Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/26

and as creation is not something that takes place in time, both the Purusha and the Prakriti are eternal entities, co-eternal and co- existent with one another, — yet they are not one and the same being. In the Samkara- Vedanta monism Purusha and Prakriti are not real and eternal elements of the Divine Consciousness, Which knows no differentiation or duality, Wherein there is neither knowing nor feeling, as we know these in our own experience. In absolute monism, who sees, with what, and whom ? Who knows, whom, with what ? Brahman is Pure Consciousness, and Pure Anandam and Pure Existence. If still the Samkara-Vedanta school uses the terms Purusha and Prakriti, they do not re- present Reality but are only conceived through Maya or Illusion, incidental to the creative process. What we call Personal God, the Iswara of the Samkara-Vedanta, is, therefore, not the Absolute in its truth and essence, but is only a moment or phase of our experience of the Absolute at a certain stage of our own consciousness. When all duality has been cancelled, as it is and must be in the highest state of illumination, when all personal or individual consciousness is abso- lutely merged in the Universal Consciousness