their opinion, a conscious God cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning.  They cannot admit that the grand total of all the states of consciousness in the universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing and as cosmic idealism ceases during Pralaya.  There is only one permanent condition in the universe which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidakasam (field of consciousness) in fact.

When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahmam by the Adwaitees.

The idea of a God, Deity, Iswar, or an impersonal God (if consciousness is one of his attributes) involves the idea of Ego or non-Ego in some shape or other, and as every conceivable Ego or non-Ego is evolved from this primitive element (I use this word for want of a better one) the existence of an extra-cosmic god possessing such attributes prior to this condition is absolutely inconceivable.  Though I have been speaking of this element as the condition of unconsciousness, it is, properly speaking, the Chidakasam or Chinmatra of the Hindu philosophers which contains within itself the potentiality of every condition of “Pragna,” and which results as consciousness on the one hand and the objective universe on the other, by the operation of its latent Chichakti (the power which generates thought).

Before proceeding to discuss the nature of Parabrahmam.  It is to be stated that in the opinion of Adwaitees, the Upanishads and the Brahmasutras fully support their views on the subject.  It is distinctly affirmed in the Upanishads that Parabrahmam, which is but the bare potentiality of Pragna,* is not an aspect of Pragna or Ego in any shape, and that it has neither life nor consciousness.  The reader will be able to ascertain that such is really the case on examining the Mundaka and Mandukya Upanishads.  The language used here and there in the Upanishads is apt to mislead one into the belief that such language points to the existence of a conscious Iswar.  But the necessity for such language will perhaps be rendered clear from the following considerations.

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* The power or the capacity that gives rise to perception.
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From a close examination of Mill’s cosmological theory the difficulty will be clearly seen referred to above, of satisfactorily accounting for the generation of conscious states in any human being from the standpoint of the said theory.  It is generally stated that sensations arise in us from the action of the external objects around us:  they are the effects of impressions made on our senses by the objective world in which we exist.  This is simple enough to an ordinary mind, however difficult it may be to account for the transformation of a cerebral nerve-current into a state of consciousness.