English
The souls springing up from God should have Jbeen omniscient like God, since the qualities of the cause must go to mak^ those of the effect. Where is the room, then of our limited intelligence? We are aware of the fact that we are limited intelligences, and that we do hot know ourselves to be God. This we cannot doubt. We know that we are ignorant. If we admit that we ' are ignorant, our ignorance is establish- ed, and if we do not admit that we are ignorant, our ignorance is equally established, because we know that we are not God, i, e,, not omniscient, in other words, that we are ignorant. Now holding that the soul is God, and knowing that it does not spontaneously recognise itself as God, we are forced to the conclu- sion that we are thus ignorant because we are ignorant, that is tp say, we do not know ourselves to be God on account of our ignorance. In other words, it is owing to our being obstructed by ignorance, or Ajnana,.that we do not know ourselves to be God. Now this spul, with its ^various 32 A tBCTtJRE ON modes of intelligence, vtz.^ the various re- presentations Of its intellect, i. e., the whole World, is ignorant of its being God. Had there been no ignorance, there would have been no individual soul with its different modes of intelligence, no world, but God. Thus we see that the world- owes its exist- ence solely to ignorance. This ignorance, then, makes the world. This is then the creative principle. Thus it is the Prakrity, or the energy, or the power of the omnipo- tent God. That is God plus ignorance or power, creates the world. So this ignorance is called Sakti, or power. Thus far we have the pure Vedanta. Pushing the question further, we can see the question in another light. The world exists owing to our ignorance. Had there been no ignorance there would have been no v/orld. Its reality then is not true reality. It is a myth, an; illusion, a phantasma- goria, a deceit, or a jugglery. Thus, gentlemen, we see that Maya, coming from the root Ma, to measure, originally meant only power or energy, and was afterwards deteriorated in its meaning when applied in the sense' of illusion, &c., being looked upon from a theological point of view. But this latter is not the meaning in THE) VEDxVNTA PHILOSOPHY. 33 the V edanta. The world of the Vedaiitist is ®,s real as his indiyidual existence is real. It is not an illusion in the strict sense of the term. The mirage is an illusion, and 'the external world is real in relation to it. The world is unreal only in relation to the absolute reality, i, e., Brahman. The world is really an illusion with the Buddhists and not with the Vedantists. The ignorance mentioned above is not so much as indi- vidual ignoranoe but the ignorance, in- herent in human nature. It is due to our limited nature. Professor MaxMuller says ' that it is something like a general eosmical force, as darkness inevitable in the light, which causes the phenomenal world to seem and to be to us, what it seems and what it is.” Mytholo- gically Maya is represented as a goddess ■creating the world. Colloquially it is used in the sense of affection, interest, or any worldly tie. So we can at once see how gradually the original meaning of Maya has been deteriorated in different ways and has come to signify what is only remotely or analogically connected with the main idea. The Vedanta holds that behind what is only relatively real there is the absolute— the full reality of Brahman, Now a few 34 A LEGTTTRE ON words more on the origin of the idea of Maya. To understand how this limitation in our knowledge is the cause of the world, let us quote the words of Fichte. He says “that the ego is absolute and posits itself: it is a pure activity. As its activity, how- ever, has certain indefinable limits, when it experiences this limitation of its activity, it also posits a non-ego, and so organises the objective world. The ego cannot therefore posit itself without at the same time pro- jecting a non-ego, which, consequently, is, in so far, the mere creation of the ego/’ Very similarly the Vedantist says that the soul is absolute as it is God or Brahman and does not require some other agency to originate it, that it posits itself, e., it lays down the position '‘here I am” and that in so doing it meets with a limitation. This limitation of knowledge, but for which the soul would have been omniscient God, is styled ignorance. The objectified limitation, i. c., the limitation viewed as something external, which with Fichte is non-ego or the external wmrld, is, according to the Vedanta, objectified ignorance, or ignorance regarded as something external, that is to say, the world of the Vedantist is ‘ objectified ignorance. Thus the world has its S'HE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 35 origiu in ignorance, or in the limited nature of our intelligence viewed