The Scriptures [Vedas] lay most stress on Brahman as the source and origin of all things. What qualities there are in the world inhere in Brahman, or they could not be in the world which has sprung from him. There could be no intelligent souls without a previously existing intelligent Brahman. That Brahman, the Supreme Being, is all-knowing is proved from the fact that the Veda itself, the source and centre of what is knowable, proceeds from Him as its one, only author. This Brahman, as set forth in the Vedanta texts as the cause of the world, is therefore intelligent, and by no means to be identified with the non-intelligent Pradhâna (_Prakriti_) which the Sankhya [atheistic] philosophy makes to be the world's cause. What looks like a separate, conscious, individual soul or mind is really but the outworking of Brahman, the highest and first of beings. The difference is apparent, but not real. So teaches Sankara; but his rival commentator, Ramanuga, endeavours to show that Brahman, the supreme self of the universe, is absolutely free from the effects of conduct. But the individual selves, which we call souls, are not, for it is the effect of conduct in a previous state of existence [Karma] that decides the character and form of the new life to be lived, or whether there is to be a new life lived at all, since conduct sufficiently good entitles to absorption in the one all--Brahman. It may be objected that Brahman cannot be the creator of this actual world, for there is in it suffering, injustice, and cruelty. He could not be the author of these. To which the commentator Sankara answers: "Brahman is himself, with all his greatness, subject to the operation of the great moral laws according to which virtue is rewarded and vice punished. All men are free, and it is their self-chosen conduct that determines their destiny. This is a law that pervades all existence, conditions existence, and without which there could be no existence." It may be again asked: "How can a being with perfect life produce a world that is lifeless?" In other words, "How can the effect differ from its cause?" The same commentator replies: "Just as lifeless hair can grow out of a living man." Again, it is said, "In the universe Brahman is at once he who enjoys and he who is enjoyed. How can he be both one and the other--agent and object?" To which Sankara replies: "It is as possible for these two to go together as for the ocean to be itself and to be at the same time foam, waves, billows, and bubbles. The same earth produces diamonds, rock crystal, and vermilion. Do they differ from the earth? "The same sun causes plants of various kinds to grow, and the very same nourishment taken into the body is changed to flesh, hair, nails, etc. The spider spins its web from its own substance, and spirits assume many forms when they appear on the earth. All these are but images of the eternal world-process by which Brahman reveals Himself in souls and in material objects."