A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s2.11

c7.s2.11

21. Even though metaphysical philosophy may require such a rigoristic conception of the Absolute, for the purposes of religion and for the explanation of the phenomenal existence of the world, a God has to be invented, who, in Māṇḍukyan fashion, should be the lord of all, the knower of all, the inner controller of all, the *fons et origo* of all, the final haven of all. Advaitism does not negate such a conception of God. It requires God just for the sake of the purposes above mentioned; but higher than God philosophically, it regards the conception of the Absolute. God to an Advaitist is the personal aspect of the Absolute, and the Absolute the impersonal aspect of God. It is in this spirit that the Māṇḍukyopanishad makes a distinction between the conceptions of God and the Absolute, and regards the latter conception as philosophically even a higher one. "The Absolute is neither inwardly cognisant, nor outwardly cognisant, nor on both sides together. It is not a cognition-mass. It is neither knower nor not-knower. It is unseen, unpracticable, ungraspable, indefinable, unthinkable, unpointable. It is the essence of the experience of self-identity; in it all this universe ceases. It is tranquil, blessed, and without a second" (S. 27. a). It is true that there are a few positive characterisations of the Absolute in this passage; but the general description of it is, as may be easily remarked, couched only in negative terms. It is impossible for any absolutist philosophy to say anything, and to say at the same time that it is not outside itself.