The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c6.s3.t7.7

c6.s3.t7.7

That the two extracts make up a harmonious whole is evident from their parallel construction; moreover a comparison of them may teach us whether, with our recollections of Kant, we have rightly hit the central thought. The Brahman, so teaches the first extract, is theoretically unknowable: for because, in all knowing, it is the knowing subject, it can never be an object of knowledge for us. To the mind which, not resting content with this, puts forward the same question anew, it is, in the second extract, pointed out that Brahman is to be grasped practically. This happens as one raises oneself step by step from the estate of erudition (*pâṇḍityam*) to that of childlike simplicity (*bâlyam*, cf. Matth. 18, 3), from this to the state of the Muni, from this to that of the Brâhmaṇa [in its emphatic meaning, as Bṛih. 3, 8, 10. Chând. 4, 1, 7], who renounces family, possessions and worldly pleasure, because these are different from the Brahman, and therefore subject to affliction.