If the Aryan esotericism applies the term
jivatma to the seventh principle--the pure and per se unconscious
spirit--it is because the Vedanta, postulating three kinds of
existence--(1) the paramarthika (the true, the only real one), (2) the
vyavaharika (the practical), and (3) the pratibhasika (the apparent or
illusory life)--makes the first life or jiva, the only truly existent
one. Brahma, or the ONE'S SELF, is its only representative in the
universe, as it is the universal Life in toto, while the other two are
but its "phenomenal appearances," imagined and created by ignorance, and
complete illusions suggested to us by our blind senses. The Buddhists,
on the other hand, deny either subjective or objective reality even to
that one Self-Existence. Buddha declares that there is neither Creator
nor an Absolute Being. Buddhist rationalism was ever too alive to the
insuperable difficulty of admitting one absolute consciousness, as in
the words of Flint, "wherever there is consciousness there is relation,
and wherever there is relation there is dualism.
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