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Even if ajnana means antecedent non-existence of knowledge, we can say that knowledge of the substrate and object of non-knowledge has for its object the Self presented obscurely only; and thus there is no difference between our views unless you choose to be obstinate!
For ideas require only some substrate in general; the mere appearance of a thing is a sufficient substrate, and such an appearance is present in the case in question, owing to a certain defect. The thing we determine to be unreal because it is sublated; the idea is non-sublated, and therefore real.
What the rationalist calls nonentity is the substrate and locus of all ideas, having the obstinate reality of matter, the crushing irrationality of existence itself; and one who attempts to override it becomes to that extent an irrelevant rhapsodist, dealing with thin after-images of being. Nor has the mystic who sinks into the immediate much better appreciated the situation.
In the case of bodies divine, human, &c., on the other hand, the essential nature of which it is to be mere modes of the Self which constitutes their substrate and final cause, both ordinary and Vedic language express the relation subsisting between the two, in the form of co-ordination, 'This Self is a god, or a man, &c.
At the same time it is practically treated as a quality because it always has the substance tejas for its substrate, and depends on it. This must not be objected to on the ground that what is called light is really nothing but dissolving particles of matter which proceed from the substance tejas; for if this were so, shining gems and the sun would in the end consume themselves completely.
To be connected with what is hurtful to man, and to be absolutely perfect and antagonistic to all evil is self- contradictory. But, our adversary now rejoins, what after all are we to do? Up. Nothing therefore is left to us but the hypothesis that Brahman is the substrate of Nescience and all that springs from it!
In accordance with the principle that complete explanation of psychical facts is possible only through the physiological substrate, we have so far kept rather to that field in dealing with the foundations of our pleasure in rhythm. But further description of the rhythmical experience is most natural in psychological terms.
On the second alternative we have two aspects of different kind and an unknown thing supposed to be the substrate of those aspects; but this assumption of a triad of entities proves only their mutual difference of character, not their non- difference. And much less even are they able to do so if they are viewed as non-different from the thing which is their substrate.
In order therefore to establish such an ultimate cause we must have recourse to the hypothesis of the general cause being constituted by one substance, which possesses the power of transforming itself in various different ways, without at the same time forfeiting its own essential nature, and which forms the general substrate for an infinity of different effects, from the Mahat downwards.
To explain: the essential character of consciousness or knowledge is that by its very existence it renders things capable of becoming objects, to its own substrate, of thought and speech.
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