19 DIFFERENCES IN THE POSTHUMOUS CONDITIONS ACCORDING TO THE DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE

So long as it is in this condition [still individual, as has just been explained] the spirit [which, consequently, is still jīvātmā] of that person who has practiced meditation [during his life, without attaining effective possession of the higher states of his being] remains attached to the subtle form [which may also be regarded as the formal prototype of the individuality, subtle manifestation representing an intermediate stage between the unmanifested and the gross manifestation and playing the part of immediate principle in relation to the latter]; and it is associated, in this subtle form, with the vital faculties [in the state of reabsorption or principial contraction which has already been described].

It is admittedly necessary that there should still be a form in which the being can clothe itself, from the fact that its condition still belongs to the individual order; and this can only be the subtle form, since it has left the corporeal form and since moreover the subtle form must subsist after the body, from having preceded it in the order of development in manifested mode, which is reproduced in inverse order in the return to the unmanifested; this does not however mean that this subtle form must in such a case be exactly the same as it was during bodily life, acting as the vehicle of the human being in the dream state.^[1] We have already remarked that the individual condition itself, in an altogether general way and not merely as concerns the human state, can be defined as that condition in which the being is limited by a form; but it should be understood that this form is not necessarily determined as spatial and temporal, as is the case in the particular instance of the bodily state; it can in no wise be so in the non-human states, which are subject not to space and time, but to quite different conditions. As to the subtle form, if it does not altogether escape from time (although such time is not the same as that in which bodily existence is carried on) at least it escapes from space, and that is why one must on no account attempt to picture it as a kind of 'double' of the body;^[2] neither must it be looked upon as a 'mould' for the body just because it is declared to be the formal prototype of the individuality at the origin of its manifestation;^[3] we know only too well the Westerner's tendency to resort to the grossest representations and how many serious errors can arise in this way, so that we feel it imperative to offer every possible warning.

The being may remain thus [in this same individual condition in which it is attached to the subtle form] until the outward dissolution [pralaya, the return into the undifferentiated state) of the manifested worlds (of the actual cycle, comprising both the gross and the subtle states, that is to say the whole domain of human individuality regarded in its integrality],^[4] a dissolution in which it is plunged [together with the totality of the beings in those worlds] into the bosom of the Supreme _Brahma_; but, even then, it may be united with _Brahma_ only in the same way as in deep sleep [that is to say without full and effective realization of the 'Supreme Identity'].

In other words and to use the language of certain Western esoteric schools, the case just referred to corresponds to a 'reintegration in passive mode', whereas genuine metaphysical realization is a 'reintegration in active mode', the only mode which really implies a taking possession by the being of its absolute and final state. This is precisely what is meant by the comparison with deep sleep as it occurs in the life of the ordinary man; just as there is a return from that state to the individual condition, even so there can be a return to another cycle of manifestation for the being who is only united with _Brahma_ in passive mode, showing that the result obtained by the being while in the human state is not yet 'Deliverance' or true immortality and that its case is in the final instance comparable (although with a notable difference as to the conditions of its new cycle) with that of the being who, instead of remaining until the _pralaya_ in the prolongations of the human state, has passed after bodily death into another individual state. Besides this case, there is also the case where the realization of higher states and even of the 'Supreme Identity', not having been obtained during life in the body, is achieved in the posthumous prolongations of the individuality; from being virtual, immortality then becomes effective, although this may not come about until the very end of the cycle: this is the ‘deferred Deliverance' of which we have already spoken. In both cases the being, which must be regarded as _jīvātmā_ attached to the subtle form, finds itself for the whole duration of the cycle 'incorporated'^[5] so to speak in _Hiranyagarbha_, which is considered as _jīva-ghāna_, as we have already explained; it remains, therefore, subject to that special condition of existence which is life (_jīva_), by which the true sphere of _Hiranyagarbha_ is delimited in the hierarchical order of Existence.

