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Updated: May 14, 2025
For, as seen in the case of Saubhari and others, it is owing to the oneness of the Self that one person is conscious of the pains and pleasures due to several bodies. This also has been proved before. Nor is there any proof for your assertion that all bodies must be held to spring from the avidya of one subject, because they are bodies, non-intelligent, effects, fictitious.
Not, we suppose, that the origination and subsistence of the non-intelligent thing should be dependent on the intelligent principle; for in that case your example would not help to prove your contention.
Such a metaphorical view would in fact be not merely useless; it would be downright irrational. Prakriti is a non-intelligent principle, the causal substance of the entire material Universe, and constituting the means for the experience of pleasure and pain, and for the final release, of all intelligent souls which are connected with it from all eternity.
So far the Sutras have declared that the Brahman which forms the object of enquiry is different from the non-intelligent Pradhana, which is merely an object of fruition for intelligent beings. Up. It is that inner Self, the Purvapakshin contends.
But why might not the surplus of good in the non-intelligent creatures that fill the world compensate for and even exceed incomparably the surplus of evil in rational creatures? It is true that the value of the latter is greater; but by way of compensation the others are incomparably greater in number; and it may be that the proportion of number and quantity surpasses that of value and quality.
The Pradhana postulated by you is not capable of constructing this manifold-natured world, because while itself being non-intelligent it is not guided by an intelligent being understanding its nature. Whatever is of this latter kind is incapable of producing effects; as e. g. wood and the like by themselves are not capable of constructing a palace or a carriage.
This account has to be understood as follows. Of this universe, comprising intelligent and non- intelligent beings, the intelligent part which is not to be reached by mind and speech, to be known in its essential nature by the Self only, and, owing to its purely intelligential character, not touched by the differences due to Prakriti is, owing to its imperishable nature, denoted as that which is; while the non-intelligent, material; part which, in consequence of the actions of the intelligent beings undergoes manifold changes, and thus is perishable, is denoted as that which is not.
And since non-intelligent matter is subject to changes corresponding to the actions of the individual souls, it may be called 'non-being, while the souls are 'being. This the next sloka further explains 'when knowledge is pure, &c.
It must indeed be admitted that the Lord, who differs in nature from all other beings, intelligent and non-intelligent, and hence possesses powers unfathomable by thought, is capable of creating this manifold world, although before creation he is one only and without parts.
Under the influence of this error, that a non-intelligent cause can produce nothing where contrivance appears, he is far from conceding to me that preformation which produces naturally the organs of animals, and the system of a harmony pre-established by God in bodies, to make them respond in accordance with their own laws to the thoughts and the wills of souls.
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