“ When I am conscious that I am non-knowing, is there or is there not apprehension of the Self as having non-existence of knowledge for its attribute, and of knowledge as the counterentity of non-knowledge? ”

“ To maintain that the whole body of Vedânta-texts-which teach us that Brahman is the highest object to be attained, since it consists of supreme bliss free of all blemish whatsoever—is devoid of all use and purpose merely because it does not aim at action or the cessation of action; is no better than to say that a youth of royal descent is of no use because he does not belong to a community of low wretches living on the flesh of dogs! ”

“ Nothing therefore is left to us but the hypothesis that Brahman is the substrate of Nescience and all that springs from it!—Not even for the purpose, we reply, of making sense of Scripture may we assume what in itself is senseless and contradictory!—Let us then say that Brahman's connexion with evil is real, and its absolute perfection unreal!— Scripture, we reply, aims at comforting the soul afflicted by the assaults of threefold pain, and now, according to you, it teaches that the assaults of suffering are real, while its essential perfection and happiness are unreal figments, due to error! ”

“ Those who acknowledge the validity of the different means of knowledge, perception, and so on, and— what is vouched for by sacred tradition—the existence of a highest Brahman—free from all shadow of imperfection, of measureless excellence, comprising within itself numberless auspicious qualities, all-knowing, immediately realising all its purposes—, what should they not be able to prove? ”

“ Such judgments as 'I know', 'Knowledge has arisen in me', show, on the other hand, that we are conscious of knowledge as a mere attribute of the Self.—Moreover, a man who suffering pain, mental or of other kind— whether such pain be real or due to error only—puts himself in relation to pain—'I am suffering pain'—naturally begins to reflect how he may once for all free himself from all these manifold afflictions and enjoy a state of untroubled ease; the desire of final release thus having arisen in him he at once sets to work to accomplish it. ”

“ But when, on the cessation of all work, everything is only pure intelligence in its own proper form, without any imperfections; then no differences— the fruit of the tree of wishes—any longer exist between things. Therefore nothing whatever, at any place or any time, exists apart from intelligence: intelligence, which is one only, is viewed as manifold by those whose minds are distracted by the effects of their own works. ”

“ If consciousness which changes every moment were admitted to constitute the conscious subject, it would be impossible for us to recognise the thing seen to-day as the one we saw yesterday; for what has been perceived by one cannot be recognised by another. And even if consciousness were identified with the conscious subject and acknowledged as permanent, this would no better account for the fact of recognition. For recognition implies a conscious subject persisting from the earlier to the later moment, and not merely consciousness. ”

“ But, if the Self is mere light, where is the being by which light is to be apprehended as agreeable to its own nature? (i.e. where is the knowing subject conscious of bliss?) He, therefore, who holds the Self to be mere light, can in no way prove that it is of the nature of bliss. If, moreover, that which the soul effects on approaching the highest light is merely to attain to its own true nature, we point out that that nature is something eternally accomplished, and that hence the declaration that 'it manifests (accomplishes) itself in its own nature' would be purportless. ”

“ Nobody thinks 'the cognitions of which I was conscious in my dream are unreal'; what men actually think is 'the cognitions are real, but the things are not real.' In the same way the illusive state of consciousness which the magician produces in the minds of other men by means of mantras, drugs, &c., is true, and hence the cause of love and fear; for such states of consciousness also are not sublated. The cognition which, owing to some defect in the object, the sense organ, &c., apprehends a rope as a snake is real, and hence the cause of fear and other emotions. ”

“ In other words, there is no such means of knowledge: the highest Self cannot be fully understood by the individual soul. 'That Self,' he continues, 'is to be expressed as—not so, not so!' That means—He, the highest Lord, different in nature from everything else, whether sentient or non-sentient, abides within all beings as their Self, and hence is not touched by the imperfections of what constitutes his body merely. ”

“ But, our adversary again objects, the consciousness which expresses itself in the judgment 'I know,' proves that the quality of being a 'knower' belongs to consciousness!—By no means, we reply. The attribution to consciousness of this quality rests on error, no less than the attribution, to the shell, of the quality of being silver. ”

“ When a man qualified for Release has died and thus freed himself from all bondage, there arises a doubt as to his existence or non-existence—a doubt due to the disagreement of philosophers as to the true nature of Release; in order to clear up this doubt I wish to learn from thee the true nature of the state of Release.— Philosophers, indeed, hold many widely differing opinions as to what constitutes Release. Some hold that the Self is constituted by consciousness only, and that Release consists in the total destruction of this essential nature of the Self. ”

“ Being incapable of change and non-active, it can neither be an agent nor an enjoyer; but although this is so, men in their confusion of mind, due to the closeness to each other of Prakriti and the soul, erroneously attribute to Prakriti the intelligence of the soul, and to the soul the activity of Prakriti—just as the redness of the rose superimposes itself on the crystal near it,—and thus consider the soul to be an 'I' and an enjoyer. Fruition thus results from ignorance, and release from knowledge of the truth. ”

