THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

"""""""""""DEVELOPMENT OF ITS CONCEPTION 53The word iva (= as it were) is important here.Where there is duality, as it were shows thatduality, which refers to the multiplicity (nanatva)in the world, is unreal in other;words, it is only anappearance. The conception of subject and objectis only possible when each of them has at leasta distinguishable existence. But when all thisothernessis found to be false, that which wascalled the object disappears and only the oneAtman remains as the knower. In that sense eventhe word subject (in the current sense) wouldbe inadmissible, since it isonly a relative term, andwhen the object perishes, the idea of the subjectalso goes with it. The distinction is lost, that whichwas real remains as the one, and the unreal, whichnever did actually exist, is found to be a nullity. TheAtman being itself the Knower, the self-luminous,the Universal Spirit, does not require any mediumto be known. That is the idea which Yajnavalkyaso simply and yet so forcibly conveys when he saysi.e.,vijnataram are kena vijaniyat? "By what shall the knower be known ?Further on Yajnavalkya, while instructing thesageUsasta on the nature of theAtman, saysna drster drastaram pasyer na sruter srotaram srnuyanna mater mantaram manvitha na vijfiater vijnataramvijamyah esa ta atma sarvantaro to nyad arttam."Brh. Up. iii. 4. 2.(Trans.}Thou couldst not see the seer of sight, thou couldst