totality of etats, 'this-es', can never be really separated from the One indivisible Self; nor an etat, a 'this', from an aham, an 'I', from its own particular 'I', so to say, viz., 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 requirement 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 statements in The Secret Doctrine on the subject of the auric egg, and in Vedanta on the subtle atomic sheaths carried by a Jiva in its passage from lower to successively higher worlds.)



The expression जीवकोश, [b]jIva-kosha, 'Jiva-cocoon or capsule', occurs in Bhagavata, IV.xxiii.11. In one of the debates in Shankara-Dig-vijaya occurs the sentence,

स प्राह, जीवः, करणावसादे, यास्यन्, वृतो गच्छति भूतसूक्ष्मैः ।.

sa prAha, jIvaH, karaNAvasAde, yAsyan, vRuto gachChati bhUtasUkShmaiH |

"The jiva, departing, goes enveloped in sUkshma, subtle, elements.'


In other words, the One Aham in its pseudo-infinite pseudo-subdivisions is in unceasing and yet recurrent conjunction-disjunction, 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 experience, 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".



एतावत् एव जिज्ञास्यं तत्त्वजिज्ञासुना आत्मनः,
अन्वय-व्यतिरेकाम्यां, यत् स्यात् सर्वत्र सर्वदा ।

etAvat eva jij~jAsyaM tattvajij~jAsunA AtmanaH,
anvaya-vyatirekAmyAM, yat syAt sarvatra sarvadA |
--Bagavata, II.i.39.

saidevo
02 May 2008, 09:11 PM
अयं आत्मा ब्रह्म सर्वानुभूः ।
काममयोऽकाममयः, धर्ममयोऽधर्ममयः, सर्वमयः ।
सा वा अयं अस्य सर्वस्य वशी सर्वस्य ईशानः, सर्वस्य अधिपतिः ।
सर्व-कर्मा, सर्वकामः, सर्वगन्धः, सर्वरसः इति ।
ब्रह्म सर्वाणि नामानि, सर्वाणि रूपाणि, सर्वाणि कर्माणि बिभर्त्ति;

ayaM AtmA brahma sarvAnubhUH |
kAmamayo&kAmamayaH, dharmamayo&dharmamayaH, sarvamayaH |
sA vA ayaM asya sarvasya vashI sarvasya IshAnaH, sarvasya adhipatiH |
sarva-karmA, sarvakAmaH, sarvagandhaH, sarvarasaH iti |
brahma sarvANi nAmAni, sarvANi rUpANi, sarvANi karmANi bibhartti;
--Brhad-Aranyaka Upanishad

एष् उ एव नृ, एष हि सर्वत्र सर्वदा सर्वात्मा;

eSh u eva nRu, eSha hi sarvatra sarvadA sarvAtmA;
--Nrsimha-Uttara-TaapinI Upanishad.

सर्वज्ञता हि सर्वत्र;

sarvaj~jatA hi sarvatra; --Gauda-pada's Karika

सर्वः, सर्वकाममयः, सर्वकामार्थदः, सर्वक्षित्, सर्वगः, सर्वगतः,
सर्वग्रासः, सर्वप्रेम-आस्पदं, सर्वज्ञः, सर्वेश्वरः, सर्ववित्, सर्वतः
पाणिपादं, सर्वतो-ऽक्षिशिरोपुखं, सर्वतः श्रुतिमत्, सर्वतोमुखं,
सर्वत्र आत्मा, सर्वत्रगः, सर्वदासंवित्तिः, सर्वदृक्, सर्वसाक्षी,
सर्वधातमम्, सर्वभुक, सर्व-आत्मा, सर्वानुभूतः, सर्वार्थः, सर्वाशी,
सर्वाहमानी, सर्वेन्द्रियः, सर्वैषणाविनिर्मुक्तः, सर्वभूत-आशयस्थितः,
सर्वभूताधि-वासः, सर्वभूतान्तगत्मा, सर्वभृत्, सर्वलोकमहेश्वरः,
सर्वव्यापी, सर्वसंस्थः, सर्वसमः, सर्वसंगविवर्जितः, सर्वसारः,
सर्वसृक्, सर्वहरः, सर्व-आजीवः

