Jīva and Īśvara
That which takes the gross body as itself, named jīva, is a reflection of Brahman. This same jīva, by its very nature, holds Īśvara to be other than itself. The Self, conditioned by ignorance, is called jīva. The Self, conditioned by māyā, is called Īśvara. So long as this seeing of a difference between jīva and Īśvara, born of the difference in their conditionings, remains, so long the round of birth and death does not end. For this reason, the thought of a difference between jīva and Īśvara is not to be held.
The one that identifies with the gross body, called the jīva, is a reflection of Brahman. By its nature this jīva regards Īśvara as different from itself. The Self limited by ignorance (avidyā) is called the jīva; the Self limited by māyā is called Īśvara. As long as this sense of difference between jīva and Īśvara, caused only by their different limiting conditions, remains, the cycle of birth and death (saṃsāra) does not end. Therefore one should not hold on to the idea of a difference between jīva and Īśvara.
- jīva
- īśvara
Where the schools meet, and where they part
Jiva and Isvara are not two utterly unrelated realities; the individual soul stands in the closest possible relation to Brahman, the one ground of all.
Liberation turns on getting this relation right. The soul caught in birth and death is the soul that has misjudged how it stands to the Lord, and the end of bondage comes through correct knowledge of that relation.
The reflection image, Brahman and its likeness, is a shared starting point. All three take up bimba and pratibimba; they part only over what a reflection finally is.
Jiva and Isvara name the one Self under two limiting adjuncts: the Self with ignorance for its adjunct is called jiva, the Self with maya for its adjunct is called Isvara. The difference between them is borrowed from the adjuncts, not owned by the Self, the way the difference between the sun in a clean pool and the sun in a muddy one belongs to the water and not to the sun. Hold this difference as real and you hold yourself to be a small, separate, dying person, and birth and death do not end; so the difference is not to be held. When ignorance goes the adjuncts go with it, and there is neither jiva nor Isvara left over, only Brahman, which the jiva already is.
The soul is real, and it is really distinct from the Lord, yet it is never found apart from Him. It stands to Brahman as a body stands to the self that indwells and rules it: the whole field of souls and matter is the body of the Lord, and the Lord is its inner self and inner ruler, the antaryamin. This is inseparability, aprthak-siddhi, not identity; the soul is a dependent mode of Brahman, distinct as an attribute is distinct from its substance and never collapsible into it. Release is not the erasure of this difference but the soul's awakening, its own knowing (dharma-bhuta-jnana) expanding into untroubled service of the Lord it was always distinct from.
The difference between soul and Lord is real, eternal, and never overcome; it heads the fivefold difference (pancabheda) woven into the very fabric of what is. The soul depends utterly on the Lord for its being and its knowing, yet it remains forever a distinct entity and never becomes the Lord. Even the reflection image is read the other way: the soul is the pratibimba and the Lord the bimba, but the reflection is a genuine, separate, dependent reality, not the original wearing a disguise. Liberation is the soul, cleansed of ignorance, coming to rest in the Lord according to its own nature, the difference intact and the soul never crossing over into Godhead.
The same reflection stands in the water for all of them. Is a reflection the one original appearing as many, or a real second thing that depends on the original and stays distinct from it forever?
The passage says the round of birth and death does not end so long as the difference between jiva and Isvara is held. On its own reading, why is that difference what keeps the round going?
- Holding the difference means taking yourself to be a small, separate, dying person, and that very self-estimate is what is bound
- The Lord punishes those who think they are separate from him by sending them back into birth
- The difference angers maya, which then prolongs the cycle as a consequence
- Birth and death are caused by bad action, and the difference is simply unrelated to them
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The text says the Self under the adjunct of ignorance is called jiva and the Self under the adjunct of maya is called Isvara. What does this locate the difference in?
- In the Self, which is genuinely split into two beings, a lesser and a greater
- In the adjuncts, the conditionings, while the Self they condition is one
- In the body alone, so the difference vanishes the moment the body dies
- In the names jiva and Isvara, which are merely sounds with nothing behind them
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One Self under two names
The one that takes the gross body as itself, the one that says I am this and walks about as a separate person, is the jiva. And that jiva is a reflection of Brahman. Not a fragment broken off, not a creature made from the outside, but Brahman appearing through a condition, the way the one sun shows up as many in many pools of water.
Now the distinction the whole passage rests on. The Self with ignorance for its adjunct is called jiva. The Self with maya, the power by which the one shows itself as the many, for its adjunct is called Isvara. One Self, two conditionings, two names. The difference between the soul and the Lord lies, deliberately, in the adjuncts and not in the Self that wears them. As long as that difference is held as real, the round of birth and death does not end, for to hold oneself other than the Lord is to hold oneself a small and finite and dying thing. And so the close is an instruction and not a description: the difference is not to be held.
This is Advaita speaking in its home text, and it asks to be heard exactly. The teaching is not that you should work up a feeling of being God. It is subtler. Ignorance has already drawn the line between you and the Lord; the practice is to stop signing your name to it, to stop endorsing a difference that was never yours to begin with. Remove the conditioning and there is no jiva standing here and no Isvara standing there. There is Brahman, which the jiva already is.
Other schools take up the very same words and read them otherwise, and the place they part is the reflection. For Ramanuja's tradition the soul is real and really distinct from the Lord, yet never apart from him: it is his body, he its inner ruler, distinct as an attribute is distinct from its substance and never folded back into it. Release is the soul waking into that relation, not the difference dissolving. For Madhva's tradition the difference is firmer still, eternal and never crossed, first among the five differences that structure all that is; the reflection in the water is a genuine second thing, dependent on the original but forever distinct from it, and the soul never becomes the Lord. All of them reach for the one image of original and reflection. They divide on what a reflection finally is.
So the passage holds out a fork, and it is honest about it. On its own reading the gap between you and the Lord is a difference of conditioning, and a difference of conditioning is no more real than the conditioning itself; let that go and only Brahman remains. The other schools answer that the soul's distinctness is its own, not borrowed from any adjunct, and stands when everything else falls away. This text argues the first case, and argues it as the heart of its teaching. It does not get to settle the second for the schools that hold it, and we do not settle it here.
Whether the soul's difference from the Lord is something ignorance draws and knowledge erases, or something real in the soul that even liberation leaves standing.
When you say I am, and feel yourself a small separate person, is that the truth about you, or only the adjunct you have not yet set down?
In the commentaries
The jiva is not a second thing standing apart from Brahman. It is Brahman appearing through a limiting adjunct, the way the one sun appears as many in many pools of water. Take the body as oneself, and the boundless is felt as a small and separate person; this taking is the work of ignorance, avidya, and the person it produces is what the word jiva names. The very same Self, considered as the ground and ruler of the whole appearing world, with maya, the power by which the one appears as the manifold, as its adjunct, is what the word Isvara names. So the difference between the two is a difference of adjuncts only, not of the Self that wears them; remove the conditioning and there is no jiva over here and no Isvara over there, only Brahman. This is why the seeing of difference is named the root of birth and death: as long as I hold myself to be other than the Lord, I hold myself to be a finite, transacting, dying thing, and the round continues. The instruction here is not to manufacture a feeling of oneness but to stop endorsing the difference that ignorance has already drawn.