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410 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY to unite what are supposed to be distinct, aprthak-siddhi tries to separate what is supposed to be one. Both alike represent efforts to seek what it is not possible to have, viz. a half-way house between inclusion and exclusion. The system, so far as it is based on Vaišnavism, endeavours to secure ultimate reality for the souls as well as matter; but loyalty to the Upanişads drives it to modify it, thus rendering the result logically unsatisfactory.
IV
As in the Advaita, the practical discipline here also begins with karma-yoga in the Gītā sense, which purifies the heart and fits a person for knowing the truth; but it is quite different in what follows. The training that is distinctive of the Visistādvaita is two-fold :
(1) Jñana-yoga.-This means meditation upon the jiva after knowing its true character through śravana or study of the scriptures under a proper guru. Those only that have achieved success in karma-yoga can enter upon it. Its object is to realize how the self is different from its several accompaniments like the body, senses and so forth with which man usually identifies it and how attachment to them impedes spiritual progress. When this yoga is carried to fruition, the discipline does not terminate, for according to Rāmānuja, the jiva though an ultimate fact is not the Ultimate. The disciple may have succeeded in realizing his nature in relation to the physical environment; but there yet remains the task of discovering the same in relation to God, the highest fact of the universe. Man cannot, according to Rämānuja, know himself truly until he knows God. The means prescribed for such knowledge is termed bhakti-yoga.
(2) Bhakti-yoga.This marks the culminating stage of the discipline. It presupposes a reasoned conviction regarding the nature of God as taught in the Visiştādvaita, and those alone that have successfully pursued jñāna-yoga in the sense just explained can begin it. Bhakti here is equated with dhyana and may therefore be taken as upasana or meditation taught in the Upanişads, provided we remember that it
