Nor is there an absurdity (as the Śáṅkaras would say), on the hypothesis enunciatory of the reality of the universe, in affirming that by a cognition of one there is a cognition of all things: for it is easily evinced that the mundane egg, consisting of the primary cause (_prakṛiti_), intellect, self-position, the rudimentary elements, the gross elements, the organs (of sense and of action), and the fourteen worlds, and the gods, animals, men, immovable things, and so forth, that exist within it, constituting a complex of all forms, is all an effect, and that from the single cognition of absolute spirit as its (emanative) cause, when we recognise that all this is absolute spirit (there being a tautology between cause and effect), there arises cognition of all things, and thus by cognition of one cognition of all. Besides, if all else than absolute spirit were unreal, then all being non-existent, it would follow that by one cognition all cognition would be sublated. It is laid down (by the Rámánujas) that retractation into the universe (_pralaya_) is when the universe, the body whereof consists of souls and the originant (_prakṛiti_), returns to its imperceptible state, unsusceptible of division by names and forms, existing as absolute spirit the emanative cause; and that creation (or emanation) is the gross or perceptible condition of absolute spirit, the body whereof is soul and not soul divided by diversity of names and forms, in the condition of the (emanative) effect of absolute spirit. In this way the identity of cause and effect laid down in the aphorism (of Vyása) treating of origination, is easily explicable. The statements that the Supreme Spirit is void of attributes, are intended (it is shown) to deny thereof phenomenal qualities which are to be escaped from by those that desire emancipation. The texts which deny plurality are explained as allowed to be employed for the denial of the real existence of things apart from the Supreme Spirit, which is identical with all things, it being Supreme Spirit which subsists under all forms as the soul of all, all things sentient and unsentient being forms as being the body of absolute Spirit.[109] What is the principle here involved, pluralism or monism, or a universe both one and more than one? Of these alternatives monism is admitted in saying that Supreme Spirit alone subsists in all forms as all is its body; both unity and plurality are admitted in saying that one only Supreme Spirit subsists under a plurality of forms diverse as soul and not-soul; and plurality is admitted in saying that the essential natures of soul, not-soul, and the Lord, are different, and not to be confounded.