T. Subba Row

“ In the case of every objective consciousness, we know that what we call matter or non-ego is, after all, a mere bundle of attributes. But whether we arrive at our conclusion by logical inference, or whether we derive it from innate consciousness, we always suppose that there is an entity--the real essence of the thing upon which all these attributes are placed—which bears these attributes, as it were, the essence itself being unknown to us.
All Vedantic writers of old have formulated the principle that Parabrahmam is the one essence of everything in the cosmos. ”

“ I shall point out what position each of these principles occupies in the evolution of nature, and in passing from the First Cause to the organised human being of the present day, I shall give you the basis of the fourfold classification that I have promised to adopt.
The first principle, or rather the first postulate, which I have to lay down is the existence of what is called Parabrahmam. Of course there is hardly a system of philosophy which has ever denied the existence of the First Cause. Even the so-called atheists have never denied it. ”

“ Now we see the first manifestation of Parabrahmam is a Trinity, the highest Trinity that we are capable of understanding. It consists of Mulaprakrti, Ishvara or the Logos, and the conscious energy of the Logos which is its power and light; and here we have the three principles upon which the whole cosmos seems to be based. First, we have matter; secondly, we have force—at any rate, the foundation of all the forces in the cosmos; and thirdly, we have the ego or the one root of Self, of which every other kind of self is but a manifestation or reflection. ”

“ The real Krshna is not the man in and through whom the Logos appeared, but the Logos itself. Perhaps our respect will only be enhanced, when we see that this is the case of the Logos descending into a human being for the good of humanity. It is not encumbered with any particular individuality in such a case, and has perhaps greater power to exert itself for the purpose of doing good to humanity—not merely for the purpose of doing good to one man, but for the purpose of saving millions. ”

“ Here you will notice that he again speaks of Parabrahmam as his abode.
Turn now to chapter ix, verses 4, 5 and 6:
⁠The whole of this Universe is pervaded by me in my unmanifested form (Avyakṭamūrṭi) . I am thus the support of all the manifested existence, but I am not supported by them. Look at my condition when manifested as Īshvara (Logos) : these phenomenal manifestations are not within me. My Āṭmā (however) is the foundation and the origin of manifested beings, though it does not exist in combination with them. ”

“ It is so, because it is in that that the higher individuality of man exists. Birth after birth a new physical body comes into existence, and perishes when earthly life is over. The astral body, when once separated from the karana sharira, may perhaps live on for some time, owing to the impulse of action and existence, already communicated to it during life, but, as these influences are cut off from the source whence they originally sprung, the force communicated, as it were, stands by itself, and sooner or later the astral organism becomes completely dissolved into its component parts. ”

“ The only way for the life current to pass to the physical body is through the medium of the astral body. The physical body is dissolved when separated from the astral body because the impulse that animated it is removed. As the karana sharira is on the plane of devachan, the only place to which it can go on separation from the physical body is devachan, or swargam; but in separating itself from the astral body it takes with it all those impulses that were accumulated by the karma of the man during his successive incarnations. ”

“ You will see in what difficulty it will land us if you deny this, and hold the self to be a separate entity in itself. If so, while I am in my objective state of consciousness, my ego is something existing as a real entity in the physical body itself. How is it possible to transfer the same to the astral body? Then, again, it has also to be transferred to the karana sharira. We shall find a still greater difficulty in transferring this entity to the Logos itself, and you may depend upon unless a man's individuality or ego can be transferred to the Logos, immortality is only a name. ”

“ The lustre of this bimbam you may compare to man's knowledge, and it grows feebler and feebler as the reflection is transferred from a clear upāḍhi to one less clear, and so on till you get to the physical body. ”

“ When once that plane of consciousness is reached in the path of progress that includes the voluntary actions of man, it will be seen that those voluntary actions not only preserve the individuality of the karana sharira but render it more and more definite, as birth after birth further progress is attained, and thus keep up the continued existence of the jiva as an individual monad. ”

“ Of course if it is so difficult for us to understand these different principles as they exist in nature, it will be still more difficult for us to form any definite idea as to their basis. But at any rate the evolution and the work of differentiation of these principles is a matter which appertains more properly to the science of physics than to the science of spiritual ethics,and the fundamental principles that I have laid down will suffice for our present purpose. ”

“ Of course those who hold this view make no attempt to explain how this one great personal God succeeded in setting up an intimate connection with the physical body of Krshna, constituted as the physical body of every man is, or even with a personality, or human individuality, that seems to be precisely similar to that of any other human being. And how are we to explain the theory of Avatars, as generally stated, with reference to the view of this particular Avatar to which I have referred? This view is without any support. The Logos in itself is not the one personal God of the cosmos. ”

