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For this is the teaching of texts such as 'Thou art that'; 'this Self is Brahman. Those texts, on the other hand, which declare the difference of the two merely restate what is already established by perception and the other means of knowledge, and therefore are shown, by those texts the purport of which it is to teach non-duality not established by other means, to lie like perception and the other means of knowledge themselves within the sphere of Nescience.
I shall treat elsewhere of his philosophy, known as the Viśishṭâdvaita or non-duality, which yet recognizes a distinction between God and individual souls. The line of thought is old and at all periods is clearly a compromise, unwilling to deny that God is everything and yet dissatisfied with the idea that a personal deity and our individual transmigrating souls are all merely illusion.
If non-duality constitutes the true nature of Brahman, and is proved by Brahman's own consciousness, there is room neither for what is contradictory to it, viz. that non-knowledge which consists in the view of duality, nor for the sublation of that non- knowledge.
Now, in reply to this, some of those who hold the non-duality of Brahman give the following explanation. But you have said that scriptural texts such as 'Having entered with this living Self show that the souls are not different from Brahman! They are indeed not different in reality, but we maintain their distinction on the basis of an imagined difference.
Nor must you say that it is the cognition of the non-duality of Brahman that brings about the means for the dissolution of the world; for, as we have already explained above, this cognition directly brings about final Release, which is the same as the dissolution of the world, and thus there is nothing left to be effected by special means.
Its chief doctrine is known as dvaitâdvaitamata, or dualistic non-duality, which is explained as meaning that, though the soul and matter are distinct from God, they are yet as intimately connected with him as waves with water or the coils of a rope with the rope itself.
We thus arrive at the conclusion that those who hold the non-duality of Brahman must also admit that it is Brahman alone which is affected with beginningless avidya, and owing to this avidya is conscious of plurality within itself.
For the imagination of plurality has through gradual growth in the course of beginningless time acquired an infinite strength, and does not therefore admit of being dispelled by the comparatively weak conception of non-duality. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up.; and what they enjoin is therefore meditation.
Brahman, can be derived from Scripture, if Scripture as based on Nescience is itself untrue. Our opponent may finally argue as follows: Scripture is not unreal in the same sense as a sky-flower is unreal; for antecedently to the cognition of universal non-duality Scripture is viewed as something that is, and only on the rise of that knowledge it is seen to be unreal. Brahman itself, is false.
It was only natural that Râmânuja's advocacy of qualified non-duality should lead some more uncompromising spirit to affirm the doctrine of Dvaita or duality. This step was taken by Madhva Âcârya, a Kanarese Brahman who was probably born in 1199 A.D. In the previous year the great temple of Jagannatha at Puri had been completed and the Vishnuite movement was at its height.
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