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XXXI] The nature of Brahman
331 sat, cit and ānanda, can manifest Himself in His partial aspects in the world without the help of any instrument. It is possible to conceive Brahman in His aspects or characters as knowledge, bliss, activity, time, will, māya, and prakyti. The kāla represents the kriyā-sakti or power of action. The determination of the creation or dissolution through time (kāla) means the limitation of His power of action; determined by this power of action His other parts act consonantly with it. By His will He conceives His selves as different from Him and through different forms thus conceived He manifests Himself; in this way the diverse characters of Brahman manifesting Himself in diverse forms manifest Himself also as differing in diverse ways. Thus, though He is identical with knowledge and bliss, He appears as the possessor of these. The power of God consists in manifesting His nature as pure being, as action and as producing confusion in His nature as pure intelligence. This confusion, manifesting itself as experiential ignorance (which shows itself as egotism), is a part of the māyā which creates the world, which is instrument of God as pure bliss in His manifestation a the world. This māyā thus appears as a secondary cause beyond the original cause, and may sometimes modify it and thereby act as a cause of God's will. It must, however, be understood that māyā thus conceived cannot be regarded as the original cause; it serves in the first instance to give full play to the original desire of God to become many; in the second place it serves to create the diversity of the grades of existence as superior and inferior. It is in relation to such manifestation of God's knowledge and action that God may be regarded as the possessor of knowledge and action. The aspect of māyā as creating confusion is regarded as avidyā. This confused apperception is also of the nature of understanding such as we possess it; through this confused understanding there comes a desire for association with the nature of bliss conceived as having a separate existence and through it come the various efforts constituting the life in the living. It is by virtue of this living that the individual is called jīva. The nature as being when posited or a product of the action appears as inanimate objects, and is later on associated again with action and goes to manifest itself as the bodies of the living. So from His twofold will there spring forth from His nature as pure being the material prānas, which serve as elements of bondage for the jīvas and are but manifestations of His nature as