sarvaH, sarvakAmamayaH, sarvakAmArthadaH, sarvakShit, sarvagaH, sarvagataH,
sarvagrAsaH, sarvaprema-AspadaM, sarvaj~jaH, sarveshvaraH, sarvavit, sarvataH
pANipAdaM, sarvato-&kShishiropukhaM, sarvataH shrutimat, sarvatomukhaM,
sarvatra AtmA, sarvatragaH, sarvadAsaMvittiH, sarvadRuk, sarvasAkShI,
sarvadhAtamam, sarvabhuka, sarva-AtmA, sarvAnubhUtaH, sarvArthaH, sarvAshI,
sarvAhamAnI, sarvendriyaH, sarvaiShaNAvinirmuktaH, sarvabhUta-AshayasthitaH,
sarvabhUtAdhi-vAsaH, sarvabhUtAntagatmA, sarvabhRut, sarvalokamaheshvaraH,
sarvavyApI, sarvasaMsthaH, sarvasamaH, sarvasaMgavivarjitaH, sarvasAraH,
sarvasRuk, sarvaharaH, sarva-AjIvaH

etc.--are the epithets, descriptive of the Self in terms of 'all', which are scattered all over the Upanishats. "That which is every-thing, every-where, every-when; all, al-ways, all-space, all-time, all-knowing; all-experiencing; all-ruling; all-doing, all-desiring, all-smelling, all-tasting, all-touching, all-seeing, all-hearing; all-named, all-formed, all-motioned; all-giving; all-taking; all-pervading; all-grasping; all-beloved, all-loving; all-handed, all-footed, all-eyed, all-cared, all-mouthed, all-nosed; all-seeing, all-witnessing, all-supporting, all-souled; all-desire-transcending; same and equal in, for, to, all; devoid of all; essence of all; creator, preserver, destroyer of all, etc. Such descriptions can apply and do apply to Naught-Else-than 'I', the Supreme, the Universal.


Are Orbs of Heaven Inaimate? Has Each a Sou? Monism

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 words 'nature', 'inanimate nature', as used to mean lands and mountains, clouds, rivers, and oceans, fire of volcanoes, light and heat of the sun, substance of the stars, airs and gases of the atmosphere, 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 6e explained? Where is the aham, 'I', in them? Or if it is there, why so latent in so much tht larger portion of Mula-prakrti?

The question seems at first sight to be exclusively within the province of mere speculation; but a true Metaphysic should include the principles 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 and co-ordinate and synthesise all its aspects and departments, as the architect's plan underlies the building and co-ordinates the activities of all the workers on it.

The explanation of this question may, therefore, properly be sought for in metaphysical as well as 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, through leading scientists, says:

• "Individuals of the first order are cells;
• of the second order are tissues, associations of individuals of the first order;
• of the third order are organs, associations of individuals 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."
(Max Verworn, General Physiology, p.62.)

There is no reason why this chain should not be lengthened pseudo-infinitely. It is very probable that physical science will some day discover definitely 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 and superphysical fact; and, still further, that the various kingdoms, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, etc., have a common life as well as special lives, in endless continuity, so that even ordinary pantheism is vindicable in a very literal sense, as being one part, but not the whole, of the body of truth which makes up metaphysic.

Individualities of Many Grades: 'Extreme' Zeal: Truthful 'Mean'

'Individuals' in the preceding paragraph 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 'inanimate 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 inanimate 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." (Ibid., p.303.)

Pfluger opined that "living proteid is a huge molecule undergoing constant, never-ending formation and constant decomposition, and probably behaves towards the usual chemical molecules as the sun behaves towards small meteors". (Ibid., p.307.)

Of course there is difference of opinion and 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 significance will come to the surface, and the general truth pervading and reconciling all opposing 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 shortest cut.



Thus a recent writer on political science says: "It is difficult to label the attitude I have adopted. It is Individualism if that only implies the denial of the existence of any Social Soul or Higher Unity in the form of a Super-person," (i.e., as we might say, of a sUtrAtmA, an over-soul or group-soul, a virAt-purusha, which others believe in); C.D.Burns, Political Ideals, Preface, p.5 (1915).

The workings of the 'principle' of the 'group-soul', 'net-soul', in animalcules, animal-herds (shoals, schools, flights, coveys, packs, hives, termitaries), human-families (clans, tribes, races, nations), should be observed and studied, to make the significance of 'individuality' clear.


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.

