Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

I44
Identity and Experience
The third context in which I will discuss manomaya is when it is used as
an abstract synonym for the cosmological level of the nipadhtu. I will also
consider the relationship between riipa and ariipa and the sigrdicance of this
relationship for the subject of this chapter. This is closely linked with the
fourth of the contexts in which I will discuss manomaya, which is when it
refers to the ability of those who have mastered a certain level of
meditation to create what is called a manomaya body deliberately. First,
though, a brief outline of the way in which relevant subjects are understood
in Vedic material, mainly the early Upani~ads, is helpful by way of
background.
I have already referred in this chapter to the place in Buddhist teachings
of the power of the mind, and I shall return to this point in the discussion
below on the remaining two contexts in which manomaya is found in canonical
material. The concept of the power of the mind was not new in the
Buddha's teachings, however. It is alluded to in the Hymn of Creation in
the Rg Veda, for example, where desire (or volition) is stated to be the first
seed of the mind.'* The power of the mind is the motivating factor in the
ParipimavcZda of chapter VI of the ChcZndogya Upanipd, where Being creates
the universe by thinking "Would that I were many, let me procreate
myself".13 And in many other Upani~adicosmogonies the mind plays an
instrumental role. l4
The way these Upani;adic references to the power of the mind are
expressed serves to emphasise the point made above that the reification of
the term 'mind' can be misleading. In the UpaniSads as in the Buddhist
material the power of the mind originates in the process of thinking, or
willing. This important point underlies my use of the expression 'the power
of the mind' throughout this chapter.
In spite of the fact that the mind plays such an important cosmogonic
role in Edic material, the Brahmanical religion recorded in those Vedic texts
is usually understood to be based on ritual actions. Indeed, the rationale of
the Vedic sacrificial religion was that the universe and all individuals
depended for continued existence, and the way in which they continued to
exist, on the correct performance of ritual actions. To this day, the
orthodox Brahmanical tradition teaches that such ritual actions are crucial
to the nature of one's future existence. In this causal process there is little or
no ethical dimension as we know it. When Yajfiavalkya states "One
becomes good by good action, bad by bad acti~n",'~ this refers to the fact
that the details of the physical (and verbal) actions must be performed
correctly. If they are not, bad (i.e. wrong) results will follow. In another
passage where Yaj iiavalkya gives the same teaching, however, we also see
the suggestion that it is the power of the mind which determines one's
future rebirth. He states first: 'As one acts and behaves, so one becomes.
The doer of good becomes good, the doer of bad becomes bad".16 He goes
on to state: