Page:Ramakrishna - His Life and Sayings.djvu/102

84 represented as passing through three forms of development the earthy portion being manifested in faeces, flesh, and Manas, the watery portion in urine, blood, and life, the fiery portion in bones, marrow, and speech. There are many of these purely fanciful speculations to be found in the Upanishads. This, however, should not be allowed to pre- judice us against what is simple and primitive and rational in these depositories of ancient thought. But if it is asked, Can these passive and active senses be the Self? the Vedantist says again, No, no; they are not what we are in search of, they cannot be the aunfe, which must be real, unchanging, and eternal.

If this applies to the ten senses, it applies with equal strength to what is sometimes called the eleventh sense, the Manas, all treated as material, and as products of the earthy element. Manas is etymologically closely connected with mens and has therefore been generally translated by mind. But though it may be used in that sense in ordinary language, it has a narrower meaning in Sanskrit philosophy. It is meant for the central and combining organ of the senses of perception and action. This Manas performs originally, what we ascribe to the faculty of attention (avadh&na) : it acts, as we are told, as a doorkeeper, pre- venting the impressions of the different senses from rushing in simultaneously, and producing nothing but confusion. It is easy to show that this central sense also falls under the VedSntic No, no. It cannot be the Self, which must be permanent and real; it is an instrument only, and there- fore called anta^kara^a the inner organ, We see here the