Theosophy - Constitution of the Inner Man - by H.P.Blavatsky
CONSTITUTION
OF THE INNER MAN
by H.P.Blavatsky
Of course
it is most difficult, and, as you say, “puzzling” to
understand correctly and distinguish between the various aspects, called
by us the “principles” of the real EGO. It is the
more so as there exists a notable difference in the numbering
of those principles by various Eastern schools, though at the
bottom there is the same identical substratum of teaching in
all of them.
X. Are
you thinking of the Vedantins? They divide our seven “principles” into
five only, I believe?
M. They
do; but though I would not presume to dispute the point with
a learned Vedantin, I may yet state as my private opinion
that they have an obvious reason for it. With them it is
only that compound spiritual aggregate which consists of
various mental aspects that is called Man at all,
the physical body being in their view something beneath contempt,
and merely an illusion. Nor is the Vedanta the only
philosophy to reckon in this manner. Lao-Tze in his Tao-te-King,
mentions only five principles, because he, like the Vedantins,
omits to include two principles, namely, the spirit (Atma)
and the physical body, the latter of which, moreover, he
calls “the cadaver”. Then there is the Taraka
Raja Yoga School. Its teaching recognizes only three “principles” in
fact; but then, in reality, their Sthulopadhi, or
the physical body in its jagrata or waking conscious
state, their Sukshmopadki, the same body in svapna or
the dreaming state, and their Karanopadhi or “causal
body”, or that which passes from one incarnation to
another, are all dual in their aspects, and thus make six.
Add to this Atma, the impersonal divine principle or the
immortal element in Man, undistinguished from the Universal
Spirit, and you have the same seven, again, as in the esoteric
division. [ See The Secret Doctrine for
a clearer explanation.]
X. Then
it seems almost the same as the division made by mystic Christians:
body, soul, and spirit?
M. Just
the same. We could easily make of the body the vehicle of
the “vital Double”; of the latter the vehicle
of Life or Prana; of Kamarupa or (animal)
soul, the vehicle of the higher and the lower mind,
and make of this six principles, crowning the whole with
the one immortal spirit. In Occultism, every qualificative
change in the state of our consciousness gives to man a new
aspect, and if it prevails and becomes part of the living
and acting EGO, it must be (and is) given a special name,
to distinguish the man in that particular state from the
man he is when he places himself in another state.
X. It
is just that which is so difficult to understand.
M. It
seems to me very easy, on the contrary, once that you have
seized the main idea, i.e., that man acts on this, or another
plane of consciousness, in strict accordance with his mental
and spiritual condition. But such is the materialism of the
age that the more we explain, the less people seem capable
of understanding what we say. Divide the terrestrial being
called man into three chief aspects, if you like; but, unless
you make of him a pure animal, you cannot do less. Take his
objective body; the feeling principle in him — which
is only a little higher than the instinctual element
in the animal — or the vital elementary soul; and that
which places him so immeasurably beyond and higher than the
animal — i.e., his reasoning soul or “spirit”.
Well, if we take these three groups or representative entities,
and subdivide them, according to the occult teaching, what
do we get?
First of all Spirit
(in the sense of the Absolute, and therefore invisible ALL)
or Atma. As this can neither be located nor conditioned in
philosophy, being simply that which is, in Eternity, and
as the ALL cannot be absent from even the tiniest geometrical
or mathematical point of the universe of matter or substance,
it ought not to be called, in truth, a “human” principle
at all. Rather, and at best, it is that point in metaphysical
Space which the human Monad and its vehicle man, occupy for
the period of every life. Now that point is as imaginary
as man himself, and in reality is an illusion, a maya; but
then for ourselves as for other personal Egos, we are a reality
during that fit of illusion called life, and we have to take
ourselves into account — in our own fancy at any rate,
if no one else does. To make it more conceivable to the human
intellect, when first attempting the study of Occultism,
and to solve the A B C of the mystery of man, Occultism calls
it the seventh principle, the synthesis of the six,
and gives it for vehicle the Spiritual Soul,
Buddhi. Now the latter conceals a mystery, which is
never given to any one with the exception of irrevocably
pledged chelas, those at any rate, who can be safely
trusted. Of course there would be less confusion, could it
only be told; but, as this is directly concerned with the
power of projecting one's double consciously and at will,
and as this gift like the “ring of Gyges” might
prove very fatal to men at large and to the possessor of
that faculty in particular, it is carefully guarded. Alone
the adepts, who have been tried and can never be found wanting,
have the key of the mystery fully divulged to them. . . .
