Above the _Thoodawata_ seats are the four called _Arupa_, or immaterial. The denizens of these places first recognise that the miseries attending man in this world have their origin in the body. They then conceive the utmost disgust and horror for it; they long for the dissolution of this agent to all wickedness. So great is their horror for bodies and matter, that they no longer select them for subjects of meditation; they endeavour to cross beyond the limits of materiality, and launch forth into the boundless space, where this material world does not seem to reach. The inhabitants of the first seat have assumed for their subject of meditation the _Akasa_, the air, the fluid of the atmosphere, or the space. Those of the second meditate on the _Winiana_, or the spirit, or life of beings, taken in an abstract sense; those of the third contemplate the _Akintzi_, or immensity; those of the fourth, _Newathagnia_, lose themselves in the infinity. By what mental process has the sage to pass in order to reach the first degree of sublime contemplation? He will have to begin with the consideration of the form of some material object, say one of the four elements. Let him afterwards set aside those _Kathain_, or material portions of the element brought under consideration, and occupy his mind with the ether, or fluid, or space; the former, that is to say, the kathain, shall disappear to give place to something divested of all those coarser forms, and the mind shall be fixed only on the _akatha_. The sage then shall repeat ten hundred thousand times these words,—The space or air is infinite, until there will appear at last the first _tseit_, or idea of _arupa_. In a similar manner, the _tseit akan_, or the idea of conformity with purpose, disappears; then begins the science of _upekka_, or indifference, with its four degrees; the idea that then succeeds is precisely that of _akasa ananda_, or infinite ether, or space. This unintelligible mental process is explained by a comparison. If they shut with a white cloth the opening of a window, the persons inside the room, turning their eyes in the direction of the opening, see nothing but the white cloth. Should the cloth be suddenly removed, they perceive nothing but that portion of the space corresponding with the extent of the window. The piece of cloth represents the material forms, that are the subjects of meditation, or contemplation, of those living in the seats of _Rupa_; the free opening of the window exemplifies the subjects of contemplation reserved to the first class of _arupa_. Having reached so far, the contemplative soon feels the utmost disgust for all material forms, and is entirely delivered from the three _Thagnia_, or false persuasions, supplied by matter, by the action of the senses, and by the result of merits and demerits. He is displeased with all the coarser forms of beings. The action of the contemplative has its sphere in the _mano_, or seat of knowledge.