-------- * It must not be supposed that avidya is here confounded with prakriti. What is meant by avidya being without beginning, is that it forms no link in the Karmic chain leading to succession of births and deaths, it is evolved by a law embodied in prakriti itself. Avidya is ignorance or matter as related to distinct monads, whereas the ignorance mentioned before is cosmic ignorance, or maya-Avidya begins and ends with this manvantara. Maya is eternal. The Vedanta philosophy of the school of Sankara regards the universe as consisting of one substance, Brahman (the one ego, the highest abstraction of subjectivity from our standpoint), having an infinity of attributes, or modes of manifestation from which it is only logically separable. These attributes or modes in their collectivity form Prakriti (the abstract objectivity). It is evident that Brahman per se does not admit of any description other than "I am that I am." Whereas Prakriti is composed of an infinite number of differentiations of itself. In the universe, therefore, the only principle which is indifferentiable is this "I am that I am" and the manifold modes of manifestation can only exist in reference to it. The eternal ignorance consists in this, that as there is but one substantive, but numberless adjectives, each adjective is capable of designating the All. Viewed in time the most permanent object or mood of the great knower at any moment represents the knower, and in a sense binds it with limitations. In fact, time itself is one of these infinite moods, and so is space. The only progress in Nature is the realization of moods unrealized before. -------- Q. What is impermanent? A. That which does not exist in one and the same state in the three divisions of time [namely, present, past and future.] Q. What is inanimate (jada)? A. That which cannot distinguish between the objects of its own cognition and the objects of the cognition of others.... Q. What are the three states (mentioned above as those of which the Spirit is witness)? A. Wakefulness (jagrata), dreaming (svapna), and the state of dreamless slumber (sushupti). Q. What is the state of wakefulness? A. That in which objects are known through the avenue of [physical] senses. Q. Of dreaming? A. That in which objects are perceived by reason of desires resulting from impressions produced during wakefulness. Q. What is the state of dreamless slumber? A. That in which there is an utter absence of the perception of objects. The indwelling of the notion of "I" in the gross body during wakefulness is visva (world of objects),* in subtile body during dreaming is taijas (magnetic fire), and in the causal body during dreamless slumber is prajna (One Life). Q. What are the five sheaths? A. Annamaya, Pranamaya, Manomaya, Vjjnanamaya, and Anandamaya.