THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

""DEVELOPMENT OF ITS CONCEPTION 91fear, anger, and well versed in the Scriptures, areable to perceive this truth (ii. 35).Having realized the Atman, the wise man shouldbe in the world like a block of inert matter, i.e.,being perfectly unmoved and unattached to theduality. In this way, though still being within theworld, he will transcend it ;from the point of viewof this world therefore, he will be a sort of block ofdead matter (ii. 36). This consciousness of the selfrealizationof the Atman should never cease (ii. 38).The third part ("Advaita")beginsthat the Atman, though appearing to givethe multiplicity of things all about us,with the ideabirth tois not in theleast affected by any such thing (iii. 2). Multiplicityisonly due to self-imposed and imagined limitations.The individuation of the Atman into the Jivasisnot a process of division. The division appears asreal. For instance, the Atman, being indivisibleand all-pervading, may be compared to ether (akasa) .It is not different from the ether enclosed in a jar ;the enclosure being destroyed, the limited akasamerges into mahdkdsa. So is Jiva merged in theAtman on the dissolution of the self-imposed adjuncts l (iii. 3. 4). Differences are only in form,capacity, name, etc., but that does not imply anyreal difference in akasa itself. This illustration mayfully apply to Jiva (iii. 6). As, again, akasa intercepted by a jar is neither a part nor an evolved1 On this compare Sankara on ii. i. 14 below.