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retain their individualities until the end of the universe. The
correct view, however, seems to be that all those who
meditate on the Absolute Individual (God) through positive
qualitative conceptions, rest in Him, who, in the end of time,
winding up the space-time-universe which is His own body,
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dissolves Himself in the Conscious Power of the Absolute,
which is itself non-different from the Absolute. These
relatively liberated ones have their individualities not
destroyed here but exist in the world of Ishvara, i.e., Ishvara
is experienced by them not directly but as an objective
conscious universe, of which they are integral aspects. This
Self-Dissolution of God is, in some respects, similar to the
deep sleep of the worldly individual, who also, at the end of
the day, ending his body-consciousness, dissolves himself in
the unconscious power based on the Atman, which is
superimposed on the Atman. But the difference between the
two dissolutions is that in the case of God, there is no further
forced coming back to universe-consciousness, no
subsequent dreaming and waking state, and there is
Absolute-Experience; whereas, in the case of the worldly
individual, there is forced coming back to body-
consciousness, there is subsequent dreaming and waking
state, and there is no Self-Experience. There are kama and
karma in the individual because of avidya in him, but in God
there is vidya, Universal Consciousness or Absolute Self-
Consciousness alone, and hence, there are no concomitant
kama and karma which are the causes of objective
multiplicity-consciousness and the activity therefor. Desire
and action in the individual are the outcome of the darkness
of ignorance, but they do not exist in vidya which is the light
of knowledge. The souls who are in the World of Ishvara, or
the Absolute-Individual, experience it as an Intelligence-
World of shuddha-sattva corresponding to their own
personalities made of the same substance. The soul is said to
reach God through the passage of the sun (Mund. Up., I. 2.
11), and, thus, pass on to the Absolute. Anywise, the
imaginary problem of the possibility of the multiple lordship
of the liberated souls does not arise, any more than the
possibility of the existence of many Absolutes and Eternities.
When there is individuality there is no omniscience or
omnipotence, and when there are these there is no
individuality. If we are to be alive to the sentences which
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declare that the liberated soul  goes around laughing,
sporting, enjoying with women and chariots and friends, not
remembering the appendage of the body (Chh. Up., VIII. 12.
3), we can be so only by convincing ourselves that this state
cannot be that of the Consciousness of the Absolute, or that
this may be the condition of the jivanmukta who does
mysterious and ununderstandable actions, and who, though
he has no consciousness of his body, is yet made to animate
his body through a slight trace of the existent pure egoism
unconnected with spiritual consciousness. This is the
remainder of that part of his prarabdha-karma which is
unobstructive to Knowledge. The state of jivanmukti has no
connection with the physical body; it is a state of
consciousness; so it can be experienced even when the
physical body is dropped, i.e., even in Brahmaloka. The
jivanmukta of this physical world, with his physical body, too,
is really in Brahmaloka in his consciousness, though the body
is in this world. Those who have not attained jivanmukti here
and are not ready for sadyo-mukti immediately after the
prana stops functioning in the present physical body, attain
this through krama-mukti after the death of the physical
body. This shows that a videhamukta is not one who exists in
Brahmaloka but who has merged in the Absolute. Or, we
have to make a theoretical distinction between two
definitions of a videhamukta he who has an individuality
either in a lower superhuman experience, or in Brahmaloka,
and is on the verge of Absolute-Experience on the exhaustion
of his prarabdha which is the cause of his superhuman
experience and his experience in Brahmaloka (the arising
from which is called the waking up of Brahma or
Hiranyagarbha), and he who has actually merged in
Brahman. In Brahmaloka the soul is like a perfect jivanmukta
of this world, and all its actions are spontaneous promptings
of the pure satsankalpas, and not conscious willings born of a
deliberately egoistic personality. If we are to be consistent
with the demands of jivanmukti, we have to hold that even
the satyakamas and satyasankalpas or desires and willings
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based on Truth in the liberated soul of the Brahmaloka are
really not conscious actions but spontaneous outpourings of
the remaining momentum of actions done prior to the rise of
Self-Knowledge, which were non-obstructive to the rise of
Knowledge. If we are to think that the acts of the soul in
Brahmaloka are deliberately directed conscious ones, it
would follow that they are not as evolved as jivanmuktas who [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]