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.
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