Let us avoid side issues, however, and hold to the “principles”.
This divine soul or Buddhi, then, is the Vehicle of the Spirit.
In conjunction, these two are one, impersonal, and without
any attributes (on this plane, of course), and make two spiritual “principles”.
If we pass on to the Human Soul (manas, the mens) every
one will agree that the intelligence of man is dual to
say the least: e.g., the high-minded man can hardly become
low-minded; the very intellectual and spiritual-minded man
is separated by an abyss from the obtuse, dull and material,
if not animal-minded man. Why then should not these men be
represented by two “principles” or two aspects
rather? Every man has these two principles in him, one more
active than the other, and in rare cases, one of these is
entirely stunted in its growth: so to say paralyzed by the
strength and predominance of the other aspect, during
the life of man. These, then, are what we call the two principles
or aspects of Manas, the higher and the lower; the
former, the higher Manas, or the thinking, conscious EGO
gravitating toward the Spiritual Soul (Buddhi); and the latter,
or its instinctual principle attracted to Kama, the
seat of animal desires and passions in man. Thus, we have four “principles” justified;
the last three being (1) the “Double” which we
have agreed to call Protean, or Plastic Soul; the vehicle
of (2) the life principle; and (3) the physical
body. Of course no Physiologist or Biologist will accept
these principles, nor can he make head or tail of them. And
this is why, perhaps, none of them understand to this day
either the functions of the spleen, the physical vehicle
of the Protean Double, or those of a certain organ on the
right side of man, the seat of the above mentioned desires,
nor yet does he know anything of the pineal gland, which
he describes as a horny gland with a little sand in it, and
which is the very key to the highest and divinest consciousness
in man — his omniscient, spiritual and all embracing
mind. This seemingly useless appendage is the pendulum which,
once the clock-work of the inner man is wound up,
carries the spiritual vision of the EGO to the highest planes
of perception, where the horizon open before it becomes almost
infinite. . . .
X. But
the scientific materialists assert that after the death of
man nothing remains; that the human body simply disintegrates
into its component elements, and that what we call soul is
merely a temporary self-consciousness produced as a by-product
of organic action, which will evaporate like steam. Is not
theirs a strange state of mind?
M. Not
strange at all, that I see. If they say that self-consciousness
ceases with the body, then in their case they simply
utter an unconscious prophecy. For once that they are firmly
convinced of what they assert, no conscious afterlife is
possible for them.
X. But
if human self-consciousness survives death as a rule, why
should there be exceptions?
M. In
the fundamental laws of the spiritual world which are immutable,
no exception is possible. But there are rules for those who
see, and rules for those who prefer to remain blind.
X. Quite
so, I understand. It is an aberration of a blind man, who
denies the existence of the sun because he does not see it.
But after death his spiritual eyes will certainly compel
him to see.
M. They
will not compel him, nor will he see anything. Having persistently
denied an after-life during this life, he will be unable
to sense it. His spiritual senses having been stunted, they
cannot develop after death, and he will remain blind. By
insisting that he must see it, you evidently mean
one thing and I another. You speak of the spirit from the
Spirit, or the flame from the Flame — of Atma in short — and
you confuse it with the human soul — Manas. . . . You
do not understand me, let me try to make it clear. The whole
gist of your question is to know whether, in the case of
a downright materialist, the complete loss of self-consciousness
and self-perception after death is possible? Isn't it so?
I say: It is possible. Because, believing firmly in our Esoteric
Doctrine, which refers to the post-mortem period,
or the interval between two lives or births as merely a transitory
state, I say: — Whether that interval between two acts
of the illusionary drama of life lasts one year or a million,
that post-mortem state may, without any breach of
the fundamental law, prove to be just the same state as that
of a man who is in a dead swoon.
X. But
since you have just said that the fundamental laws of the
after-death state admit of no exceptions, how can this be?
