5. The states of beginning and end which are attributed to eternal God, are the false imputations of ignorance and error, as there can be no change of changeless one. (To say therefore that God is the first and last, the alpha and omega of all, means that the beginning and end of all things, are comprised in his everlasting existence).
6. Brahma is not our consciousness, nor the object of our consciousness. He is as unconnected with us as our soul and intellect, and is only known to us by the word.
7. A thing is said to be the same, with what it is in the beginning and end; the difference that takes place in the form is only a mist of error, and is taken into no account by the wise. (The identity of a thing consists in its unalterable part).
8. It is the soul only that remains self same with itself, both in the beginning, middle and end of it, and in all places and times, and never changes with the change of the body or mind and therefore forms the identity of the person.
9. The soul which is formless and self-same with itself, forms the personality and individuality of a being, and because it is not subject to any modality or mutation at any time, it constitutes the essential identity of every body.
10. Ráma rejoined:—If the divine soul is always the same and perfectly pure in itself, when proceeds our error of its changeableness, and what is the cause of the avidyá or ignorance that shows these changes unto us?
11. Vasishtha replied:—The category of Brahma implies that, He is all what is, what was, and what will be in future; that He is without change and without beginning and end, and there is no avidyá ignorance in him.
12. The signification that is meant to be expressed by the significant term Brahma, does not include any other thing as what is inexistent, or the negative idea of ignorance under it (i.e. God is what is and not what is not).
13. Thyself and myself, this earth and sky, the world and all its sides, together with the elementary of fire and others, are all the everlasting and infinite Brahma, and there is not the least misunderstanding in it.
14. Avidyá or Ignorance is a mere name and Error, and is but another word for unreality; nor can you Ráma, ever call that a reality, which is never existent of itself. (The words ignorance and error are both of them but negative terms).