SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

"
He
"
326 THE NATURE OF THE JiVA.
ever evolving and evolving, gaining experience ever and anon
and the oft-repeated words of the Upanishat,
"There is no
return, There is no return have no meaning. These people
though they might speak of a God, could not really mean God
in the proper conception of the word. The ignorance of these
two characteristics of the soul lies at the difficulty of both
agnostics and idealists. In union with the body, the soul has
become one with the body and its individuality
is lost and it
could not be discovered by any amount of physical and
anatomical analysis. In union with God, it has become one
with God and no trace of its individuality could be found there.
So both declare there is no soul, and the latter declare that
the soul we were cognizant of was God Himself. To them, of
course, all talk of anubhava and svanubhava will be unmeaning
also. To the Buddhist and Idealist, there is simply the
tearing asunder of PaSa, and lo and behold ! there is nirvana
and annihilation to the one, and God regains its own self to
the other. But in either case, there is nothing to prevent
that which arose from nothing or from God, from arising again
and undergoing the never-ending round of samsara. To the
latter, the only possible explanation for this evolution of God into
man would be that furnished by Dr. Paul Deussen necessity
connected with the doctrine of Samsara. This would eventu
ally strike at the root of all necessity for bettering ourselves
and weaken, at any rate, the moral and religious sanction.
If, after all our effort to better ourselves, we should sink back
again, why all this bother Guru-upadam and tapas etc. ?
Our glory is in God and we delight in His glory. He is our
Redeemer and the fruit of redemption. But for our enjoyment
at all. Our final
in Him, there is no need for redemption
consummation is in Him. As the Chhandogya Upanishat puts
it, who sees, perceives and understands this, loves God,
delights in God, revels in God, rejoices in God, He becomes
svaraj He is Lord and master in all the worlds."
;
I will now proceed to show how this conception of the soul
as herein set forth affects our view of Dvaita, Advaita and