M. Nor
do I say now that they admit of exceptions. But the spiritual
law of continuity applies only to things which are truly
real. To one who has read and understood Mandukya Upanishad and Vedanta-Sara, all
this becomes very clear. I will say more: it is sufficient
to understand what we mean by Buddhi and the duality of Manas
to have a very clear perception why the materialist may not
have a self-conscious survival after death: because Manas,
in its lower aspect, is the seat of the terrestrial mind,
and, therefore, can give only that perception of the Universe
which is based on the evidence of that mind, and not on our
spiritual vision. It is said in our Esoteric school that
between Buddhi and Manas, or Iswara and Prajnsa [ Iswara
is the collective consciousness of the manifested deity,
Brahma, i.e., the collective consciousness of the Host of
Dhyan Chohans; and Prajna is their individual wisdom. ] ,
there is in reality no more difference than between a
forest and its trees, a lake and its waters, just as Mandukya teaches.
One or hundreds of trees dead from loss of vitality, or uprooted,
are yet incapable of preventing the forest from being still
a forest. The destruction or post-mortem death of
one personality dropped out of the long series, will not
cause the smallest change in the Spiritual Ego,
and it will ever remain the same EGO. Only, instead of experiencing Devachan it
will have to immediately reincarnate.
X. But
as I understand it, Ego-Buddhi represents in this simile
the forest and the personal minds the trees. And if Buddhi
is immortal, how can that which is similar to it, i.e., Manas-taijasi [Taijasi means
the radiant in consequence of the union with Buddhi of Manas,
the human, illuminated by the radiance of the divine soul.
Therefore Manas-taijasi may be described as radiant mind;
the human reason lit by the light of the spirit; and Buddhi-Manas
is the representation of the divine plus the human intellect
and self-consciousness. ],
lose entirely its consciousness till the day of its new incarnation?
I cannot understand it.
M. You
cannot, because you will mix up an abstract representation
of the whole with its casual changes of form; and because
you confuse Manas-taijasi, the Buddhi-lit human
soul, with the latter, animalized. Remember that if it can
be said of Buddhi that it is unconditionally immortal, the
same cannot be said of Manas, still less of taijasi, which
is an attribute. No post-mortem consciousness or
Manas-taijasi, can exist apart from Buddhi, the divine soul,
because the first (Manas) is, in its lower aspect,
a qualificative attribute of the terrestrial personality,
and the second (taijasi) is identical with the first,
and that it is the same Manas only with the light of Buddhi
reflected on it. In its turn, Buddhi would remain only an
impersonal spirit without this element which it borrows from
the human soul, which conditions and makes of it, in this
illusive Universe, as it were something separate from
the universal soul for the whole period of the cycle of incarnation.
Say rather that Buddhi-Manas can neither
die nor lose its compound self-consciousness in Eternity,
nor the recollection of its previous incarnations in which
the two — i.e., the spiritual and the human soul, had
been closely linked together. But it is not so in the case
of a materialist, whose human soul not only receives nothing
from the divine soul, but even refuses to recognize its existence.
You can hardly apply this axiom to the attributes and qualifications
of the human soul; for it would be like saying that because
your divine soul is immortal, therefore the bloom on your
cheek must also be immortal; whereas this bloom, like taijasi, or
spiritual radiance, is simply a transitory phenomenon.
X. Do
I understand you to say that we must not mix in our minds
the noumenon with the phenomenon, the cause with its effect?
M. I
do say so, and repeat that, limited to Manas or the human
soul alone, the radiance of Taijasi itself becomes a mere
question of time; because both immortality and consciousness
after death become for the terrestrial personality of man
simply conditioned attributes, as they depend entirely on
conditions and beliefs created by the human soul itself during
the life of its body. Karma acts incessantly: we reap in
our after-life only the fruit of that which
we have ourselves sown, or rather created in our terrestrial
existence.
X. But
if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become plunged
in a state of entire unconsciousness, then where can be the
punishment for the sins of my past life?
M. Our
philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches the Ego
only in its next incarnation. After death it receives only
the reward for the unmerited sufferings endured during its
just past existence.[Some Theosophists have
taken exception to this phrase, but the words are those of
the Masters, and the meaning attached to the word “unmerited” is
that given above. In the T. P. S. pamphlet No. 6 a phrase,
criticized subsequently in Lucifer, was used, which
was intended to convey the same idea. In form, however it
was awkward and open to the criticism directed against it;
but the essential idea was that men often suffer from the
effects of the actions done by others, effects which thus
do not strictly belong to their own Karma, but to that of
other people — and for these sufferings they of course
deserve compensation. If it is true to say that nothing that
happens to us can be anything else than Karma — or
the direct or indirect effect of a cause — it would
be a great error to think that every evil or good which befalls
us is due only to our own personal Karma.
