119 oriental doctrines and, more particularly, with the Vedanta, the most orthodox of all the metaphysical systems founded upon Brahmanism.
2That is why we can complete what we have indicated on the diverse states of the being by transcribing some quotations from the Treatise on the Knowledge of the Spirit of Sankaratchrya.
3“There is no other means of obtaining complete and final liberation except Knowledge; it is the sole instrument that unties the bonds of the passions; without Knowledge, Beatitude cannot be obtained.
4“Action, not being opposed to ignorance, cannot drive it away; but Knowledge dissipates ignorance as Light dissipates the darkness”.
5Ignorance is, here, the state of the being wrapped in the darkness of the hylic World, bound to the illusory appearance of Matter and to individual distinctions.
6By Knowledge, which is not of the domain of action but is superior to it, all those illusions disappear, as we have said before.
7“When the ignorance born of terrestrial attractions is dissipated, the Spirit, by its own splendour, shines afar, in an undivided state, as the Sun spreads its brightness when the cloud is dispersed”.
8But, before reaching this state, the being passes through an intermediate state, that which corresponds to the psychic World; then he believes himself to be, no longer the material body, but the individual soul, for all distinction has not disappeared for him, because he has not yet left the domain of the Demiurge.
9“Imagining himself to be the individual soul, man is frightened, like a person who by error takes a piece of rope for a serpent; but his fright is dissipated by the perception that he is not the soul but the universal Spirit”.
10He who has become conscious of the two manifested Worlds, that is, of the hylic World, the assemblage of gross or material manifestations, and of the psychic World, the assemblage of subtle manifestations, is twice-born, is Dwidja; but he who is conscious of the unmanifested Universe or of the formless World, that is, of the pneumatic World, and has arrived at the identification of himself with the universal Spirit, Atma — he alone can be called Yogi, that is, united with the universal Spirit.
11“The Yogi whose intellect is perfect contemplates all things as being in himself and, thus, by the eye of Knowledge, perceives that all is Spirit”.
12Let us note, in passing, that the hylic World is compared to the waking state, the psychic World to the dream state, and the pneumatic World to deep sleep.
13We must remember, in this connection, that the unmanifested is superior to the manifested, because it is its principle.
14Above the pneumatic Universe there is now, according to the gnostic doctrine, only the Pleroma, which can be considered as constituted by the assemblage of the attributes of the Divinity.
15It is not a fourth World but the universal Spirit itself, supreme Principle of the Three Worlds, neither manifested nor unmanifested, indefinable, inconceivable and incomprehensible.
16The Yogi or the Pneumatic — for at bottom it is the same — perceives himself not as a gross form nor as a subtle form but as a formless being; he identifies himself, then, with the universal Spirit.
17Here is in what terms this state is described by Sankaratcharya: “He is Brahma, after whose possession there is nothing more to possess; after the enjoyment of his felicity there is no more felicity that can be desired; and after the obtaining of his knowledge there is no more knowledge that can be obtained.
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.