And therefore the Adwaitee
philosophers have chiefly considered it in this light, and explained
their cosmogony from a subjective point of view. In doing so, however,
they cannot avoid the necessity of speaking of a universal mind (and
this is Brahma, the Creator) and its ideation. But it ought not to be
inferred therefrom that this universal mind necessarily belongs to an
Omnipresent living conscious Creator, simply because in ordinary
parlance a mind is always spoken of in connection with a particular
living being. It cannot be contended that a material Uphadi is
indispensable for the existence of mind or mental states when the
objective universe itself is, so far as we are concerned, the result of
our states of consciousness. Expressions implying the existence of a
conscious Iswar which are to be found here and there in the Upanishads
should not therefore be literally construed.
It now remains to be seen how Adwaitees account for the origin of mental
states in a particular individual. Apparently the mind of a particular
human being is not the universal mind.
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