11 THE DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF ĀTMĀ IN THE HUMAN BEING

WE WILL NOW ENTER UPON on a more detailed study of the different conditions of the individual being residing in the living form, which, as previously explained, includes the subtle form (_sūkshma-sharīra_ or _liḥga-sharīra_) on the one hand and the gross or bodily form (_sthūla-sharīra_) on the other. The conditions we are referring to must not be confused with that particular condition which we have already noted as being special to each individual, distinguishing him from all other individuals, nor are they connected with that aggregate of limiting conditions defining each state of existence taken separately. In this instance we are referring exclusively to the various states, or, if it be preferred, the various modalities to which, in a perfectly general way, any single individual being is subject, whatever the nature of that being may be. These modalities, taken as a whole, can always be related both to the gross and to the subtle state, the former being confined to the bodily modality and the latter comprising the remainder of the individuality (there is no question here of the other individual states, since it is the human state in particular that we are considering). What is beyond these two states no longer belongs to the individual as such; we are referring to what may be called the 'causal' state, that is to say the state which corresponds to _kārana-sharīra_ and which belongs consequently to the universal and formless order. With this causal state, moreover, though we are no longer in the realm of individual existence, we are still in the realm of Being: therefore, we also need to envisage, beyond Being, a fourth, absolutely unconditioned, principial state. Metaphysically, all these states, even those which belong strictly to the individual, are related to _Ātmā_, that is to say to the personality, since it is this alone which constitutes the fundamental reality of the being, and since every state of that being would be purely illusory if one attempted to separate it from _Ātmā_. The being's different states, whatever their nature, represent nothing but possibilities of _Ātmā_: that is why it is possible to speak of the various conditions in which the being finds itself as in the truest sense conditions of _Ātmā_, although it must be clearly understood that _Ātmā_ in itself is in no way affected thereby and does not on that account cease to be unconditioned, in the same way that it never becomes manifested, although it is the essential and transcendent principle of manifestation in all its modes.Disregarding for the moment the fourth state, to which we shall return later, the first three states are: the waking state, corresponding to gross manifestation; the dream state, corresponding to subtle manifestation; and deep sleep, which is the 'causal' and formless state. Besides these three states another is sometimes mentioned, that of death, and even a further one, the state of ecstatic trance, considered as intermediate (_sandhyā_)^[1] between deep sleep and death, in the same way that dreaming is intermediate between waking and deep sleep.^[2] These two last states, however, are not generally reckoned as separate since they are not essentially distinct from that of deep sleep, which is really an extra-individual state, as we have just explained, and in which the being returns likewise into non-manifestation, or at least into the formless,the living soul [jīvātmā] withdrawing into the bosom of the Universal Spirit [Ātmā] along the path which leads to the very center of the being, where is the seat of _Brahma_.^[3]For the detailed description of these states we have only to turn to the text of the _Māņdūkya Upanishad_, the opening passage of which we have already cited, with the exception of one phrase, however, the first of all, which runs: 'Om, this syllable [_akshara_]^[4] is everything that is: its explanation follows.' The sacred monosyllable _Om_, which expresses the essence of the _Veda_,^[5] is here taken as the ideographic symbol of _Ātmā_. This syllable, composed of three letters (_mātrās_, these letters being _a_, _u_, and _m_, the first two contracting into _o_),^[6] has four elements, the fourth of which, being none other than the monosyllable itself regarded synthetically under its principial aspect, is 'non-expressed' by any letter (amātra), being prior to all distinction in the 'indissoluble' (akshara); similarly, Ātmā has four conditions (pādas), the fourth of which is not really a special condition at all but is Ātmā regarded in Itself, in an absolutely transcendent manner independently of any condition and which, as such, is not susceptible of any representation. We will now go on to explain what the text we referred to says on the subject of each of these conditions of Ātmā, starting from the last degree, that of manifestation, and working back to the, supreme, total, and unconditioned state.