The Sûtras also maintain the same doctrine, cp. I, 1, 17; I, 2, 21; II, 1, 22; and others. They therein follow Scripture, which in several places refers to the highest and the individual soul as standing over against each other, cp. e.g. 'He who dwells in the Self and within the Self, whom the Self does not know, whose body the Self is, who rules the Self from within' (Bri. Up. III, 7, 22); 'Embraced by the intelligent Self (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 21); 'Mounted by the intelligent Self (IV, 3, 35). Nor can the individual Self become one with the highest Self by freeing itself from Nescience, with the help of the means of final Release; for that which admits of being the abode of Nescience can never become quite incapable of it. So the Purâna says, 'It is false to maintain that the individual Self and the highest Self enter into real union; for one substance cannot pass over into the nature of another substance.' Accordingly the Bhagavad Gîtâ declares that the released soul attains only the same attributes as the highest Self. 'Abiding by this knowledge, they, attaining to an equality of attributes with me, do neither come forth at the time of creation, nor are troubled at the time of general destruction' (XIV, 2). Similarly our Purâna says, 'That Brahman leads him who meditates on it, and who is capable of change, towards its own being (âtmabhâva), in the same way as the magnet attracts the iron' (Vi. Pu. VI, 7, 30). Here the phrase 'leads him towards his own being' means 'imparts to him a nature like his own' (not 'completely identifies him with itself'); for the attracted body does not become essentially one with the body attracting.
The same view will be set forth by the Sûtrakâra in IV, 4, 17; 21, and I, 3, 2. The Vritti also says (with reference to Sû. IV, 4, 17) 'with the exception of the business of the world (the individual soul in the state of release) is equal (to the highest Self) through light'; and the author of the Dramidabhâshya says, 'Owing to its equality (sâyujya) with the divinity the disembodied soul effects all things, like the divinity.' The following scriptural texts establish the same view, 'Those who depart from hence, after having known the Self and those true desires, for them there is freedom in all the worlds' (Ch. Up. VIII, 1, 6); 'He who knows Brahman reaches the Highest' (Taitt. Up. II, 1); 'He obtains all desires together with the intelligent Brahman' (Taitt. Up. II, 1, 1); 'Having reached the Self which consists of bliss, he wanders about in these worlds having as much food and assuming as many forms as he likes' (Taitt. Up. III, 10, 5); 'There he moves about' (Ch. Up. VIII, 12, 3); 'For he is flavour; for only after having perceived a flavour can any one perceive pleasure' (Taitt. Up. II, 7); 'As the flowing rivers go to their setting in the sea, losing name and form; thus he who knows, freed from name and form, goes to the divine Person who is higher than the high' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 8); 'He who knows, shaking off good and evil, reaches the highest oneness, free from stain' (Mu. Up. III, 1, 3).
The objects of meditation in all the vidyâs which refer to the highest Brahman, are Brahman viewed as having qualities, and the fruit of all those meditations. For this reason the author of the Sûtras declares that there is option among the different vidyâs—cp. Ve. Sû. III, 3, II; III., 3, 59. In the same way the Vâkyakâra teaches that the qualified Brahman only is the object of meditation, and that there is option of vidyâs; where he says '(Brahman) connected (with qualities), since the meditation refers to its qualities.' The same view is expressed by the Bhâshyakâra in the passage beginning 'Although he who bases himself on the knowledge of Being.'—Texts such as 'He knows Brahman, he becomes Brahman' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 9) have the same purport, for they must be taken in connexion with the other texts (referring to the fate of him who knows) such as 'Freed from name and form he goes to the divine Person who is higher than the high'; 'Free from stain he reaches the highest oneness' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 8; III, 1,3); 'Having approached the highest light he manifests himself in his own shape' (Kh. Up. VIII, 3, 4). Of him who has freed himself from his ordinary name and form, and all the distinctions founded thereon, and has assumed the uniform character of intelligence, it may be said that he is of the character of Brahman.—Our Purâna also propounds the same view. The sloka (VI, 7, 91), 'Knowledge is the means to obtain what is to be obtained, viz. the highest Brahman: the Self is to be obtained, freed from all kinds of imagination,' states that that Self which through meditation on Brahman, is freed from all imagination so as to be like Brahman, is the object to be attained. (The three forms of imagination to be got rid of are so- called karma-bhâvanâ, brahma-bhâvanâ and a combination of the two. See Vi. Pu. VI, 7.) The text then goes on, 'The embodied Self is the user of the instrument, knowledge is its instrument; having accomplished Release— whereby his object is attained—he may leave off.' This means that the Devotee is to practise meditation on the highest Brahman until it has accomplished its end, viz. the attainment of the Self free from all imagination.—The text continues, 'Having attained the being of its being, then he is non-different from the highest Self; his difference is founded on Nescience only.' This sloka describes the state of the released soul. 