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Updated: June 14, 2025
They who know this are said to know the day and the night. On the expiry of His night, Brahman, waking up, modifies the indestructible chit by causing it to be overlaid with Avidya. He then causes Consciousness to spring up, whence proceeds Mind which is identical with the Manifest.""
Brahman, we reply, has for its essential nature unlimited bliss, and hence cannot be conscious of, or affected with, unreal Maya, without avidya. Of what use, we further ask, should an eternal non-real Maya be to Brahman? Brahman by means of it deludes the individual souls! But of what use should such delusion be to Brahman? It affords to Brahman a kind of sport or play!
But this is inadmissible; for, when the oneness of the moon is known, that which causes the idea of the moon being double can be nothing else but avidya. Moreover, if Brahman recognises all beings apart from himself as false, he does not delude them; for surely none but a madman would aim at deluding beings known by him to be unreal!
If on the other hand it should not be allowed that Brahman differs in nature from avidya, then Brahman's nature itself is constituted by avidya, and the text defining Brahman as 'the True, knowledge, infinite' is contrary to sense.
Let it then be said that the expression, 'Brahman is the tail, is merely figurative, in so far as Brahman is the substrate of all things imagined through avidya! But, the Purvapakshin rejoins, we may as well assume that the ascription to Brahman of joy, as its head and so on, is also merely figurative, meant to illustrate the nature of Brahman, i.e. the Self of bliss as free from all pain.
Then is it mukti, its deliverance from the thraldom of maya, of appearance, which springs from avidya, from ignorance; its emancipation in cantam civam advaitam, in the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect activity in goodness, and in the perfect union in love.
The words demand closer attention, and I must invite those of my readers who have been driven back by the difficulties of the road to accompany me along the dull path of literal translation and comment. The keynote of the dialogue is the opposition of day and night, typifying delusion and reality, avidya and Atman.
Unto others who have transcended Avidya and have won knowledge, they never come at any time. This being the case, when jiva which is characterised by attributes, is received into the Universal Soul, and when all its attributes disappear, how can it be the object of mention by differentiation?
Brahman, in so far as limited by this avidya, is the material cause of the erroneous superimposition upon the inward Self, which in itself is changeless pure intelligence, but has its true nature obscured by this superimposition of that plurality which comprises the ahamkara, all acts of knowledge and all objects of knowledge.
The body is as it were a pit into which the soul falls, determined by Desire and Ignorance. Vasu, the commentator explains, indicates the Wind, for it means that which establishes all things into itself. Nisachara is one acting through nisa, or Avidya, i.e., one who enjoys all objects, implying Jiva invested with Ignorance.
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