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XXXVII] Saiva Philosophy in the Vāyaviya-samhitā 117 manifest, and the individual becomes more and more pure, until he becomes like Siva. The differences of the souls are only due to the conditioning factor of the mala. It is in accordance with the nature and condition of the mala that one soul appears to be different from the other. The root cause for all the suffering in the world is the impurities, and it is the function of the divine doctor, Siva, to lead us through knowledge far away from the impurities. Knowledge alone is a means by which all sins may be removed. It may be objected that, since God is all-powerful He could liberate human beings without making them undergo suffering. To this question it is suggested in reply that misery and suffering constitute the nature of the samsāra of birth and rebirth. It has already been stated before that God's omnipotence is somehow limited by the natural conditions of the materials on which the will of God operates. The nature of the malas or the impurities being of the nature of sorrow and pain, it is not possible to make them painless, and for this reason, in the period in which one passes through the process of the expurgation of malas through samsāra, one must necessarily suffer pain. The individual souls are by nature impure and sorrowful, and it is by the administration of the order which acts as medicine, that these individuals are liberated. The cause of all impurities that generate the samsāra is the māyā and the material world, and these would not be set in motion in any way without the proximity of Siva. Just as iron filings are set in motion by the presence of a magnet without the magnet's doing anything by itself, so it is by the immediate proximity of God that the world process is set in motion for its benefit. Even though God is transcendent and does not know the world, the fact of His proximity cannot be ruled out. So He remains the superintending cause of the world. All movement in the world is due to Siva. The power by which He controls the world is His ordering will which is the same as His proximity. We are reminded of the analogical example introduced by Vācaspati in his commentary on the Yogasūtrabhāsya, where it is said that though the puruşa does not do anything, yet its proximity produces the special fitness (yogyatā) on account of which the prakyti moves for the fulfilment of the purposes of the puruṣa. The example of the magnet and the iron filings is also given in that connection. As the whole world is but a manifestation of Siva's own power, we may quite imagine that
