It may be asked: If the subject and the object are identical, what difference can there be between the self bound and the self liberated in regard to the objects cognisable by each? The answer to this question is given in a section of the Tattvártha-Saṅgraha—
"Self liberated cognises all that is cognisable as identical with itself, like Maheśvara free from bondage: the other (or unliberated) self has in it infinite plurality."
An objection may be raised: If the divine nature is essential to the soul, there can be no occasion to seek for this recognition; for if all requisites be supplied, the seed does not fail to germinate because it is unrecognised. Why, then, this toilsome effort for the recognition of the soul? To such an objection we reply: Only listen to the secret we shall tell you. All activity about objects is of two degrees, being either external, as the activity of the seed in developing the plant, or internal, as the activity which determines felicity, which consists in an intuition which terminates in the conscious self. The first degree of activity presupposes no such recognition as the system proposes, the second does presuppose it. In the Recognitive System the peculiar activity is the exertion of the power of unifying personal and impersonal spirit, a power which is the attainment of the highest and of mediate ends, the activity consisting in the intuition I am God. To this activity a recognition of the essential nature of the soul is a pre-requisite.
It may be urged that peculiar activity terminating in the conscious self is observed independent of recognition. To this it is replied: A certain damsel, hearing of the many good qualities of a particular gallant, fell in love with him before she had seen him, and agitated by her passion and unable to suffer the pain of not seeing him, wrote to him a love-letter descriptive of her condition. He at once came to her, but when she saw him she did not recognise in him the qualities she had heard about; he appeared much the same as any other man, and she found no gratification in his society. So soon, however, as she recognised those qualities in him as her companions now pointed them out, she was fully gratified. In like manner, though the personal self be manifested as identical with the universal soul, its manifestation effects no complete satisfaction so long as there is no recognition of those attributes; but as soon as it is taught by a spiritual director to recognise in itself the perfections of Maheśvara, his omniscience, omnipotence, and other attributes, it attains the whole pleroma of being.
It is therefore said in the fourth section—
"As the gallant standing before the damsel is disdained as like all other men, so long as he is unrecognised, though he humble himself before her with all manner of importunities: In like manner the personal self of mankind, though it be the universal soul, in which there is no perfection unrealised, attains not its own glorious nature; and therefore this recognition thereof must come into play."
This system has been treated in detail by Abhinava-gupta and other teachers, but as we have in hand a summary exposition of systems, we cannot extend the discussion of it any further lest our work become too prolix. This then may suffice.[152]
A. E. G.
FOOTNOTES:
[150] Read bháván for bhávát.