The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s5.t2.2

c10.s5.t2.2

The thought of the Upanishads in its pantheistic form asserted, as above shown, that Brahman created the universe and then as soul entered into it.¹ The individual soul is in no respect different from Brahman, but is very Brahman complete and entire. Individuality as much as the plurality of souls is mere appearance. This appearance however is transformed into reality as the method of empirical knowledge gains acceptance. Pantheism becomes theism, according to which the individual soul makes its appearance over-against the supreme soul with a reality of its own, and the result is the plurality of individual souls,—the first dogma which divides the Sânkhya from the Vedânta, and consequently the first *reductio ad absurdum* of this theory of the universe. For the soul remains as before, in accordance with Yâjñavalkhya’s teaching, the knowing subject. A plurality of knowing subjects! What philosophical mind can admit this thought? The knowing subject is in me (*aham brahma asmi*) and nowhere else, for everything beside me is object, and for this very reason not subject.