Indian Philosophy v1.c7.s2.32

v1.c7.s2.32

Such a God, according to the theory of pure monism, is just the lapse from the absolute, with the least conceivable interval separating him from pure being or the absolute. It is the product of avidyā which is separated from vidyā by the least conceivable extent. In other words, this concrete God is the *highest product of our highest intelligence*. The pity is, that it is a *product* after all, and our intelligence, however near it approximates to vidyā, is not yet vidyā. This God has in him the maximum of being and the minimum of defect—still a defect. The first touch of māyā, the slightest diminution of absolute being, is enough to throw it into space and time, though this space and this time will be as near as possible to the absolute unextendedness and eternity. The absolute one is converted into the Creator God existent in some space, moving all things from within without stirring from His place. God is the absolute objectivised as something somewhere, a spirit that pushes itself into everything. He is being-non-being, Brahman-māyā, subject-object, eternal force, the motionless mover of Aristotle, the absolute spirit of Hegel, the (absolute-relative) viśiṣṭādvaita of Rāmānuja, the efficient as well as the final cause of the universe. The world is beginningless and endless, since the energising of God could not have begun and could never come to an end. It is its essential nature to be ever at unrest.