It may be again asked:  “How can a being with perfect life produce a world that is lifeless?” In other words, “How can the effect differ from its cause?” The same commentator replies:  “Just as lifeless hair can grow out of a living man.”

Again, it is said, “In the universe Brahman is at once he who enjoys and he who is enjoyed.  How can he be both one and the other—­agent and object?” To which Sankara replies:  “It is as possible for these two to go together as for the ocean to be itself and to be at the same time foam, waves, billows, and bubbles.  The same earth produces diamonds, rock crystal, and vermilion.  Do they differ from the earth?

“The same sun causes plants of various kinds to grow, and the very same nourishment taken into the body is changed to flesh, hair, nails, etc.  The spider spins its web from its own substance, and spirits assume many forms when they appear on the earth.  All these are but images of the eternal world-process by which Brahman reveals Himself in souls and in material objects.”

    THE HIGHEST KNOWLEDGE INACCESSIBLE TO LOW
      CASTE MEN

No Sudra [or lowest caste man] is capable of such knowledge as leads to Brahmanhood [the state of being absorbed in Brahman].  Only the twice-born[12] are allowed to study the Vedic Scriptures, a knowledge of which is essential to salvation.  The twice-born are likewise alone permitted to offer sacrifice, for how can a man sacrifice aright who is ignorant of the sacred scriptures, which are alone adequate for a man’s guidance?  If the Sudras, or fourth-caste men, are excluded from the summum bonum of humanity—­absorption in the one great all—­how much more are Pariahs, or non-caste men, deprived of this great boon!  Brahman is the material, as well as the efficient, cause of the world, which springs from him by way of modification, but is his manifested self and nothing more.

BOOK II.—­OBJECTIONS TO VEDANTIC DOCTRINES STATED AND REFUTED

The Vedanta texts, the Vedas and the Upanishads, teach that Brahman is the one only source of whatever exists outside himself; that his nature is not only mighty, but also intelligent.  The evidence for this supplied in Book I. is, for the most part, the authority of the above texts; that which they say must be accepted as “gospel,” whatever human reason may see or say to the contrary.

Book II. begins by stating and answering speculative objections on the part of Sankhyaists.  Though himself intelligence (not merely intelligent) Brahman may give birth to a non-intelligent world, seeing that like does not always spring from like [see above].

Atomists hold that there is apparent difference and separateness in things.  “Where, then,” they ask, “is the oneness, the monism, for which the Vedantists argue?” It is replied that it is only superficial thought that fixes itself upon the manifoldness of things, losing sight of their oneness.  Deeper thought sees underneath the many a oneness which binds them, and of which they are only the outward expressions.  The great ocean is one, but its waves and ripples are many.  All at bottom is but one:  the Universal Being.