Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s17.46

v2.c26.s17.46

such as creatorship and rulership of the universe.¹ There are thus two views of the ultimate, higher and lower. "Where, by discarding the differences of name, form, and the like, ascribed by avidyā, Brahman is indicated by negative expressions, as not gross, etc.,² it is the higher (param). But where, on the contrary, exactly the same reality is described, for purposes of worship, as distinguished by some difference or other, it is the lower (aparam)."³ Brahman cast through the moulds of logic is Īśvara. It is not the highest reality, since it has no meaning for the highest experience where existence and content are no longer separated. Yet it is the best image of the truth possible under our present conditions of knowledge. The saguṇa Brahman is not the mere self-projection of the yearning spirit or a floating air-bubble. The gleaming ideal is the way in which the everlasting real appears to our human mind.⁴ sistency requires us to describe the absolute by a set of negations, “neither personal nor moral, nor beautiful nor true,” as Bradley does. The inevitable effect of the negative account is to make us believe that the absolute has nothing to do with or is indifferent to the higher aspects of experience. When these negative formulas of an exact metaphysics defeat their object, we are inclined, in the interests of our religious needs, to lay a different emphasis.¹