All the informational pathways that are taken together and experienced as a unified field are mentioned. They are resolved into their common denominator i.e. consciousness. This is a progressive form of meditation or a detaching from the particularity of each stage to move on to the next finally ending in the state of absorption in pure consciousness, your fundamental natural state.
When through these successive steps sound and
the rest, together with their receiving organs, are
merged in Pure Intelligence, there are no more limiting
adjuncts, and only Brahman, which is Pure Intelli-
gence, comparable to a lump of salt, homogeneous,
infinite, boundless and without a break, remains.
Therefore the Self alone must be regarded as one with-
out a second.
Yes, it might be said, consciousness is one thing but the organs are material, do they just evanesce?
"Objection : In everyone of those instances the
mergence of the objects only has been spoken of, but
not that of the organs. What is the motive of this?
Reply: True, but the Sruti considers the organs
to be of the same category as the objects, not of a
-different category. The organs are but modes of the
objects in order to perceive them, as a light, which is
but a mode of colour, is an instrument for revealing all
colours. Similarly the organs are but modes of all
particular objects in order to perceive them, as is the
case with a lamp. Hence no special care is to be taken
to indicate the dissolution of the organs ; for these being
the same as objects in general, their dissolution is
implied by that of the objects.”
This is deeply important aspect of Advaitic ontology which has not been extensively commented on due to empirical psychology which regards the brain as the secretor of consciousness. For Advaita the body-mind is not conscious as such. It is jada or inert until it is pervaded by SatChit or BeingConsciousness.
The ‘organs’ i.e. the body including the senses, is a material entity. The objects are material entities. The interaction of both of these is a material interaction which being pervaded by consciousness places itself on the side of the subject. That is the basic pre-theoretic condition. ‘The organs are the same as the objects in general’. There is no event in the brain creating consciousness. Defects in either the ‘organs’ or the ‘objects’ change the result of the interaction which is taken to be veridical until it fails to confirm our expectations.
The concept of the brain/mind/body as jada/inert or by nature unconscious is a profound one and requires a shift away from the standard dualistic model.
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