(Vide further on.) ] The whole
punishment after death, even for the materialist, consists
therefore in the absence of any reward and the utter loss
of the consciousness of one's bliss and rest. Karma — is
the child of the terrestrial Ego, the fruit of the actions
of the tree which is the objective personality visible to
all, as much as the fruit of all the thoughts and even motives
of the spiritual “I”; but Karma is also the tender
mother, who heals the wounds inflicted by her during the
preceding life, before she will begin to torture this Ego
by inflicting upon him new ones. If it may be said that there
is not a mental or physical suffering in the life of a mortal,
which is not the fruit and consequence of some sin in this,
or a preceding existence on the other hand, since he does
not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual
life and feels himself not deserving of such punishment,
but believes sincerely he suffers for no guilt of his own,
this alone is quite sufficient to entitle the human soul
to the fullest consolation, rest and bliss in his post-mortem existence.
Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and
friend. For the materialist, who, notwithstanding his materialism,
was not a bad man, the interval between the two lives will
be like the unbroken and placid sleep of a child; either
entirely dreamless, or with pictures of which he will have
no definite perception. For the believer it will be a dream
as vivid as life and full of realistic bliss and visions.
As for the bad and cruel man, whether materialist or otherwise,
he will be immediately reborn and suffer his hell on earth.
To enter Avichi is an exceptional and rare occurrence.
X. As
far as I remember, the periodical incarnations of Sutratma [Our
immortal and reincarnating principle in conjunction with
the Manasic recollections of the preceding lives is called
Sutratma, which means literally the Thread-Soul; because
like the pearls on a thread so is the long series of human
lives strung together on that one thread. Manas must become taijasi, the
radiant, before it can hang on the Sutratma as a pearl on
its thread, and so have full and absolute perception of itself
in the Eternity. As said before, too close association with
the terrestrial mind of the human soul alone causes this
radiance to be entirely lost] are likened
in some Upanishad to the life of a mortal which oscillates
periodically between sleep and waking. This does not seem
to me very clear, and I will tell you why. For the man who
awakes, another day commences, but that man is the same in
soul and body as he was the day before; whereas at every
new incarnation a full change takes place not only in his
external envelope, sex and personality, but even in his mental
and psychic capacities. Thus the simile does not seem to
me quite correct. The man who arises from sleep remembers
quite clearly what he has done yesterday, the day before,
and even months and years ago. But none of us has the slightest
recollection of a preceding life or any fact or event concerning
it. . . . I may forget in the morning what I have dreamed
during the night, still I know that I have slept and have
the certainty that I lived during sleep; but what recollection
have I of my past incarnation? How do you reconcile this?
M. Yet
some people do recollect their past incarnations. This is
what the Arhats call Samma-Sambuddha — or the knowledge
of the whole series of one's past incarnations.
X. But
we ordinary mortals who have not reached Samma-Sambuddha,
how can we be expected to realize this simile?
M. By
studying it and trying to understand more correctly the characteristics
of the three states of sleep. Sleep is a general and immutable
law for man as for beast, but there are different kinds of
sleep and still more different dreams and visions.
X. Just
so. But this takes us from our subject. Let us return to
the materialist, who, while not denying dreams, which he
could hardly do, yet denies immortality in general and the
survival of his own individuality especially.
