The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s2.t7: 7. Three Different Âtmans
The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s2.t7
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- c9.s2.t7.1 — 5 parts
7. Three Different Âtmans
c9.s2.t7.1.1
The âtman is, as has often already been pointed out, an idea capable of very different interpretations. The word signifies no more than “the self,” and the question then arises what we regard as our self. Three positions are here possible, according as by the âtman is understood (1) the corporeal self, the body; (2) the individual soul, free from the body, which as knowing subject is contrasted with and distinct from the object; or (3) the supreme soul, in which subject and object are no longer distinguished from one another, or which, according to the Indian conception, is the objectless knowing subject. The narrative in Chând. 8. 7–12 furnishes an illustration of these three positions. “The self (*âtman*), the sinless, free from old age, from death, and from suffering, delivered from hunger and thirst, whose wish is true, whose decree is true, that ought we to seek, that endeavour to know.” Impelled by this craving, the god Indra and the demon Viroc'ana set off, and betake themselves to Prajâpati for instruction. His first lesson is as follows:—The self is that which is seen in looking into the eye of another, into a brook of water or a mirror, which is reflected again in an image complete even to hairs and nails, which decked with fair clothing appears fair, in a word, the body; “that is the self, that is the immortal, the fearless, that is Brahman.” The answer satisfies both pupils, and they depart homewards;
c9.s2.t7.1.2
but Prajâpati looking after them says:—“So they depart, without having perceived or discovered the self.” Viroc’ana and the demons rest content with this answer, and therefore all demon-like men, seeing the self in the body, deck the human frame with all kinds of finery, as though it were destined for a future life, a world beyond. Indra, on the contrary, reflecting that this self is exposed to all the sufferings and imperfections of the body, and perishes at death, feels (what everyone may feel) that no change which passes over us can affect us, and returns to Prajâpati. Prajâpati now communicates to him the second answer:—the self is that which roams about untrammelled in dreams; “that is the immortal, the fearless, that is Brahman.” But even with this answer Indra cannot remain satisfied. The dream-self is not, it is true, affected by the injuries which the body experiences from objects, but yet it is virtually affected by them, seeing that it proceeds to create an objective world over-against itself.
c9.s2.t7.1.3
The third answer of Prajâpati now follows:—“When a man is so completely wrapped in slumber, has reached so perfect a rest, that he does not perceive any dream-image, —that is the self,” thus he spake, “that is the immortal, the fearless, that is Brahman.” A further objection on the part of Indra, that this amounts to entrance into a state of annihilation, Prajâpati removes by showing that the cessation of the distinction of subject and object, as this is attained in deep sleep, is rather an entrance into the fullest light, a personal identification with the supreme spirit, which as the knowing subject in us is unaffected by any change of organs or objects. The meaning of this narrative is clear. In response to the question, What is the self? three answers are possible, according as we adopt the standpoint of materialism, realism, or idealism. (1) The *material* (demoniac) answer runs,—the self is the body, and perishes with it. The theologians of the Vedânta understand even here the individual soul, and do violence to the text by transforming the man who "is seen" in the eye (mirroring himself) into one who "sees" in the eye, because otherwise Prajâpati "would have been a deceiver," since he says in fact even of this first self,—"that is the immortal," etc.
c9.s2.t7.1.4
Prajâpati, however, is here the representative of nature, which never speaks falsely, and yet shows itself in a certain sense double-faced, inasmuch as to the two most important questions which we can put, the question concerning freedom and the question concerning immortality, it gives to the ordinary empirical consciousness two answers, which appear to be in contradiction with one another. If we regard our actions, we see that they all necessarily proceed from their causes (character and motive) in harmony with the law of causality; and yet we bear within ourselves the invincible indestructible consciousness of freedom and responsibility for these actions. Similarly with the question of immortality. If we look without, we see our entire self entering into existence as body and perishing; and yet we are invincibly conscious within of the eternity of our being: *sentimus experimurque nos aeternos esse*, as Spinoza says. It is on this consciousness, and not on personal longings, that all proofs of the immortality of the soul depend. This consciousness it is which, clothed in empirical forms, (2) from the *realistic* standpoint exhibits the self as the individual soul, and to this the second answer of Prajâpati refers.
c9.s2.t7.1.5
Very beautiful is his illustration of this consciousness of a soul, free from the body and yet real and individual, by means of the dream-state, as being the only state of which we have experience, in which the soul may be observed bound by corporeal conditions but not under the limitations of individuality. This entire individual soul, however, is a false conception arising from the fact that we transfer the forms of our intellectual judgements, and especially the most general of them, the necessary existence of an object for a subject, into a region where they have no validity. From this point consciousness leads on (3) to the *idealistic* standpoint, which recognises only the one supreme soul, existing in everything, and embodied in each in its entirety. In it there is no duality, no subject and object, and consequently no consciousness in an empirical sense. Thus far it may be compared to a deep dreamless sleep. Later on we shall learn to recognise besides waking slumber and deep sleep a fourth (*turîya*) state of the soul, in which that unification, which ensues unconsciously in deep sleep, is to be realised in a consciousness which is perfect though not resting upon experience, or directed towards objects external to itself.