REPLY TO OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM THE PLURALITY OF BEINGS
There is one point in the preceding that might still lend itself to an objection, although in truth we have already answered it in part, at least implicitly, in what we just said regarding the 'spiritual hierarchies'. The objection runs as follows: given that there exists an indefinitude of modalities realized by different beings, is it really legitimate to speak of totality in the case of each being? One can reply first of all by pointing out that the objection thus phrased obviously applies only to the manifested states, since in non-manifestation there can be no question of any kind of real distinction, so that from the standpoint of these non-manifested states what belongs to one being belongs equally to all insofar as they have effectively realized these states. Now, if one considers the totality of manifestation from this same standpoint, it constitutes only a simple 'accident' in the proper sense of the word by reason of its contingency, so that the importance of any one of its modalities considered in itself and 'distinctively' is then strictly nil. Furthermore, since in principle non-manifestation contains all that constitutes the profound and essential reality of things existing in any mode of manifestation, i.e., that without which the manifested would have only a purely illusory existence, one can say that the being that has effectively attained the state of non-manifestation thereby possesses all other states 'into the bargain' in the same way that it possesses all the intermediary states or degrees, even without having specifically passed through them previously, as we said in the last chapter.
This answer, which considers only the being that has reached total realization, is fully sufficient from the purely metaphysical point of view, and indeed is the only answer that can really suffice, for if we did not view the being in this way, that is, if we took any position other than this, there would no longer be reason to speak of totality, and the objection itself would no longer apply. In short, what needs to be said both here and in response to objections concerning the existence of multiplicity, is that manifestation considered as such, that is, under the aspect of the distinctions that condition it, is nothing with respect to non-manifestation, for there can be no common measure between the one and the other; what is absolutely real (all the rest being only illusory, in the sense of a reality that is merely derivative and, as it were, 'participated'), even for the possibilities comprising manifestation, is the permanent and unconditioned state under which they belong principially and fundamentally to the order of non-manifestation.
Although the above should be sufficient, let us turn now to yet another aspect of the question, and consider the being as having realized, not the totality of the unconditioned Self, but only the integrality of a certain state. In this case, the preceding objection must take a new form: how is it possible to envisage this integrality for a single being, when the state in question constitutes a domain common to an indefinitude of other beings insofar as the latter are equally subject to the conditions that characterize and determine this state or mode of existence? This objection is not the same but, with all due proportion being kept between the two cases, only analogous, and so the answer must also be analogous; for the being that is effectively placed at the central point of view of the state under consideration (which is the only possible way of realizing the integrality of the state), all other more or less particular points of view, insofar as they are taken distinctively, are no longer important, since they are then unified in this central point of view; thus they henceforth exist for the being in the unity of the latter, and they no longer exist outside of this unity, for the existence of multiplicity outside of unity is purely illusory. The being that has realized the integrality of a state has itself become the center of that state, and, this being the case, one may say that it fills this state entirely with its
own irradiation; [1] it assimilates to itself all that is contained therein, making of it so many secondary modalities of itself, [2] as it were, comparable somewhat to the modalities that are realized in the dream state, following what we said above. Consequently, the being is not in the least affected in its extension by the existence that these modalities, or at least some of them, can otherwise have outside of itself (and the expression 'outside' no longer has any meaning from the point of view of the being, but only from that of other beings remaining in non-unified multiplicity) by reason of the simultaneous existence of other beings in the same state; moreover, the existence of these same modalities in and of itself in no way affects its unity, even when it is still only a question of the relative unity realized at the center of a particular state. The whole of that state is constituted only by the irradiation of its center, [3] and any being effectively positioned at this center by that very fact becomes master of the state in its integrality; thus the principial indifferentiation of the non-manifested is reflected in the manifested, it being clearly understood that the reflection retains the relativity inherent in all conditioned existence, since it is in the manifested realm.
Having established this much, it is easy to understand that in various ways analogous considerations can be applied to the modalities included in an even more relative unity, such as that of a being that has only realized a certain state partially, and not integrally. Such a being, the human individual for example, without having yet achieved its full development in the sense of 'amplitude' (corresponding to the degree of existence in which it is situated), has still however assimilated more or less completely all of which it has truly become conscious within the limits of its present extension; and the accessory modalities that it has thus taken on, and that are obviously susceptible of constant and indefinite growth, constitute a very important part of those prolongations of the individuality to which we have already frequently alluded.