Individuals within Individuals

This fact softens, and makes possible the assimilation of, the view which otherwise would look exaggerated, weird, unsober, that the earth, the moon, the sun, and the stars, might each be they are, by the deductions of the reason and the testimony of Puranas and other scriptural works 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 individuals, so that a large number, or, strictly speaking, a pseudo-infinite number, of distinct lives, i.e., lines of consciousness, are being ministered to by apparently each 'this', while at the same time all the pseudo-infinite 'this-es' are, vice versa, ministering to the one life of the One Self (as also to the life of each individual self or Jiva, one directly and the rest indirectly).



This is one way of interpreting the Sankhya doctrine of one Prakrti being 'beheld' by many purushas, and the Vedanta view of One Brahma and many-natured yet pseudo-one Maya.


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 proportion and relation. Thus considered, millions and billions of such heavenly bodies might as easily float in the veins of Macrocosmic 'Viraat Purusha with thousand heads, feet, hands", (Purusha-Sukta. See also Bhagavad-Glta, xi.) as blood-corpuscles, leucocytes, phagocytes, bacilli, bacteria, microbes, virus-es, in the veins of a single human being; and they may very well discharge 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 phenomena of 'multiple personality', 'dissociated states'--of which up to eight have been observed (see Dr.Morton Prince, The Unconscious, Lee. II)--are very useful in helping us to realise the Maya of the feel of separate individuality; and how this varies and fluctuates, by means of memory, चित्तं चेतयते chittaM chetayate.

We may think of an incident, and even call up a vivid picture of it in mind, but feel unperturbed, like a neutral spectator; suddenly, there comes a wave, a surge, an overpowering rush of memory--'the principal actor in the incident is myself'--and all the appurtenant emotions follow at once. So too, a chief means of consolation for past mistakes is the 'philosophical' reflection--'It was not I, my present 'I', which committed it; but a longpast 'I', another I, someone else, as it were, or even an obsessing spirit, that did it'.

Memory at-taches; reflection de-taches; emotion attaches, connects, binds, identifies; intelligence detaches, analyses, discriminates, separates; (bandha and moksha).

The ideas put forward in Jung's Analytical Psychology, (trans, by C.E.Long, Pub: 1920) pp,472-4, 'Summary', supply useful commentary on Vedanta views. Jung calls 'individuality', persona, and speaks, of 'collective Psyche', which comes near to Mahat-Buddhi, Vishv-AtmA, Sutr~AtmA, etc.

saidevo
05 May 2008, 02:00 AM
Living Bones, Conches, Carapaces

The apparently inanimate masses of material nature may thus all be regarded as parts of some one or other smaller or larger 'individual'. Their inanimateness is at the most no greater than the inanimateness of a living being's teeth, nails, hair, epidermis, blood, bone, shell, each of which may, nay, does, harbour and nourish multifarious minute lives, while also itself connected on the descending or ascending phase of metabolism with a larger lite.

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'. What the Upanishat declares, 'This world appears forth from the Unperishing as hair and nails from the man", is probably declared in a similar sense with reference to VirAt-Purusha.



Mundaka, i.1.7. Many Purana-s describe, in different aspects, the correspondences between the limbs, members, parts, organs, of VirAt-Purusha, MahA-Pnrusha, MahA-VirAt, Macro-Cosmos, and those of the human purusha, kshudra-virAt, micro-cosmos. The two are also called Brahm-anda and piNd-Anda.

Bhagavata describes them in grand words, in 11.i. and repeatedly, in later chapters. The general Law of Correspondence, or Law of Analogy, is also enunciated in II viii.8, and again, with a slight variation of language, in XII.xi. 9. thus:

यावान् अयं वै पुरुषः इयत्ताऽवयवैः पृथक,
तावान् असौ इति प्रोक्त्तः संस्थाऽवयववान् इव ।
यावान् अयं वै पुरुषः यावत्या संस्थया मितः,
तावान् असौ अपि महापुरुषः लोकसंस्थया ।

yAvAn ayaM vai puruShaH iyattA&vayavaiH pRuthaka,
tAvAn asau iti prokttaH saMsthA&vayavavAn iva |
yAvAn ayaM vai puruShaH yAvatyA saMsthayA mitaH,
tAvAn asau api mahApuruShaH lokasaMsthayA |

"As the organs, parts, of, and arrangements and proportions thereof, of a single small-organism; even such, those of the Vast-Organism."

