United States or Portugal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Should it be maintained that the texts declaring difference refer to difference due to limiting adjuncts, while the texts declaring non-difference mean essential non-difference, we must ask the following question does the non-conditioned Brahman know, or does it not know, the soul which is essentially non-different from it? If it does not know it, Brahman's omniscience has to be abandoned.
The final purport of the whole section thus is that everything different from the highest Self, whether of intelligent or non-intelligent nature, constitutes its body, while that Self alone is the non-conditioned embodied Self.
The term 'True' expresses Brahman in so far as possessing absolutely non-conditioned existence, and thus distinguishes it from non-intelligent matter, the abode of change, and the souls implicated in matter; for as both of these enter into different states of existence called by different names, they do not enjoy unconditioned being.
And with regard to the divinity the text says that 'he rests with his rays in him, i.e. the eye': this implies that the divine being may preside over the organ of sight although itself abiding in another place; it does not therefore abide in the eye. Moreover, non-conditioned immortality and similar qualities cannot belong to any of these three Selfs.
For any quality on the ground of which 'Agni' may be etymologically explained to denote ordinary fire as when e.g. we explain 'agni' as he who 'agre nayati' may also, in its highest non-conditioned degree, be ascribed to the supreme Self. Another difficulty remains. How is this possible? On account of definiteness; thus Asmarathya opines.
Word Of The Day