M. And
the materialist is right for once, at least; since for one
who has no inner perception and faith, there is no immortality
possible. In order to live in the world to come a conscious
life, one has to believe first of all in that life during
one's terrestrial existence. On these two aphorisms of the
Secret Science all the philosophy about the post-mortem consciousness
and the immortality of the soul is built. The Ego receives
always according to its deserts. After the dissolution of
the body, there commences for it either a period of full
clear consciousness, a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly
dreamless sleep indistinguishable from annihilation; and
these are the three states of consciousness. Our physiologists
find the cause of dreams and visions in an unconscious preparation
for them during the waking hours; why cannot the same be
admitted for the post-mortem dreams? I repeat it, death
is sleep. After death begins, before the spiritual eyes
of the soul, a performance according to a program learned
and very often composed unconsciously by ourselves; the practical
carrying out of correct beliefs or of illusions
which have been created by ourselves. A Methodist will be
a Methodist, a Mussulman a Mussulman of course, just for
a time — in a perfect fool's paradise of each man's
creation and making. These are the post-mortem fruits
of the tree of life. Naturally, our belief or unbelief in
the fact of conscious immortality is unable to influence
the unconditioned reality of the fact itself, once that it
exists; but the belief or unbelief in that immortality, as
the continuation or annihilation of separate entities cannot
fail to give color to that fact in its application to each
of these entities. Now do you begin to understand it?
X. I
think I do. The materialist, disbelieving in everything that
cannot be proven to him by his five senses or by scientific
reasoning, and rejecting every spiritual manifestation, accepts
life as the only conscious existence. Therefore, according
to their beliefs so will it be unto them. They will lose
their personal Ego, and will plunge into a dreamless sleep
until a new awakening. Is it so?
M. Almost
so. Remember the universal esoteric teaching of the two kinds
of conscious existence: the terrestrial and the spiritual.
The latter must be considered real from the very fact that
it is the region of the eternal, changeless, immortal cause
of all; whereas the incarnating Ego dresses itself up in
new garments entirely different from those of its previous
incarnations, and in which all except its spiritual prototype
is doomed to a change so radical as to leave no trace behind.
X. Stop!
. . . Can the consciousness of my terrestrial Egos perish
not only for a time, like the consciousness of the materialist,
but in any case so entirely as to leave no trace behind?
M. According
to the teaching, it must so perish and in its fulness, all
except that principle which, having united itself with the
Monad, has thereby become a purely spiritual and indestructible
essence, one with it in the Eternity. But in the case of
an out and out materialist, in whose personal “I” no
Buddhi has ever reflected itself, how can the latter carry
away into the infinitudes one particle of that terrestrial
personality? Your spiritual “I” is immortal;
but from your present Self it can carry away into after-life
but that which has become worthy of immortality, namely,
the aroma alone of the flower that has been mown by death.
X. Well,
and the flower, the terrestrial “I”?
M. The
flower, as all past and future flowers which blossomed and
died, and will blossom again on the mother bough, the Sutratma, all
children of one root or Buddhi, will return to dust. Your
present “I”, as you yourself know, is not the
body now sitting before me, nor yet is it what I would call
Manas-Sutratma — but Sutratma-Buddhi.
X. But
this does not explain to me at all, why you call life after
death immortal, infinite, and real, and the terrestrial life
a simple phantom or illusion; since even that post-mortem life
has limits, however much wider they may be than those of
terrestrial life.
M. No
doubt. The spiritual Ego of man moves in Eternity like a
pendulum between the hours of life and death. But if these
hours marking the periods of terrestrial and spiritual life
are limited in their duration, and if the very number of
such stages in Eternity between sleep and awakening, illusion
and reality, has its beginning and its end, on the other
hand the spiritual “Pilgrim” is eternal. Therefore
are the hours of his post-mortem life — when,
disembodied he stands face to face with truth and not the
mirages of his transitory earthly existences during the period
of that pilgrimage which we call “the cycle of rebirths” — the
only reality in our conception. Such intervals, their limitation
notwithstanding, do not prevent the Ego, while ever perfecting
itself, to be following undeviatingly, though gradually and
slowly, the path to its last transformation, when that Ego
having reached its goal becomes the divine ALL. These intervals
and stages help towards this final result instead of hindering
it; and without such limited intervals the divine Ego could
never reach its ultimate goal. This Ego is the actor and
its numerous and various incarnations the parts it plays.
Shall you call these parts with their costumes the individuality
of the actor himself? Like that actor, the Ego is forced
to play during the Cycle of Necessity up to the very threshold
of Para-nirvana many parts such as may be unpleasant
to it. But as the bee collects its honey from every flower,
leaving the rest as food for the earthly worms, so does our
spiritual individuality, whether we call it Sutratma or Ego.
It collects from every terrestrial personality into which
Karma forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual
qualities and self-consciousness, and uniting all these into
one whole it emerges from its chrysalis as the glorified
Dhyani Chohan. So much the worse for those terrestrial personalities
from which it could collect nothing. Such personalities cannot
assuredly outlive consciously their terrestrial existence.