"• The seven tala-s (pAtAla, etc. ) are the Lord's nether limbs;
• seven lokas (bhUH, etc.) His upper parts;
• sun and moon are His eyes;
• tempests and zephyrs, His hot and cool breaths;
• His upper lip is the blush of Love, and the lower the Greed of that same Love;
• His breast is dharma, and his back, a-dharma;
• His flanks are Oceans; rivers, His arteries and veins;
• Mountains, His mighty bones, forests are the down upon His Body;
• clouds His glorious many-colored hair;
• His smile and brilliant teeth are bewitching Maya.

• The Kaustubha-jewel that He wears upon His breast is the all-illuminating Light of Self-Knowledge, the glory thereof is the mark Shri-vatsa on His chest;

• Sankhya and Yoga are His ear-rings;

• His all-whelming Discus Sudarshana is the Wheel of Cyclic Time.

• Vasudeva (Krshna), Sankarshana (Balarama, elder brother), Pradyumna (son), Anirruddha (grandson) are chitta, abamkAra, buddhi, and manas; also turIya, prajna, taijasa, vishva (planes, viz., transcendent or fourth, causal, subtle-astral, and physical)". And so on .

The student should read up references in the Index (Vol.VI of The Secret Doctrine} against 'Analogy' and 'Correspondences'.

On p.70 of The Mahatma Letters, occurs the following: "Nothing in nature springs suddenly; all being subjected to the same law of gradual evolution. Realise but once the process of the mahA cycle, of one sphere, and you have realised them all. One man is born like another man, one race evolves, develops, and declines like another and all other races. Nature follows the same groove from the creation of a universe down to that of a mosquito. In studying esoteric cosmogony, keep a spiritual eye upon the physiological process of human birth; proceed from cause to effect, establishing analogies. Cosmology is the physiology of the universe spiritualised, for there is but one law."

"That one law" is enshrined in Aum.

For some light on this, and several obscure verses in Manu, i, see The Secret Doctrine, V.422-6.

In this connection may also be considered the mystical kabbalistic and theosophical views and doctrines regarding the Divine Man, a literal solar 'Golden God-Man', the Ruling Chief, king, president of the hierarchy of deva-s, hosts of Dhyan Chohans (in Buddhism).

He (or She, strictly speaking sexless or both-sexed) is referred to, in Upanishats as

हिरण्य-गर्भः, -वर्णः, -केशः, -श्मश्रु, -रूपः, -रेताः, -बाहुः, -दंष्ट्र, -शृङ्गः

hiraNya-garbhaH, -varNaH, -keshaH, -shmashru, -rUpaH, -retAH,
-bAhuH, -daMShTra, -shRu~ggaH

'Golden-Wombed, -colored, -haired, -moustached, -bearded, -formed, -seeded, -armed, -toothed -crested (-corona-ed, -crowned, Samskrta kiraMa, ray, corona)'. A well known Samskrta verse, part of a grand hymn to 'our' Lord the Sun, says,

ध्येयः सदा, सवितृ-मंडल-मध्य-वर्त्ती
नायायणः, सरसिज-आसन-सन्निविष्टः,
केयूरवान्, मकर-कुंडल-वान्, किरीटी,
हारी, हिरण्मय-वुपुः, दृत-संख-चक्रः ।

dhyeyaH sadA, savitRu-maMDala-madhya-varttI
nAyAyaNaH, sarasija-Asana-sanniviShTaH,
keyUravAn, makara-kuMDala-vAn, kirITI,
hArI, hiraNmaya-vupuH, dRuta-saMkha-chakraH |

(This stotra is chanted towards the end of the daily Sandhyavandanam performed by Brahmins.--sd)

"Narayana, seated on the golden lotus-throne in the middle of the Sun-globe, adorned with ornaments, and holding the sweet-sounding conch and light-shedding discus, should be ever meditated on as seated in one's own heart."

All Jivas, high and low, of the solar system, would be as cells, tissues, organs, in His being; and would be issuing out of and going back into that corporate being. (The analogy of the peculiar relationship between the queen-bee and the whole hive, and the queen-ant and the whole termitariiim, applies).

Such a solar God-Man would be only a particular Individual, above, below, and side by side with other Individuals, smaller, larger, or of equal degree, sub-ordinate, super-ordinate or co-ordinate, in smaller and larger systems within systems without end.