“ Matter acquires all its attributes and all its powers which, in course of time, give such wonderful results in the course of evolution, by the action of this light that emanates from the Logos upon Mulaprakrti. From our standpoint, it will be very difficult to conceive what kind matter that may be which has none of those tendencies which are commonly associated with all kinds of matter, and which only acquires all the various properties manifested by it on receiving, as it were, this light and energy from the Logos. ”

“ It is not matter or anything like matter. It is not even consciousness, because all that we know of consciousness is with reference to a definite organism. What consciousness is or will be when entirely separated from upadhi is a thing utterly inconceivable to us, not only to us but to any other intelligence which has the notion of self or ego in it, or which has a distinct individualised existence. Again it is not even atma. The word atma is used in various senses in our books. It is constantly associated with the idea of Self. But Parabrahmam is not so associated ”

“ This is a far more serious result than any that can happen to man in the case of elemental worship, for the simple reason that he has no more prospect of reaching the Logos.
The whole of his individuality is absorbed into one of these beings, it will subsist as long as that being exists, and no longer. When cosmic pralaya comes it will be dissolved as all these beings will be dissolved. For him there is no immortality. He may indeed have life for millions of years, but what are millions of years to immortality? ”

“ In my last lecture I tried to explain the mysterious connection between Parabrahmam and Mūlaprakṛṭi. Parabrahmam is never differentiated. What is differentiated is Mūlaprakṛṭi, which is sometimes called Avyakṭam, and in other places, Kūtasṭham, which means simply the undifferentiated Element. Nevertheless Parabrahmam seems to be the one foundation for all physical phenomena, or for all phenomena that are generally referred to Mūlaprakṛṭi. After all, any material object is nothing more than a bundle of attributes to us. ”

“ MY acquaintance with T. Subba Row began at the end of 1884, when I came here to Madras and settled down with the intention of practising in the High Court. It was at the Theosophical Convention of 1884 that I first met him, and from the very first moment became so deeply attracted to him as to make it difficult for me to understand why it was so. My admiration of his ability was so great that I began to look upon him almost from that time as a great man. He was a very well-made robust man, and strikingly intellectual. ”

“ In such a case either the elementals take possession of the man and make a medium of him, or, if they do not do that completely, they take possession of his astral body and absorb it at the time of death. In the latter case the astral body, associated as it is with an independent elemental being, will subsist for a considerable length of time. But though elemental worship may lead to mediumship--to irresponsible mediumship in the majority of cases--and may confuse a man's intellect, and make him morally worse than he was before, these elementals will not be able to destroy the karana sharira. ”

“ The whole of this manifested solar system is, strictly speaking, within the field of physical research. As yet we have only been surveying the superficies of the outward cosmos. It is that, and that alone, which physical science has, up to this time reached. I have not the slightest doubt that in course of time physical science will be able to penetrate deep into the underlying basis, that corresponds to the Sutratma of our Vedantic writers.
It is the province of Sankhya philosophy to trace from the three component parts of Mulaprakrti all the various physical manifestations. ”

“ Almost every great writer on Vedantic philosophy, as also both Buddha and Shankaracharya, have distinctly alleged that it is a delusive idea. You must not suppose that these great men said that the idea of self was delusive for the same reason which led John Stuart Mill to suppose that the idea of self is manufactured from a concatenation or series of mental states. ”

“ But all that goes deep into the intellectual nature of man, all the higher emotions of the human soul and the intellectual tastes generated in man with all his higher aspirations, do become impressed almost indelibly on the karana sharira. The astral body is simply the seat of the lower nature of man. ”

“ They thought that there being but one avyakṭam, one soul, or one spirit, that existed, in every upāḍhi, appearing differentiated, though not differentiated in reality, if somehow we could control the action of the upāḍhi, and destroy the māyā it had created, the result would be the complete extinction of man's self and a final layam in this avyakṭam, Parabrahmam. ”

“ Of course all the associations or ideas of mental states which a human being may experience are not necessarily communicated to the astral man, much less to the karana sharira. Of all the experiences of the physical man, the astral man, or the karana sharira beyond it, can only assimilate those whose constitution and nature are similar to its own. ”

“ And when we reach animal life, we find that the differentiation is more complete, and this light moreover manifests itself as consciousness. It must not be supposed that consciousness is a sort of independent entity created by this Light; it is a mode or a manifestation of the Light itself, which is life.By the time we reach man, this Light becomes differentiated and forms that centre or ego that gives rise to all the mental and physical progress that we see in the process of cosmic evolution. ”

“ One organism has always a certain affinity with another organism composed of the same materials and existing on the same plane. As may naturally be expected, the astral body of man has affinity with the elementals, and the so-called karana sharira of man with the Devas. The ancient writers on Hindu philosophy have divided the cosmos into three lokas. ”