Page:Ramakrishna - His Life and Sayings.djvu/106

88 within the world. At the time of death the organs of know- ledge are not supposed to be destroyed absolutely, but while there is another life before us, they are reduced to a seminal or potential form only, and though the outward organs them- selves will decay, their potentia or powers remain, dwelling in what is called the Sukshma-iarira, the subtile body, the body that migrates from birth to birth and becomes again and again a Sthula-Sarira, a material body. But when real freedom has once been obtained, this Sukshma-^arira also vanishes and there remains the Atman only, or Brahman as he was and always will be. The form assumed by the body in every new existence is determined by the deeds and thoughts during former existences : it is still, so to say, under the law of causality.

Then what remains for the aMt, for the Atman ? The Greek sages have hardly any answer to give ; to them the mrr6s was seldom more than the Ego, Ahawk^ra, while with the VedSntist it is distinctly not the Ego as opposed to a Non-Ego, but something beyond, something not touched by the law of causality, something neither suffering, nor enjoying, nor acting, but that without which neither the gross nor the subtile body could ever exist This Self, this the true aMs, was discovered in the lotus of the heart in true Self-consciousness, it was discovered as not-personal ; though dwelling in the personal or living Atman, the Civa, it remained for ever a mere looker-on, untouched by anything. As I said before, the Ved&nta-philosophy is a philosophy of negation ; it says No, no, it says all that the Self is not, but what the Self is, defies all words and all thoughts.