“ We read in the Katha-Upanishad, 'Beyond the senses there are the objects, beyond the objects there is the mind, beyond the mind there is the intellect, the great Self is beyond the intellect. Beyond the Great there is the Unevolved, beyond the Unevolved there is the Person. Beyond the Person there is nothing—this is the goal, the highest road' (Ka. Up. I, 3, 11) . The question here arises whether by the 'Unevolved' be or be not meant the Pradhâna, as established by Kapila's theory, of which Brahman is not the Self.—The Pûrvapakshin maintains the former alternative. ”

“ Knowledge does not indeed by itself originate the subtle body, but it possesses the power of making that body persist, even after the gross body—which is the instrument for the experience of all ordinary pains and pleasures—and all works have passed away, so as thereby to make the soul capable of moving on the path of the gods, and thus to obtain Brahman which is the fruit of knowledge. ”

“ Now it is a contradiction to say that Brahman is connected with all this and at the same time antagonistic to it!—Nor can we allow you to say that there is no real contradiction because that appearance is something false. For whatever is false belongs to that group of things contrary to man's true interest, for the destruction of which the Vedânta-texts are studied. 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? ”

“ To be an object of cognition means nothing more than to be the cause of the origination of cognition. Nor does this definition imply that the sense- organs also are the objects of cognition. For a cause of cognition is held to be an object of cognition only in so far as it imparts to the cognition its own form (and this the sense-organs do not) . Now even a thing that has perished may have imparted its form to the cognition, and on the basis of that form, blue colour, and so on, the thing itself is inferred. ”

“ Analogously, when a living body and the world have once been recognised to be effects, we infer—as their maker— some special intelligent being, possessing direct insight into their nature and skill to construct them.—Pleasure and pain, moreover, by which men are requited for their merit and demerit, are themselves of a non-intelligent nature, and hence cannot bring about their results unless they are controlled by an intelligent principle, and this also compels us to assume a being capable of allotting to each individual soul a fate corresponding to its deserts. ”

“ We have so far shown that in the case of a conflict between Scripture and Perception and the other instruments of knowledge, Scripture is of greater force. The fact, however, is that no such conflict is observed to exist, since Perception itself gives rise to the apprehension of a non-differenced Brahman whose nature is pure Being.—But how can it be said that Perception, which has for its object things of various kinds— and accordingly expresses itself in judgments such as 'Here is a jar,' 'There is a piece of cloth'—causes the apprehension of mere Being? ”

“ Nor again must you allege that the non-consciousness (on the part of one Self of all pleasures and pains whatever) , is due to the plurality of the Egos, which are the subjects of cognition, and not to the plurality of Selfs; for the Self is none other than the subject of cognition and the Ego. The organ of egoity (ahamkâra) , on the other hand, which is the same as the internal organ (antahkarana) , cannot be the knowing subject, for it is of a non-intelligent nature, and is a mere instrument like the body and the sense-organs. ”

“ The king thinks his son is lost; the boy himself is received by some good Brahman who brings him up and teaches him without knowing who the boy's father is. When the boy has reached his sixteenth year and is accomplished in every way, some fully trustworthy person tells him, 'Your father is the ruler of all these lands, famous for the possession of all noble qualities, wisdom, generosity, kindness, courage, valour and so on, and he stays in his capital, longing to see you, his lost child. Hearing that his father is alive and a man so high and noble, the boy's heart is filled with supreme joy ”

“ Of what use, we further ask, should an eternal non-real Mâyâ be to Brahman?—Brahman by means of it deludes the individual souls!—But of what use should such delusion be to Brahman?—It affords to Brahman a kind of sport or play!—But of what use is play to a being whose nature is unlimited bliss?—Do we not then see in ordinary life also that persons in the enjoyment of full happiness and prosperity indulge all the same in play?—The cases are not parallel, we reply. ”

“ Brahman is rather to be meditated upon as being the Self of the meditating Devotee. As the meditating individual soul is the Self of its own body, so the highest Brahman is the Self of the individual soul—this is the proper form of meditation.—Why? Because the great Devotees of olden times acknowledged this to be the true nature of meditation; compare the text 'Then I am indeed thou, holy divinity, and thou art me.'—But how can the Devotees claim that Brahman which is a different being is their 'Ego'?—Because the texts enable them to apprehend this relation as one free from contradiction. ”

“ A man may look ever so close at a thing placed before him, he—will not be able to perceive a difference of aspect and to point out 'this is the persisting, general, element in the thing, and that the non-persistent, individual, element.' Just as an effect and an individual give rise to the idea of one thing, so the effect plus cause, and the individual plus generic character, also give rise to the idea of one thing only. ”

“ For whether we define Space as the antecedent and subsequent non-existence of earth, and so on, or as their mutual non-existence, or as their absolute non- existence—on none of these alternatives we attain the proper idea of Space. If, in the first place, we define it as the antecedent and subsequent non-existence of earth, and so on, it will follow that, as the idea of Space can thus not be connected with earth and other things existing at the present moment, the whole world is without Space. ”

“ For if it is the nature of consciousness to be 'proof' ('light,' 'enlightenment') on the part of a person with regard to something, how can this consciousness which is thus connected with the person and the thing be itself conscious of itself? 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. ”