Mandukya_Upanishad

THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSEĪsvaraThe third quarter of the Ātman, called prājña, isidentified with the third quarter of the UniversalConsciousness called Īsvara. Īsvara is omnipotent and,therefore, He is regarded as the source and the end of allcreation. This prājña is the causal state of the universe, bothoutwardly and inwardly. Macrocosmically, we regard thisconsciousness as the Creator of the whole universe, whilemicrocosmically, the very same consciousness is the creatorof this internal world of the jīva.This Consciousness as the cause of all things is also theLord over everything – eṣha sarveśvarah. Now, this epithetsarveśvara as also the other qualification, sarvajña,omniscient, cannot be attributed to the jīva, because the jīvais not sarveśvara, and so not also sarvajña. The MāndūkyaUpanishad seems to make no palpable distinction betweenthe individual and the cosmic, and it harmonises therelation between jīva and Īsvara. The causal condition ofthe jīva, namely prājña, is regarded only as a part of theCosmic Causal State of Īsvara. To this Upanishad, there isonly one Reality, and the distinctions that we usually makebetween the Cosmic and the individual, between Īsvara andjīva, are overcome in the higher analysis of the Upanishad.It is all God, and God alone, Īsvara everywhere, and the jīvahas no place to exist apart from the Being of Īsvara. So,when you describe the nature of God, you have alsodescribed the nature of all creation including the contentsthereof, together with all the jīvas. We need not describe thedrop separately when we describe the ocean; and so, the