nd
Hinduism that the predominant thoughts of a man's life, and especially
his thoughts when near death, determine the character of his next
existence.

The trances known as the four formless states are analogous to the
Brahma-viharas, their object being to ensure rebirth not in the heaven
of Brahma but in one of the heavens known as Formless Worlds where the
inhabitants have no material form[697]. They are sometimes combined with
other states into a series of eight, known as the eight
deliverances[698]. The more advanced of these stages seem to be hypnotic
and even cataleptic. In the first formless state the monk who is
meditating rises above all idea of form and multiplicity and reaches the
sphere in which the infinity of space is the only idea present to his
mind. He then passes to the sphere where the infinity of thought only is
present and thence to the sphere in which he thinks "nothing at all
exists[699]," though it would seem that the consciousness of his own
mental processes is undiminished. The teaching of Alara Kalama, the
Buddha's first teacher, made the attainment of this state its goal. It
is succeeded by the state in which neither any idea nor the absence of
any idea is specially present to the mind[700]. This was the goal of
Uddaka Ramaputta, his second teacher, and is illustrated by the simile
of a bowl which has been smeared with oil inside. That is to say,
consciousness is reduced to a minimum. Beyond these four stages is yet
another[701], in which a complete cessation of perception and feeling is
attained[702]. This state differs from death only in the fact that heat
and physical life are not extinct and while it lasts there is no
consciousness. It is stated that it could continue during seven days but
not longer. Such hypnotic trances have always inspired respect in India
but the Buddha rejected as unsatisfying the teaching of his masters
which made them the final goal.

But let us return to his account of Jhana and its results. The first of
these is a correct knowledge of the body and of the connection of
consciousness with the body. Next comes the power to call up out of the
body a mental image which is apparently the earliest form of what has
become known in later times as the astral body. In the account of the
conversion of Angulimala the brigand[703] it is related that the Buddha
caused to appear an image of himself which Angulimala could not overtake
although he ran with all his might and the