Chapter XXII (part 4)

Both philosophies, that of the East and that of the West [says Müller] start from a common point, namely from the conviction that our ordinary knowledge is uncertain, if not altogether wrong. This revolt of the human mind against itself is the first step in all philosophy. In our own philosophical language we may put the question thus: how did the real become phenomenal, and how can the phenomenal become real again? Or, in other words, how was the infinite changed into the finite, how was the eternal changed into the temporal, and how can the temporal regain its eternal nature? Or, to put it into more familiar language, how was this world created, and how can it be untreated again? Nescience or avidya is regarded as the cause of the phenomenal semblance. In the Upanishads the meaning of Brahman changes. Sometimes it is almost an objective God, existing separately from the world. But then we see Brahman as the essence of all things . . . and the soul, knowing that it is no longer separated from that essence, learns the highest lesson of the whole Vedânta doctrine: Tat twam asi ; " Thou art That ," that is to say, "Thou who for a time didst seem to be something by thyself, art that, art really nothing apart from the divine essence." To know Brahman is to be Brahman. . . . Almost in the same words as the Eleatic philosophers and the German mystics of the fourteenth century, the Vedântists argue that it would be self-contradictory to admit that there could be anything besides the Infinite or Brahman , which is All in All, and that therefore the soul also cannot be anything different from it, can never claim a separate and independent existence. Brahman has to be conceived as perfect, and therefore unchangeable, the soul cannot be conceived as a real modification or deterioration of Brahman. And as Brahman has neither beginning nor end, neither can it have any parts; therefore the soul cannot be a part of Brahman , but the whole of Brahman must be present in every individual soul. This is the same as the teaching of Plotinus, who held with equal consistency, that the True Being is totally present in every part of the Universe. The Vedânta philosophy rests on the foundation thesis that the soul or the Absolute Being or Brahman , are one in their essence. . . . The fundamental principle of the Vedânta-philosophy is that in reality there exists and there can exist nothing but Brahman , that Brahman is everything. Idealistic philosophy has swept away this world-old prejudice more thoroughly in India than anywhere else. The nescience (which creates the separation between the individual soul and Brahman) can be removed by science or knowledge only. And this knowledge or vidya is imparted by the Vedânta , which shows that all our p. 275 ordinary knowledge is simply the result of ignorance or nescience, is uncertain, deceitful, and perishable, or as we should say, is phenomenal, relative, and conditioned. The true knowledge or complete insight cannot be gained by sensuous perception nor by inference. According to the orthodox Vedântist , Sruti alone, or what is called revelation, can impart that knowledge and remove that nescience which is innate in human nature. Of the Higher Brahman nothing can be predicated but that it is, and that through our nescience, it appears to be this or that. When a great Indian sage was asked to describe Brahman , he was simply silent—that was his answer. When it is said that Brahman is, that means at the same time that Brahman is not; that is to say, that Brahman is nothing of what is supposed to exist in our sensuous perceptions.