It should be kept in mind, here, that 'personality' or 'individuality', 'I am I, something separate from all other I's --this also is only a feeling, a mood of consciousness or vRtti, psychosis, in the Universal Consciousness, the All-Psyche. It too comes and goes. The desire for 'personal' immortality is intense, at one time; at another, it disappears; then supervenes, instead, the wish to merge into, and become one with, and inseparable and indistinguishable from, the All, the Whole.

The former is the stage of acute aham-tA and mama-tA, I-ness and mine-ness; the latter of na-aham and na-mama, 'not (any separate) I and not (any exclusive) mine'. See The Science of the Self, regarding 'will-to-llve' and 'will-to-die'.

The streams of bhakti-devotion flowing upwards or inwards; the streams of dayA-compassion flowing downwards or outwards these constitute the circulation of the Spiritual Blood of the Divine Man.

Whichever department of Nature, whichever aspect of Life, we turn our eyes to, will supply abondant illustrations of this law and fact of smaller within larger individualities, species within genera, ad infinitum.


Cosmology and Physiology

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." (Max Yerworn, General Physiology, p.309.) The student of metaphysic has to read 'pseudo-eternal' or 'sempiternal' in place of 'eternal', and 'conscious motion' in place of 'motion'.

Airy Network of Facts and Laws

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 means for knowledge of concrete details, now supposed to be known only to occult physical and super-physical science, were available, every concrete object, including Krug's quill, before referred to, (pp.73,179) 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 metamorphosed into facts), which the silkworm of the Pratyag-AtmA 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 moth-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 Self and Not-Self, and so becomes mukta, 'liberated'.

saidevo
06 May 2008, 06:27 AM
Cobwebs Spun Out and Rolled In

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."



Mundaka Upanishat, i.1.7. muNDa in Samskrta means the head, the skull. Why has the Upantshat been so named? Apparently because it was usually 'taught only to those who had undergone the discipline of the head'. शिरोव्रतं विधिवद् यैस्तु चीर्णं shirovrataM vidhivad yaistu chIrNaM (ibid., in. 2.10); i.e., meditation on the light or sound within the head, whereby those parts of the brain were vivified or awakened, which can apprehend and 'mirror' metaphysicat truths; (see Annie Besant's A Study in Consciousness regarding opening up of spirillae of brain-cells; and Devi Bhagavata XI, viii and ix.

A mystical verse says:

ऋचो अक्षरे परमे व्योमन्, तस्मिन् देवाः अधि विश्वे निषेदः;
यः तत् न वेद किं ऋचा करिष्यति? ये ईं विः तत् ते इमे समासते ।

Rucho akShare parame vyoman, tasmin devAH adhi vishve niShedaH;
yaH tat na veda kiM RuchA kariShyati? ye IM viH tat te ime samAsate |
--Rg Veda

"The imperishable r.chA-s (nature-secrets) are in the high heaven (vyUma, the skull, the head); all the gods (vishve-devas, nature-forces) dwell there. He who does not know this--what use can he make of r.chA-s? They only who know this sit on high". Nerve-centres of all sensor, motor, and other organs and glands are all in the brain.

Star-Galaxies Like Foam-Bubbles

As to the countlessness of suns and stars and systems, we have this statement:

अस्य ब्रह्माण्डस्य समन्ततः स्थितानि एतादृशानि
अनन्त-कोटि-ब्रह्माण्डानि स आवरणानि उवलन्ति ।
चतुर्मुख-पंचमुख-षण्मुख-सप्तमुख-अष्टमुखादि-संख्या-क्रमेण
सहस्त्राधि-मुखान्तै: नारायणांशैः रजोगुणप्रधानैः
एकैकसृष्टिकर्तृभिः अधिष्टतानि, विष्णु-महेश्वर-आख्यै:
नारायणांशैः सत्त्व-तमो-गुण-प्रधानैः
एकैक स्थिति-संहार-कर्त्तृभिः च अधिष्टतानि,
महाजलौघ-मत्स्य-बुद्*बुद-अनन्त-संघवद् भ्रमन्ति ।

asya brahmANDasya samantataH sthitAni etAdRushAni
ananta-koTi-brahmANDAni sa AvaraNAni uvalanti |
chaturmukha-paMchamukha-ShaNmukha-saptamukha-aShTamukhAdi-saMkhyA-krameNa
sahastrAdhi-mukhAntai: nArAyaNAMshaiH rajoguNapradhAnaiH
ekaikasRuShTikartRubhiH adhiShTatAni, viShNu-maheshvara-Akhyai:
nArAyaNAMshaiH sattva-tamo-guNa-pradhAnaiH
ekaika sthiti-saMhAra-karttRubhiH cha adhiShTatAni,
mahAjalaugha-matsya-bud^buda-ananta-saMghavad bhramanti |