objectively, e , as something external. This ignorance may be spoken of as {gnnd)^ or fetter of the soul, or the trammels of the soul, and viewed subjectively, L e., as something remain- ing in the soul, it is only (ajnanaj, or ignorance. Thus iguna), fetter, and (ajnana), ignorance are not difierent, but the same. In the external world, ^. e., in the objectified (maya) or ignorance, we see three qualities more or less present everywhere. These are (Satwa), good- ness or purity, (Rajas) passion or energy, and lastly (Tamas) darkness or gross- ness So it is (Triguna) or a three fold chord or fetter of the soul. The subjective ignorance which is the cause of the obj ect- ive, must necessarily consist of these three qualities, since we know that “ e,, the qualities of the elfect, proceed from the qualities of the cause. Thus Ajnana, or ignorance, consists of these three qualities This Nescience, or Ajnana, is not like the want ofknowledge,orlikethe want of any thing, a negation, or blank, but it is a positive pheno- menal existence, e,, it is It is the 36 A IrECTITKE OET opponent of knowledge, and so it is the ob- struction to our true knowledge, i e,, it is the cause of the limitation of our intelligence, and hence it is It cannot be call- ed real, i. e, it is not absolutely real, as it ceases to exist when we attain to the true knowledge. Neither can it be called unreal like illusion, because it has a practical reality and a phenomenal existence as real as our own individual existence. So it is called Gentlemen, these relative words, real and unreal, are puzzling to many, and we need to be cautious in right- ly understandmg them. Nescience is not absolutely real, like Brahman, but is practi- cally real as our individual souls are real. Thus we cannot call it real or unreal. We see that the two. other relative terms such as eternal- and or non-eternal, or temporary, are often confounded in the same way. These terms refer to time, which is related to the creation of the world. Maya or Nescience is i e , exists eternally with the creation or evolution of the world, since the idea of creation is ever present with that of the world. “ Creator” and “ created” are allied terms and the ideas conveyed by each of them TETE VEDANTA FIIItOSOPHr. ST are eternally connected. Now tlie creation existing eternally, the Nescience, which is the cause of the creation, must neces- sarily exist eternally. How the creation is eternally existing we shall presently come to see. This' Nescience again is not,f5T?5r or eternal, in the sense in which Brahman is fsT?q' or eternal, because we can think of the idea of the absolute eter- nal reality apart from the idea of creation. In other words the idea of creation can be eliminated from the idea of the uni- verse, and the residue would be eternal and absolute Brahman, and then only this Ne- science may be spoken of as or non- eternal, but actually it is not so. Practi- cally this Nescience is fHcn’, or eternally existing with the creator. Moreover, it being something like a power> or ' 11 % in Brahman, must necessarily be fsTrg, or eternal, as Brahman is eternal. Thus it is only the different aspects of the question which are puzzling to many. Having ex- plained thus the origin of the idea of Maya or Nescience, let us try to under- stand the reasonableness of this doctrine. That our knowledge is limited and relative, e., conditioned by our organs and intellect, is admitted by almost all the best thinkers 38 - A LEOTTTRE ON of the day. All that we perceive is only phenomenal, and reality lies behind it. Of course, there are minds perfectly satisfied with things as they appear and are unable to understand anything except what is visible and tangible. They would hardly be con- vinced of any invisible or eternal existence, much less would they believe that what is visible is only unreal or phenomenal, and therefore changeal)le, perishable and non- eternal. Philosophy has very little concern with unphilosophical turns of mind conver- sant only with the bread and butter sciences of the world. Thoughtful men try to dive -deep, and are able to perceive that men know directly or immediately the sensa- tions or affections of their organs, and only mediately or phenomenally the whole external world. The " elephant and the blind men” maxim, called illus- trates clearly how the knowledge of men is only relative or conditional. It means that a number of blind men being instructed to know the elephant, touched the different parts of the body of the animal and came to the conclusion that each part with a certain shape was the elephant. So their ideas of the elephant differed according to the different c animal’s body they THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 39 . touched. Just so is our knowledge of the external world, which is only represent- ed by our inleilect.