Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

Manomaya
range between the outer, empirical, self and the inner, 'real', self. In principle,
this is suggested by the emphasis in the UpaniJads on the 'inner
controller' and the 'self within the heart'. It is also more specifically
suggested in another passage in the Brhadiranyaka UpaniJad. In answer to
the question "Which is the self?", it states:
The person [selfl is the consciousness-made [selfl which is among the
breaths [that is, the bodily self, according to the Taittiqa Upani~ad passage
quoted above]; it is the light within the heart.30
The UpaniJad goes on to state: "There is an intermediate third state, that
of being in sleep [or dream]".31 In this context, the term manomaya is not
used to describe the intermediate level of sleep/dream, but three levels are
nevertheless indicated. There is a lengthy description of the freedom in the
sleep/dream state to do whatever one wishes.32 This is remarkably similar
to descriptions of the abilities acquired by the Buddhist who creates a
manomaya body, as we shall see. Though in classical Indian thought dreams
are not considered to be delusions or unreal (except insofar as any or all of
samsiiric perception is), they are not an ability or mode of existence which is
acquired with spiritual progress. It might, however, be that the dream state
is used to exemplify the creative power of the mind, in which case it could
correspond to the existence in a manomaya body of a Buddhist bhikWlu who
has achieved a certain level of meditation.
That the dream state is being used as an analogy for a level at which one
exists seems more likely in view of the fact that the UpaniJads give an alternative
threefold analysis of the individual. This is the bodily self (Sacra), the
dream self (svapna itma) and the self in (dreamless) sleep (supta$ . . . svapnam na
viinit~).~~ These are three levels of the empirical self, and they act as the
bearer of the deathless, bodiless (real) self.34 Here the dream state might
suggest a level at which the power of the mind is able to act creatively. This
state is not unreal, but nor does it constitute absolute reality: it is an intermediate
state, between the physical body and the cessation of (samsiric)
mental activity, symbolised by dreamless sleep.
Explicit reference to the fact that there is a subtle self or body is rare in
the early UpaniJadr. So far as I am aware, the term liriga Sacra, for example,
occurs only once in the early Upani~ads.~~ It occurs more (though it is still
not common) in later Upanip~h,~~ and it is frequently used by Sankara in his
commentaries on the Upani~ads. In the early UpaniJads, it is the terms
manomaya and viiiinamaya (and possibly dreams) which suggest the subtle
self. But the theory of the subtle self and its constitution is not well developed
in the early UpaniSads, and where these terms occur they often do not
fit the threefold model suggested above in the passages cited from the
Taittimja and Brhadiiranyaka Upan4adr. Two passages seem to invert the levels
of manomaya and viiiinamaya suggested above. For example, manomaya (not
vciiinamaya) is used elsewhere in the Brhadirayaka Upani~ad in a passage
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