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BRAHMANISM
perience and rational thought. Nevertheless, it is a sign of nonknowing to suppose that because the dualistic argument is logical and accords with the facts of life, it is therefore consonant with the final truth. Dualism belongs to the sphere of manifestalion, the sphere of bewildering differentiation through the interaction of the guņas, and is but a part of the great cosmic play of māyā.
The sole Well of Truth, speaking as Kļşņa, declares: “A part of My very Self, an eternal one', becomes a life-monad (jivabhūta) in the realm of the life-monads (jiva-loka: i.e., in the manifested sphere of creation, which is iceining with lifemonads). This draws to itself mind and the five sense forces, which are rooted, and which abide, in the matter of the universe. When this Divine Lord (īśvara) 87 thus obtains a body, and when again he steps out of it and departs, he carries these six forces or functions along with him from their abode or receptacle (the heart], and goes his way; just as the wind carries scents along with it from their abode. Ruling over the car, the eye, touch, taste, and the sense of smell, as well as the mind, he experiences the objects of scnse. People deluded by ignorance fail to behold Him whether He steps out of the body or remains within it united with the guņas and experiencing the objects of sense; those do behold Him, however, who possess the cye of wisdom." 88
"The Lord (išvara) 89 dwells in the region of the heart of all perishable creatures and causes all beings to revolve (bhramayan) by His divine deluding power (māyā) as if they were mounted on a machine (antrārūdha: e.g. on a wheel provided
87 The life-monad is thus called, for it is a spark from the divine pure light beyond. iśvara means "the potent, all-powerful, sovereign one"; fundamentally, the life-monad partakes of the omnipotence of the Divine Essence.
88 Bhagavad Gita 15. 7-10. 89 Here the universal aspect receives emphasis.
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