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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Vedānta (Sara kara )
459
the soul's having the atomic size or the size of the body S'aṁkara is naturally driven further to the last alternative which states that the soul is all-pervading and infinite. It being all-pervading, it can both be atomic and infinite at the same time without any contradiction. The same Supreme Self appears to assume various forms of varying magnitudes due to the adjuncts with which it is associated. S'aṁkara says — “As light, ether, the sun and so on appear differentiated as it were through their objects such as fingures, vessels, water and so on which constitute limiting adjuncts, while in reality they preserve their essential non-differentiatedness; so the distinction of different Selfs is due to limiting adjuncts only, while the unity of all selfs is natural and original."'1
Further, Samkara holds that the real Self or the Brahman is neither the doer (karts) of actions nor the (bhokt;), the enjoyer of the rewards of the actions. Doership and enjoyership are falsely attributed to it. In fact, they belong to the empirical or individual soul, which has existence and reality on the phenomenal plane. If the soul be held to be the doer of actions certain absurdities will follow. If the doership is a real and essential property of the soul, then the soul would ever remain active and would always be involved in actions with the result that it will then never becoine free; moreover, activity is painful in character, therefore, the soul would suffer
1 S'aṁkara (Com.) on Vedānta Sútras (Tr. Thibaut), 3.2.25, Vol. II, p. 172.
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