'Its being' is the being, viz. the character or nature, of Brahman; but this does not mean absolute oneness of nature; because in this latter case the second 'being' would be out of place and the sloka would contradict what had been said before. The meaning is: when the soul has attained the nature of Brahman, i.e. when it has freed itself from all false imagination, then it is non-different from the highest Self. This non-difference is due to the soul, as well as the highest Self, having the essential nature of uniform intelligence. The difference of the soul—presenting itself as the soul of a god, a man, &c.—from the highest Self is not due to its essential nature, but rests on the basis of Nescience in the form of work: when through meditation on Brahman this basis is destroyed, the difference due to it comes to an end, and the soul no longer differs from the highest Self. So another text says, 'The difference of things of one nature is due to the investing agency of outward works; when the difference of gods, men, &c., is destroyed, it has no longer any investing power' (Vi. Pu. II, 14, 33).—The text then adds a further explanation, 'when the knowledge which gives rise to manifold difference is completely destroyed, who then will produce difference that has no real existence?' The manifold difference is the distinction of gods, men, animals, and inanimate things: compare the saying of Saunaka:'this fourfold distinction is founded on false knowledge.' The Self has knowledge for its essential nature; when Nescience called work—which is the cause of the manifold distinctions of gods, men, &c.—has been completely destroyed through meditation on the highest Brahman, who then will bring about the distinction of gods, & c., from the highest Self—a distinction which in the absence of a cause cannot truly exist.—That Nescience is called karman (work) is stated in the same chapter of the Purâna (st. 61—avidyâ karmasamjña).
The passage in the Bhagavad Gîtâ, 'Know me to be the kshetrajña' (XIII, 2), teaches the oneness of all in so far as the highest Self is the inward ruler of all; taken in any other sense it would be in conflict with other texts, such as 'All creatures are the Perishable, the unchanging soul is the Imperishable; but another is the highest Person' (Bha. Gî. XV, 16). In other places the Divine one declares that as inward Ruler he is the Self of all: 'The Lord dwells in the heart of all creatures' (XVIII, 61), and 'I dwell within the heart of all' (XV, 15). and 'I am the Self which has its abode within all creatures' (X, 20). The term 'creature' in these passages denotes the entire aggregate of body, &c., up to the Self.—Because he is the Self of all, the text expressly denies that among all the things constituting his body there is any one separate from him,'There is not anything which is without me' (X, 39). The place where this text occurs is the winding up of a glorification of the Divine one, and the text has to be understood accordingly. The passage immediately following is 'Whatever being there is, powerful, beautiful, or glorious, even that know thou to have sprung from a portion of my glory; pervading this entire Universe by a portion of mine I do abide' (X, 41; 42).
All this clearly proves that the authoritative books do not teach the doctrine of one non-differenced substance; that they do not teach that the universe of things is false; and that they do not deny the essential distinction of intelligent beings, non-intelligent things, and the Lord.
[FOOTNOTE 92:1. 'Prânamaya' is explained as meaning 'prana' only.]
[FOOTNOTE 94:1. The sense in which this sloka has to be taken is 'As in ordinary life we ascribe to certain things (e.g. gems, mantras) certain special powers because otherwise the effects they produce could not be accounted for; so to Brahman also,' &c.]
The theory of Nescience cannot be proved.
We now proceed to the consideration of Nescience.—According to the view of our opponent, this entire world, with all its endless distinctions of Ruler, creatures ruled, and so on, is, owing to a certain defect, fictitiously superimposed upon the non-differenced, self-luminous Reality; and what constitutes that defect is beginningless Nescience, which invests the Reality, gives rise to manifold illusions, and cannot be denned either as being or non-being. Such Nescience, he says, must necessarily be admitted, firstly on the ground of scriptural texts, such as 'Hidden by what is untrue' (Ch. Up. VIII, 3, 2), and secondly because otherwise the oneness of the individual souls with Brahman—which is taught by texts such as 'Thou are that'—cannot be established. This Nescience is neither 'being,' because in that case it could not be the object of erroneous cognition (bhrama) and sublation (bâdha); nor is it 'non-being,' because in that case it could not be the object of apprehension and sublation [FOOTNOTE 102:1]. Hence orthodox Philosophers declare that this Nescience falls under neither of these two opposite categories.
Now this theory of Nescience is altogether untenable. In the first place we ask, 'What is the substrate of this Nescience which gives rise to the great error of plurality of existence?' You cannot reply 'the individual soul'; for the individual soul itself exists in so far only as it is fictitiously imagined through Nescience. Nor can you say 'Brahman'; for Brahman is nothing but self-luminous intelligence, and hence contradictory in nature to Nescience, which is avowedly sublated by knowledge.