"On all sides of this (our) globe or system, are blazing countless billions of similar ones. The rajas-pradhAna (predominantly rAjasa) BrahhmAs of some have four faces (elements), some five, six, seven, eight, up to thousands (of facets); all are amsha-s, portions, of Narayana (narAnaM ayanam, 'house', 'store-house', 'reservoir' of nara-s, jIva-s). In each there is also a sattva-pra~dhAna Vishnu, and a tamas-pradhAna Maheshvara, to preserve and to destroy. They all wander about in infinite space, like shoals of fishes, or masses of bubbles in foam." See also World-War and its Only Cure, pp.62-65 and 411-413.

Another example from biological science may be adduced: "Investigations by Mr. E.Marais, a South African scientist, point to the existence of a communal mind, in some of the lower orders of life, actuated by definite purpose, and functioning independently (? not wholly) of the matter with which it is connected.

Experiments prove that white ants are controlled not only by their own individual mentality, but by a communal or group-mind as well, without an organic connection or outward touch. If a part of the nest is entirely isolated by a sheet of galvanised iron, under ordinary circumstances, the work will go on as usual. But if the queen is removed from the main body on one side of the iron, within three minutes, the ants on the other side, though completely isolated, will stop all work, and a complete cessation of their normal functions ensues.

Normally, if the rest is disturbed, they will resent intrusion, and stoutly defend themselves, while the eggs will be carried into a place of safety. But on removal of the queen from one side of the division, the ants on the other side will no longer bite, or concern themselves in any way with the eggs, and are completely demoralised.

(Thus) We begin to understand that soul may exist (? comparatively) independently of the (? any given) organism. The queen is nowise (no way) the source of the communal mind; she is merely the physical medium through which its influence passes, and by which it is centralised, directed, and made effective." Theosophist, March, 1923.

Maurice Maeterlinck's book, The Life of the White Ant, gathers together a lot of very interesting information, of much value for psychology and philosophy. See also the description of Myxomycetes, in H.G.Wells' Science of Life, pp.301-304 (edn. of 1938).


Support from Physical Science

NOTE.--It is necessary to make distinction, to a certain extent, for the practical purposes of the daily life of the body, between atom and cell, animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic, species and species, kingdom and kingdom (mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and others), unicellular and multicellular, individual and individual, soul and vehicle (i.e., instrument, means, of im-pression and ex-pression, of sensation and action), psyche and physique, body and mind, Spirit and Matter. But it is impossible to make the distinction radically, for the metaphysical purposes of the eternal life of the mind (soul, Self). That life includes all past, present, and future, and the mind ranges over it all, at will, in any order it pleases, to and fro, without limitations of time-space-motion.

The above chapter attempts to set for the such ideas in terms of a few main triads and their sub-divisions. The plain reason is that distinction and even separateness are inseparable from the changeful and limited; while in the Changeless and Unlimited, none such are possible; since all change and all limits are within that Changeless One Self.

Readers who would like to have further support of physical science for the fact that individuals, species, kingdoms etc., merge into each other, may usefully read H.G.Wells' The Science of Life, (written jointly with his son Prof. G.P.Wells and Prof. Julian Huxley; revised edition, 1938), and Arthur Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea, and Eduard von Hartmann's The Philosophy of the Unconscious (both published in the English and Foreign Philosophical Library Series); or other later works describing evolution of the several kingdoms. The books named are exceedingly interesting and very informing because of the abundant examples they give from plant and animal life. One or two may be quoted.

