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Updated: April 30, 2025
There is no command of the Lord to the effect that one aspect only should belong to each thing, non-difference to what is non-different, and difference to what is different. But one aspect only belongs to each thing, because it is thus that things are perceived! On the contrary, we reply, things have twofold aspects, just because it is thus that they are perceived.
Brahman distinguished by sentient and non-sentient beings in their subtle state is the cause; distinguished by the same beings in their gross state is the effect: the effect thus is non-different from the cause, and by the knowledge of the causal Brahman the effect is likewise known. All these tenets are in full mutual agreement.
Worldly works can proceed also if the agent is non-different from the body; while an agent is qualified for sacred works only in so far as he is different from the body, and of an eternal non-changing nature. Meditations, therefore, properly connect themselves with sacrifices, in so far as they teach that the agent really is of that latter nature.
At other times the body of Brahman is constituted by all sentient and non-sentient beings in their gross, manifest state, owing to which they admit of being thought and spoken of as having distinct names and forms: Brahman then is in its 'effected' state. The effect, i.e. the world, is thus seen to be non-different from the cause, i.e. the highest Brahman.
The Chandogya-text then further teaches that all sentient and non-sentient beings have their Self in Brahman 'in that all this has its Self; and further inculcates this truth in 'Thou art that. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. It is in this way that we prove, by means of the texts beginning with arambhana, that the world is non-different from the universal cause, i.e. the highest Brahman.
It is in no way possible that the effect should be non-different from the cause. For cause and effect are the objects of different ideas: the ideas which have for their respective objects threads and a piece of cloth, or a lump of clay and a jar, are distinctly not of one and the same kind.
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.
Fire, and so on, enables us to determine that the effect, i. e. the world, is non-different from the highest cause, i.e. the highest Brahman. There is another scriptural text also which makes it clear that the highest Brahman enters, so as to be their Self, into the world together with the jivas. 'Having sent forth that he entered into it. This disposes of the doubt raised above.
The fact is that the highest Self is in its causal or in its 'effected' condition, according as it has for its body intelligent and non-intelligent beings either in their subtle or their gross state; the effect, then, being non-different from the cause, and hence being cognised through the cognition of the cause, the result is that the desired 'cognition of all things through one' can on our view be well established.
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