18 THE REABSORPTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL FACULTIES
When a man is about to die, speech, followed by the remainder of the ten external faculties [the five faculties of action and the five faculties of sensation, manifested outwardly by means of the corresponding organs, but not identical with those organs themselves since they separate from them at this stage [1]] is reabsorbed into the inward sense [manas], the activity of the external organs coming to an end before that of this inward faculty [which is thus the final term of all the other individual faculties in question, just as it is their starting-point and common source]. This latter faculty thereupon withdraws in the same way into the 'vital breath' [prāna], accompanied in its turn by all the vital functions [the five vāyus, which are modalities of prāna and thus return into an undifferentiated state], these functions being inseparable from life itself; furthermore this same retreat of the inward sense is also to be observed in deep sleep and in ecstatic trance [accompanied by complete cessation of every external manifestation of consciousness]. [2]
We may add, however, that this cessation does not always necessarily imply total suspension of bodily sensibility, which constitutes a kind
of organic consciousness, if one may describe it so; but under these circumstances the individual consciousness properly so called will play no part in the manifestations of this sensibility, being no longer in communication with it as it normally is in the ordinary states of the living being; and the reason for this is easily understood, since, in point of fact, the individual consciousness no longer exists in the cases referred to, the real consciousness of the being having been transferred into a different state, which is really a supra-individual state. This organic consciousness to which we are alluding is not a consciousness in the true sense of the word, but it participates therein in some manner, owing its origin to the individual consciousness, of which it is a kind of reflection; separated from the latter, it amounts to no more than a mere illusion of consciousness, but it can still present the appearance of consciousness to those who are only aware of externals, [3] in the same way that, after death, the persistence of certain more or less dissociated psychic elements, when they are able to manifest themselves, are able to present a similar and no less illusory appearance, as we have already explained in a different connection. [4]
The 'vital breath', accompanied similarly by all the other functions and faculties [already reabsorbed into it and subsisting there as possibilities only, having now reverted to the state of indifferentiation whence they had to go forth in order to manifest themselves effectively during life] retires in its turn into the 'living soul' [jīvātmā, particular manifestation of the 'Self' at the center of the human individuality, distinguishing itself from the
'Self' so long as that individuality endures as such, although this distinction is in fact purely illusory from the standpoint of absolute reality, where there is nothing different from the 'Self']: and it is this 'living soul' which [as the reflection of the 'Self' and central principle of the individuality] governs the whole body of individual faculties [regarded in their integrality and not merely in their relationship with the bodily modality]. [5] As a king's servants gather round him when he is about to go forth upon a journey, even so all the vital functions and faculties [external and internal] of the individual gather round the 'living soul' [or rather within it, out of which they all issue and into which they are all reabsorbed] at the final moment [of life in the ordinary sense of the word, that is to say of manifested existence in the gross state], when this 'living soul' is about to retire from its bodily form. [6] Accompanied thus by all its faculties [since it contains them and preserves them in itself as possibilities], [7] it withdraws, in an individual luminous essence [that is to say in the subtle form, which is compared to a fiery vehicle, as we saw when studying Taijasa, the second condition of Ātmā] composed of the five tanmātras or supra-sensible elementary essences [just as the bodily form is composed of the five bhūtas or corporeal and sensible elements], into a subtle state [in contrast to the gross state which is that of external or corporeal manifestation and of which the cycle is now completed so far as concerns the individual in question].
Consequently [by reason of this passage into the subtle form, looked upon as luminous], the 'vital breath' is said to retire into the Light, which does not mean to say the igneous principle
exclusively [since we are really concerned with an individualized reflection of the intelligible Light, that is to say a reflection the nature of which is fundamentally the same as that of the mental faculty during corporeal life, and which moreover implies a combination of the essential principles of all five elements as its support or vehicle], nor does this withdrawal necessarily imply an immediate transition, since a traveler is said to go from one city to another even though he may pass successively through one or several intermediate cities.
Furthermore, this withdrawal or this abandonment of the bodily form [as described so far] is common alike to the ignorant person [avidvān] and to the contemplative Sage [vidvān] up to the point at which their respective [and henceforth different] paths branch; and immortality [amrita, but without immediate Union with the Supreme Brahma being thereupon attained] is the fruit of simple meditation [upāsanā, carried out during life without having been accompanied by any effective realization of the being's higher states], although the individual barriers resulting from ignorance [avidyā] may not yet be completely destroyed. [8]
An important comment is called for here as to the sense in which the immortality in question is to be understood: we have in fact pointed out elsewhere that the Sanskrit word amrita applies exclusively to a state which is beyond all change, whereas, by the corresponding word Westerners merely mean an extension of the possibilities of the human order, consisting in an indefinite prolongation of life (what the Far-Eastern tradition calls 'longevity') under conditions which are to a certain degree transposed, but which always remain more or less similar to those of terrestrial existence, since they likewise concern the human individuality. Now in the present instance the state described is still an individual state and nevertheless it is said that immortality can be obtained therein; this may appear inconsistent with what we have just remarked, since it might be supposed that relative immortality only is meant, understood according to the Western sense: actually however that is not
the case. It is indeed true that in order to be fully effective immortality, in the metaphysical and Eastern sense, can only be obtained beyond all conditional states, individual and otherwise, in such a way that, being absolutely independent of any possible mode of succession, it is identical with Eternity itself; it would thus amount to an abuse of language to make this word apply to temporal 'perpetuity' or to the indefinitude of any type of duration; but it is not in that sense that the expression is to be understood here. It must be realized that the idea of death is essentially synonymous with a change of state, which, as we have already remarked, is its widest acceptation; and when it is said that the being has virtually attained immortality, that is taken to mean that it will not need to pass through further conditioned states different from the human state, or to traverse other cycles of manifestation. This is not yet 'Deliverance', actually realized, whereby immortality would be rendered effective, since the 'individual barriers', that is to say the limitative conditions to which the being is subject, are not entirely destroyed; but it implies the possibility of obtaining that 'Deliverance' directly from the human state, in the prolongation of which the being is maintained for the whole duration of the cycle to which that state belongs (which constitutes perpetuity properly so called); [9] the being is thus enabled to take part in the final 'transformation' which will be accomplished when the cycle is completed, causing everything that is then contained within it to return to the principial state of non-manifestation. [10] This is why the name 'deferred Deliverance' or
'Deliverance by degrees' (krama-mukti) is given to this possibility, since in this manner Deliverance is only obtained by means of intermediate stages (conditioned posthumous states) and not in a direct and immediate manner, as in other cases which we shall discuss later on. [11]