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26
MIRA AND MAHAVIR
as an impersonal Being. But when you think of him as Sa-guna Purusha, as living and acting in the midst of Nature and partaking of its attributes, and yet supremely happy, you conceive of him as a personal Being. Such is the idea of God as an Avatara or a Son of God. A person is not only one with a physical body; it is also one who can be conceived of as such, with all the rights and duties of persons. It is in this sense that not only men but institutions and even states and nations may be conceived of as persons. God is such a Person, embracing the whole universe, and all that you can
possibly imagine as lying beyond it. MAHAVIR-Is this God anything apart from Nature? You
seem to have mixed up the two. I feel so lost; yet you argue well and I can see no flaw in your reasoning.
KRISHNA-I told you a little while ago that you had three
options before you. You may agree that Nature, because it creates persons like you, is a Person itself and its actions are meant to be good: in that case you identify Nature with God by associating it with a moral and spiritual aim. Again, you may hold that because Nature creates not only men but other forms of life as well, it is partly like a Person and partly something else; and it is only to the extent to which you conceive of it as a Person with a good object in view in all its actions, that you think in terms of
