3 SPIRIT & INTELLECT

IT has been pointed out that, while it is often affirmed that the spirit is not other than Ātmā, there are nevertheless instances in which this same spirit seems to be identified only with Buddhi; is there not something contradictory here? It would not suffice to see in this a simple question of terminology, for if such were the case one could just as well go further and accept indiscriminately the many more or less vague and incorrect meanings commonly given to the word 'spirit', instead of carefully avoiding them, as we have always tried to do; and the only too evident inadequacy of Western languages regarding the expression of ideas of a metaphysical order is, to say the least, certainly no reason for taking all the precautions necessary to avoid confusion. What justifies these two uses of the same word, let us state it at the outset, is the correspondence that exists between different 'levels' of reality, and that makes possible the transposition of certain terms from one of these levels to another.

The case in question is in short comparable to that of the word 'essence', which can also be applied in several different ways. Insofar as it is correlative to 'substance', it designates, from the point of view of universal manifestation, Purusha envisaged in relation to Prakriti; but it can be transposed beyond this duality,^[1] and such is necessarily the case when one speaks of the 'Divine Essence', even if, as usually happens in the West, those who use this expression do not go beyond pure Being in their conception of the Divinity. Similarly, one can speak of the essence of a being as complementary to its substance, but one can also designate as essence that which constitutes the ultimate, immutable, and unconditioned reality of that being; and the reason for this is that the first is after all nothing other than the expression of the second in regard to manifestation. Now, if one says that the spirit of a being is the same as its essence, this can also be understood in both of these two senses, and from the point of view of absolute reality, spirit or essence obviously is not and cannot be anything other than Ātmā. Only, it must be noted that Ātmā, comprising all reality within itself principally, for that very reason cannot enter into correlation with anything whatsoever. Thus, as long as it is a question of the constitutive principles of a being in its conditioned states, what is considered spirit (as for example in the ternary 'spirit, soul, and body') can no longer be the unconditioned Ātmā, but only that which so to speak most directly represents it in manifestation. We would add that this is no longer even the essence correlative to substance, for although it is true that this latter must be considered in relation to manifestation, it is nevertheless not within manifestation itself; therefore, properly speaking it will only be the first and highest of all manifested principles, that is, Buddhi.

From the point of view of a state of manifestation such as the individual human state, it is therefore necessary to introduce what could be called a question of 'perspective'; thus, when we speak of the universal, distinguishing it from the individual, we must thereby understand not only the unmanifested, but also that which in manifestation itself is non-individual, that is, supra-formal manifestation, to which Buddhi essentially belongs. Similarly, with regard to the individuality as such, including as it does the entirety of the psychic and corporeal elements, we can only designate as spiritual the principles that are transcendent in relation to this individuality, which again is precisely the case with Buddhi, or the intellect. This is why we can say, as we often have, that for us pure intellectuality and spirituality are fundamentally synonymous; and furthermore the intellect itself can also be transposed as in the cases above, since it is generally considered quite acceptable to speak of the ‘Divine Intellect’. In this connection, we will again note that although the gunas are inherent in Prakriti, only sattva can be considered as a spiritual tendency (or ‘spiritualizing’ tendency, if one prefers) because it is the tendency that orients the being toward the higher states. This, in short, is a consequence of the same ‘perspective’ that presents the supra-individual states as intermediary degrees between the human state and the unconditioned state, although between the latter and any conditioned state whatsoever, even the most elevated of all, there is really no common measure.

What must be emphasized most particularly is the essentially supra-individual nature of the pure intellect; moreover, only that which belongs to this order can truly be called ‘transcendent’, as this term normally can be applied only to what lies beyond the individual domain. The intellect is thus never individualized; this again corresponds to what, from the more particular point of view of the corporeal world, is expressed when it is said that whatever the appearances may be, the spirit is never really ‘incarnated’, which moreover is equally true of all the legitimate senses of the word ‘spirit’.^[2] It follows that the distinction existing between the spirit and elements of the individual order is much more profound than all those distinctions which can be established among these elements themselves, and notably between the psychic and corporeal elements, that is, between those which belong respectively to subtle and gross manifestation, both of which are after all only modalities of formal manifestation.^[3]

But this is still not all: not only does Buddhi constitute the link between all the states of manifestation insofar as it is the first production of Prakriti, but from another perspective and considered from the principal point of view, it appears as the luminous ray emanating directly from the spiritual Sun, which is Ātmā itself. It can therefore be said that Buddhi is also the first manifestation of Ātmā,^[4] even though it must be clearly understood that Ātmā itself always remains unmanifest, not being affected or modified by any contingency.^[5] Now, light is essentially one, and is not of a different nature in the sun and in the sun’s rays, which latter, from the point of view of the sun itself, are distinguishable from the former only in an illusory mode (although this distinction is nonetheless real for the eye which perceives these rays, and which here represents the being situated within manifestation).^[6] By reason of this essential ‘connaturality’, Buddhi is ultimately none other than the very expression of Ātmā in the manifested order. This luminous ray which links all the states together is also represented symbolically as the ‘breath’ by which they subsist—which, let us note, is in strict conformity with the etymological sense of the words designating spirit, whether this be the Latin spiritus or the Greek pneuma; and as we have already explained on other occasions, it is properly the sūtrātmā, which amounts to saying that in reality it is Ātmā itself, or, more precisely, the appearance which Ātmā takes from the moment that, instead of considering only the supreme Principle (which would then be represented as the sun containing in itself all the rays in an ‘indistinguished’ state), we also consider the manifested states. Moreover, this appearance, which seems to give to the ray an existence distinct from its source, is such only from the point of view of the beings within these manifested states, for it is evident that the ‘exteriority’ of the manifested states in relation to the Principle can only be altogether illusory.

The immediate conclusion to be drawn from these considerations is that as long as the being is not only in the human state, but in any manifested state whatsoever, either individual or supra-individual, there can be for it no effective difference between the spirit and the intellect, nor, consequently, between spirituality and true intellectuality. In other words, in order to arrive at the supreme and final goal, there is no other path for this being but the very ray by which it is linked to the spiritual Sun; whatever the apparent diversity of paths at the point of departure, sooner or later they must all be united in this one 'axial' path; and when the being has followed this path to the end, it 'will enter into its own Self', which it has been outside of only illusorily, because this 'Self'—called analogically spirit, essence, or whatever name one wishes—is identical to absolute reality in which everything is contained, that is, supreme and unconditioned Ātmā.

in any manifested state whatsoever, either individual or supra-individual, there can be for it no effective difference between the spirit and the intellect, nor, consequently, between spirituality and true intellectuality. In other words, in order to arrive at the supreme and final goal, there is no other path for this being but the very ray by which it is linked to the spiritual Sun; whatever the apparent diversity of paths at the point of departure, sooner or later they must all be united in this one 'axial' path; and when the being has followed this path to the end, it 'will enter into its own Self', which it has been outside of only illusorily, because this 'Self'—called analogically spirit, essence, or whatever name one wishes—is identical to absolute reality in which everything is contained, that is, supreme and unconditioned Ātmā.