The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s2.t7.1.4

c9.s2.t7.1.4

Prajâpati, however, is here the representative of nature, which never speaks falsely, and yet shows itself in a certain sense double-faced, inasmuch as to the two most important questions which we can put, the question concerning freedom and the question concerning immortality, it gives to the ordinary empirical consciousness two answers, which appear to be in contradiction with one another. If we regard our actions, we see that they all necessarily proceed from their causes (character and motive) in harmony with the law of causality; and yet we bear within ourselves the invincible indestructible consciousness of freedom and responsibility for these actions. Similarly with the question of immortality. If we look without, we see our entire self entering into existence as body and perishing; and yet we are invincibly conscious within of the eternity of our being: *sentimus experimurque nos aeternos esse*, as Spinoza says. It is on this consciousness, and not on personal longings, that all proofs of the immortality of the soul depend. This consciousness it is which, clothed in empirical forms, (2) from the *realistic* standpoint exhibits the self as the individual soul, and to this the second answer of Prajâpati refers.