This subtle form [in which the being, which thus remains in the human individual state, resides after death] is, [in comparison with the bodily or gross form] imperceptible to the senses both as to its dimensions [that is to say because it is outside the spatial condition] and as to its consistency [or its particular substance, which is not made up of a combination of corporeal elements] ; consequently, it does not affect the perception [or the external faculties] of those who are present when it separates from the body [after the 'living soul' has withdrawn into it]. Neither is it affected by combustion or any other treatment which the body may undergo after death [which is the result of this separation, from the very fact of which no action of a sensible order can have any further repercussion on this subtle form, nor upon the individual consciousness which, remaining attached thereto, is no longer connected with the body]. It is only sensible through its animating heat [its specific quality insofar as it is assimilated to the igneous principle]^[6] so long as it inhabits the gross form, which becomes cold (and as a result inert as an organic whole) in death, as soon as it [the subtle form] has left it [although the other sensible qualities of the corporeal form still subsist without any apparent change], and which was warmed (and quickened) by it so long as it dwelt there [since it is precisely in the subtle form that the principle of individual life resides, so that it is only through the communication of its properties that the body can also be described as alive, by reason of the tie which exists between these two forms insofar as they are the expression of states of the same being, that is to say precisely up to the moment of death].

But he who has obtained [before death, always understood as separation from the body] true knowledge of Brahma [implying effective possession of all the states of the being through meta- physical realization, apart from which there can only be an imperfect and purely symbolical knowledge] does not pass [in successive mode] through all the same stages of withdrawal [or of reabsorption of the individuality from the state of gross manifestation to the state of subtle manifestation, with the different modalities which this implies, and then to the unmanifested state, where individual conditions are at length entirely suppressed]. He proceeds directly [into this latter state, and even beyond it, if it is only regarded as the principle of manifestation] into Union [already realized, at least virtually, during life in the body]^[7] with the Supreme Brahma, with which he is identified (in an immediate manner), just as a river [here representing the current of existence through all states and all manifestations], at its mouth [which is the end or final term of that current] becomes identified [by intimate penetration] with the waves of the sea [samudra, the gathering together of the waters, symbolizing the totalization of possibilities in the Supreme Principle]. His vital faculties and the elements of which his body is composed [all considered in principle and in their suprasensible essence]; the sixteen component parts [shodashā-kalāh] of the human form [that is to say the five tanmātras, manas and the ten faculties of sensation and action], pass completely into the unmanifested state [avyakta, where, by transposition, they are all to be found in permanent mode, as changeless possibilities], this passage moreover implying no change for the being itself [of the kind implied in the intermediate stages, which necessarily include a variety of modifications, since they still belong to ‘becoming’]. Name and form (_nāmarūpa_, namely the determination of the individual manifestation in its essence and its substance, as has been previously explained) also come to an end [as limiting conditions of the being] and, being 'undivided', without the parts or members, therefore, which composed the earthly form [in the manifested state and insofar as that form was subject to quantity in its various modes], he is set free from the conditions of individual existence [as well as from all other conditions applying to a special and determined state of existence of any sort, even a supra-individual state, since the being is hence-forth in the absolutely unconditioned principial state].^[10]

Several commentators of the _Brahma-Sūtras_. in order to bring out the nature of this 'transformation' more vividly [we take the word in its strictly etymological sense, signifying 'passage outside form'], compare it to the disappearance of water sprinkled upon a burning-hot stone. This water is in fact 'transformed' on contact with the stone, at least in the relative sense that it has lost its visible form (though not all form, since it clearly continues to belong to the corporeal order), without however its being possible to say on that account that it has been absorbed by the stone, since, actually, it has evaporated into the atmosphere, where it remains in a state imperceptible to sight.^[11] Similarly, the being is in no wise ‘absorbed’ on obtaining 'Deliverance', although it may seem so from the point of view of manifestation, whence the 'transformation' appears as a ‘destruction’;^[12] viewed from the standpoint of absolute reality, which alone remains for it, the being is on the contrary dilated beyond all limit, if one may use such an expression (which exactly translates the symbolism of steam from water spreading itself indefinitely through the atmosphere), since it has effectively realized the fullness of its possibilities.