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Paramatma Prakash Commentary
29
body, and thus being engrossed in great meditation should realize Paramatman. It is the Internal by leaving everything External that becomes Supreme (I. 11-15).
The Threefold Individuality: The subjective personality demands as much patient study from a mystic as the objective existence from a scientist. A mystic projects his process of analysis inwards, and therein he realizes the reality of his self by eschewing everything else that has a mere appearance of it. Taking the individual for analysis what is more patent or what strikes an observer is his physical existence, his body; but the real individual is not this body. Body is merely a concrete figuration temporarily acquired by the soul or spirit; it is merely the external of the individuality. To realize the individuality one has to go inwards and try by the process of meditation to apprehend the sentient personality, which is the internal individuality. There is a huge multitude of internal spirits, the destiny of each determined by the Karman which is crippling its abilities. When all the Karmas are completely destroyed by penances, the Atman, the internal individual, reaches the plane of supreme individual, eternal and characterised by infinite knowledge and bliss. Supreme individuality is a type, a level of spiritual freedom. The various Atmans retain their individualities even when they reach this level: there is no question of the loss of individuality any time. The body is not Atman; and every Atman when absolutely free from Karman, becomes a Paramatman which condition is the culmination of spiritual evolution never to revert. This three-fold division is based on the idea that spirit and matter are two independent categories though associated with each other since eternity.
Earlier Authors on this Division: Yogindu is not the first to give this division. In many of his passages Kundakunda (Circa beginning of the Christian era) has this division in view which is discussed by him in his Mokkhapa huda. Then Pujyapada (Circa last quarter of the 5th century A.D.)