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INTRODUCTION
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animals, who also behave in an identical manner in reacting to the environment. In the presence of an enemy, the animal tries to run away and escape and in the presence of a friendly environment it feels happy Thus this concrete world of natural experience which is common to both men and animals though philosophically supposed to be the result of Nescience, is to be considered real and important from the practical point of view In this concrete world which is real in its own way, the social distinctions based upon rank and birth hold good. That one is a Brahmin and another is a Kshatriya, one is a master and another is a servant, are all distinctions based upon the body and hold good only in the empirical world.
The third point which he emphasises is that this empirical world resulting from the non-distinction between the Self and the Non-Self exists without beginning and without end. This natural world which is without beginning and without end is produced by the Nescience or wrong conception which is the cause of individual souls appearing as agents and enjoyers in the empirical world which is eternal and uncreated. The individual self in the empirical world or Samsara is influenced by this wrong knowledge and identifies himself with external objects.
“Extra-personal attributes are superimposed on the Self, if a man considers himself sound and entire, or the contrary, as long as his wife, children and so on are sound and entire or not. Attributes of the body are superimposed on the Self, if a man thinks of himself (his Self) as a stout, lean, fair as standing walking or jumping, Attributes of the sens-organs, if he thinks, I am mute or deaf or one eyed or blind. Attributes of the internal organs when he considers himself subject to deșire, intention, doubt, determination, and so on."
Lastly he indicates the true nature of the Self which should be discriminated from the non-Chetana bodily attributes as free from all wants and raised above all social distinction as Brahmin and Kshatriya and so on, and entirely transcended the empirical samsaric existence to whom even vedic injunctions will cease to be operative, because he is placed in a region from where he
