Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/304

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principle of the four-fold classification. Even if Upadhi is mistaken for a state of consciousness, the seven-fold classification cannot be deduced from the Raja-yoga classification. Jagrata Avastha is not the condition of Pragna associated with the fourth principle. The whole argument thus ends in nothing; and yet on the basis of this argument Madame H. P. Blavatsky has thought it proper, in the fourth argument of her present reply, to pronounce an opinion to the effect that the Vedantins have denied the objective reality and the importance of the physical body, and overlooked its existence in their classification, which has thereby been rendered unfit for practical purposes. My critic would have done better if she had paused to ascertain the real meaning of Upadhi and of Jagrata before using such a worthless argument in defence of her own classification and giving expression to such an erroneous view regarding the Vedantic theory.

The whole argument about the comparative merits of the two classifications rests on a series of misconceptions, or arbitrary assumptions. The first Upadhi is identified with Jagratavastha, and then it is assumed that the latter is the same as the fourth principle of the septenary classification. I must here call the reader's attention to another curious mistake in the reply. It is stated in the second para, on page 456, that the four-fold classification is the "Bhagavad Gita classification," "but not that of the Vedanta." This statement is apparently made for the purpose of somehow or other discrediting the four-fold classification. It has, however, no real foundation in fact, and is altogether misleading. Madame H. P. Blavatsky has probably ventured to make this assertion on account of the headings given to the five-fold and the four-fold classifications in my note on the "Septenary Division in different Indian Systems." I called the five-fold classification, the Vedantic classification, and the four-fold classification the Raja-Yoga classification, merely for convenience of reference and not because the two classifications refer to two different systems of philosophy. Though both the classifications