Slime-Fungus and Polyps

"For most of its life a slime-mould, Myxomycetesl is a naked slimy mass of protoplasm--like a gigantic amoeba ... Its motion is so slow as to be barely perceptible; nevertheless, it creeps with an appearance of appetite and purpose ... The final large plasmode is in reality a union of hundreds of dancing swarm-spores that have completely merged their individuality into one shapeless gelatinous sheet. Imagine that whenever two people meet each other in the street, they run together into one blob, as drops of water run together, so that ultimately the whole population of a town is rolled up into a gigantic mass of living substance that creeps about like a single creature; that is the sort of thing that happens as a matter of course in the life-history of a slime-fungus." (The Science of Life, pp.301-304.)

"We see that all the marks which have been set up on different sides as decisive" (of distinction between vegetable and animal) "do not hold, such as partial or total locomotion, spontaneous movement, morphological and chemical differences, mouth and stomach ... Plant and animal have something distinct, somewhat in common. ... and we may fairly well collect the total of common characters, if in both kingdoms we descend down the scale of organisation, until we come to those structures where the differences disappear, and essentially only the common element remains ... In this common element sensation and consciousness is still included; the lowest vegetable organisms possess sensation and consciousness; ... we" (are therefore) "warranted in ascribing to the higher plants also, a similar, but higher, measure of sensation and consciousness." (The Philosophy of the Unconscious, pp.145-146.)

Polymorphism

"In the Mediterranean there is a rich family of splendid swimming-polyps. A young polyp is developed from an egg. It begins life freely floating in the sea. At its upper end it forms a bubble, in which the air is set free which supports it; at its lower and there are formed ... feelers and prehensile threads ... On its stem, which is continually elongating, there is formed a filtering tube. From this stem arise budlike shoots. Some of them form swimming-bells, which propel themselves, and consequently the whole mass. The others are metamorphosed into fresh polyps, which possess mouth and stomach, and not merely collect, but also digest food for the whole, to deliver it finally into the trunk-tube. Finally, yet other buds attain a nettle-like aspect, and provide for propagation; they bring forth ova, from which again proceed freely-floating polyps. Special polyps with long sensitive tactile threads represent the sense organs or the intelligence of the state. What is here individual? ... Whoever holds fast to the 'either-or', such an example must reduce to desperation; but we see in the several members, individuals partly of polyp-form, partly medusoid, and, in the whole, an individual of higher order which includes in itself all these individuals. Even in the bee- and ant-hive there is nothing wanting to complete the view of the whole as an individual of higher order but spatial unity, i.e., the continuity of the form; here this likewise is present, and therefore the individual is indisputable. This widespread phenomenon in the animal and vegetable kingdom of a varied physiological development of morphologically originally similarly constructed individuals of the same species is termed Polymorphism." (Op. cit., 196-198.)

Such instances make possible a new and literal (not only metaphorical) interpretation of the Veda, and Gita verses which describe 'purusha' (jIva, self, 'person') as 'thousand-headed, thousand-eyed, thousand-footed, thousand-handed, thousand-stomached'.

Vegetables Have Consciousness

As to plants possessing sensation and consciousness, ancient and modern testimony has been quoted on pp.335-336 above. Fuller text is given below:

"• Their color changes and flower and fruit shrivel and even fall off, at touch of great heat; therefore plants have the sense of touch.

• Roar of wind and crash of thunder also cause flower and fruit to fall; therefore plants hear.

• Creepers move about in many directions and twine themselves round trees; therefore they see.

• Fragrant incense of various kinds promotes their healthy growth; foul smoke and acrid smells make them diseased or even kill them; therefore plants smell.

• They drink up water by their roots, and thrive if it is wholesome; or become diseased or even die if it is otherwise; therefore plants have the sense of taste.

• As a man, (by will) may suck up liquid through a pipe from below upwards, so do plants; (therefore they have will).

• Because they feel pleasure and pain, because their parts, cut off, grow again, therefore, clearly, plants have jIva-life."

A-chaitanyam na vidyate, "there exists nothing which is devoid of the principle of consciousness." Mahabharata, Shantiparva, ch.182, Kumbakonam edn.; or 184 in the older Bombay edn.).

Arguments very similar to these will be found in Von Hartmann's book, to prove that animalcules have the sense of sight, hearing, touch, etc.; and also memory. And once memory is admitted, all the rest of intelligence, even the power of introspection, (--of course in germ--) has to be admitted also. It stands to reason, that only that can evolve and develope into man and higher, which is already present in germ and seed in the primal cells of vegetable and mineral life.

(This finishes the chapter.--sd)