Mandukya_Upanishad

subtle body is not visible to us, and it is internal to thephysical body. Of course, there are certain things which areinternal even to the subtle body, whose study we shall bemaking in the course of the study of this Upanishad. Theinternal structure of the body is not the physical structure.It is constituted of a different stuff altogether, calledtanmātrās, mānās, buddhi, and the like. Tanmātrās aresubtle vibrations that are inside physical things, and allphysical bodies. The vibrations materialise themselves intoforms, and in this sense the vibrations are called nāmā, andthe forms rūpa.The nāmā and the rūpa of the Vedānta philosophy, orof the Upanishads, are not the names and the forms withwhich we are usually familiar in our social life, but theyrather correspond to what Aristotle called in his system,form and matter. Form, according to Aristotle, is theformative power of an object, and matter is the shape thispower takes by materialisation, concretisation, etc. Thesubtle body may be regarded as the nāmā, and the physicalbody the rūpa. It is the nāmā or name in the sense that itindicates a form which is the object corresponding to it,namely the body. The liṇga-śarīra, the sūkṣhma-śarīra ofours, is our name. That is our real name, and if at all wename ourselves as Gopāla, Goviṇda, Kriṣhna, etc., that namewhich is given to us at the time of nāmākarana, the namingceremony, should correspond to our character within. Thename should not be incongruent with our essential nature.The real name is within us. It is not merely a word that weutter with reference to us. You may call a man,kshīrasāgara-bhatta (ocean of milk), but he may not have61