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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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universe is, therefore, nothing but a bundle of names and forms; in plain terms, an illusion. What, then, is the individual soul? Brahman itself, and as such omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, but neither the doer of works, nor the gatherer of their harvest (Deussen's System Of The Vedanta, p. 468). The summum bonum, therefore, does not consist in becoming Brahman; for the soul is always Brahman, even when it does not know itself. Liberation implies the knowledge, on the part of the individual soul, of its being the sat-chita-ananda (=Existence-Consciousness-Bliss), which is descriptive of the essence of Brahman, though the usual method of defining Brahman is by the words neti, neti (not this, not this). I should have taken this purely negative description as being in the nature of an emphasis on the point that Brahman is devoid of sensible qualities, but for the fact that the Vedantists take it literally. After the Brahmanhood of the soul. is recognised, liberation follows at once ("that thou art" is the pharse, not "that thou wilt be "); simultaneously with the attainment of knowledge of the identity with Brahman the soul becomes the soul of the
Universe (Deussen).
The salient features of Vedanta may now be put down as follows:
(a) the unreality of the world,
(b) the being of only one reality, or soul, and
(c) the attainment of 'liberation' by knowledge.
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