Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s19.8.1

v2.c26.s19.8.1

When we start from the human end, we must offer some explanation of the world of becoming. It cannot be due to Brahman, which is immutable. If Brahman itself changes, it ceases to be Brahman. If it never ceases to be itself, i.e. never changes, the change we come across remains unexplained. The changing universe cannot be traced to prakṛti, which is unintelligent. While Brahman stands for being, prakṛti stands for becoming. But to posit prakṛti by the side of Brahman as an ultimate category would be to limit the nature of Brahman, which has no second, nothing outside; but if no second is posited, the explanation of the world becomes difficult. The only way is through the recognition of a saguṇa Brahman or changing Brahman, an Īśvara who combines within himself the natures of both being and becoming, the unattached Brahman and the unconscious prakṛti. The indeterminate for thought becomes the self-determined. The primal unity goes out of itself and produces a manifestation relatively independent of it. The pure, simple, self-subsistent Absolute becomes the personal Lord, the principle of being in the universe binding all things to each other in binding them to himself. Brahman is what is beyond both subject and object. When it becomes subject dealing with an object, we have Īśvara, the Logos, the one-many. The blank objectivity or prakṛti, develops the whole world through the power of the subject, God. By itself prakṛti or the object, has no existence or meaning.