X. Thus
then it seems, that for the terrestrial personality, immortality
is still conditional. Is then immortality itself not unconditional?
M. Not
at all. But it cannot touch the non-existent. For
all that which exists as SAT, ever aspiring SAT, immortality
and Eternity are absolute. Matter is the opposite pole of
spirit and yet the two are one. The essence of all this,
i.e., Spirit, Force and Matter, or the three in one, is as
endless as it is beginningless; but the form acquired by
the triple unity during incarnations, the externality, is
certainly only the illusion of our personal conceptions.
Therefore do we call the after-life alone a reality, while
relegating the terrestrial life, its terrestrial personality
included, to the phantom realm of illusion.
X. But
why in such a case not call sleep the reality, and waking
the illusion, instead of the reverse?
M. Because
we use an expression made to facilitate the grasping of the
subject, and from the standpoint of terrestrial conceptions,
it is a very correct one.
X. Nevertheless,
I cannot understand. If the life to come is based on justice
and the merited retribution for all our terrestrial suffering,
how, in the case of materialists many of whom are ideally
honest and charitable men, should there remain of their personality
nothing but the refuse of a faded flower!
M. No
one ever said such a thing. No materialist, if a good man,
however unbelieving, can die for ever in the fulness of his
spiritual individuality. What was said is, that the consciousness
of one life can disappear either fully or partially; in the
case of a thorough materialist, no vestige of that personality
which disbelieved remains in the series of lives.
X. But
is this not annihilation to the Ego?
M. Certainly
not. One can sleep a dead sleep during a long railway journey,
miss one or several stations without the slightest recollection
or consciousness of it, awake at another station and continue
the journey recollecting other halting places, till the end
of that journey, when the goal is reached. Three kinds of
sleep were mentioned to you: the dreamless, the chaotic,
and the one so real, that to the sleeping man his dreams
become full realities. If you believe in the latter why can't
you believe in the former? According to what one has believed
in and expected after death, such is the state one will have.
He who expected no life to come will have an absolute blank
amounting to annihilation in the interval between the two
rebirths. This is just the carrying out of the program we
spoke of, and which is created by the materialist himself.
But there are various kinds of materialists, as you say.
A selfish wicked Egoist, one who never shed a tear for anyone
but himself, thus adding entire indifference to the whole
world to his unbelief, must drop at the threshold of death
his personality for ever. This personality having no tendrils
of sympathy for the world around, and hence nothing to hook
on to the string of the Sutratma, every connection between
the two is broken with the last breath. There being no Devachan
for such a materialist, the Sutratma will reincarnate almost
immediately. But those materialists who erred in nothing
but their disbelief, will oversleep but one station. Moreover,
the time will come when the ex-materialist will perceive
himself in the Eternity and perhaps repent that he lost even
one day, or station, from the life eternal.
X. Still,
would it not be more correct to say that death is birth into
a new life, or a return once more to the threshold of eternity?
M. You
may if you like. Only remember that births differ, and that
there are births of “still-born” beings, which
are failures. Moreover, with your fixed Western
ideas about material life, the words “living” and “being” are
quite inapplicable to the pure subjective state of post-mortem existence.
It is just because of such ideas — save in a few philosophers
who are not read by the many and who themselves are too confused
to present a distinct picture of it — that all your
conceptions of life and death have finally become so narrow.
On the one hand, they have led to crass materialism, and
on the other, to the still more material conception of the
other life which the Spiritualists have formulated in their
Summerland. There the souls of men eat, drink, and marry,
and live in a Paradise quite as sensual as that of Mohammed,
but even less philosophical. Nor are the average conceptions
of the uneducated Christians any better, but are still more
material, if possible. What between truncated Angels, brass
trumpets, golden harps, streets in paradisaical cities paved
with jewels, and hell-fires, it seems like a scene at a Christmas
pantomime. It is because of these narrow conceptions that
you find such difficulty in understanding. And, it is also
just because the life of the disembodied soul, while possessing
all the vividness of reality, as in certain dreams, is devoid
of every grossly objective form of terrestrial life, that
the Eastern philosophers have compared it with visions during
sleep.
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