To this question we reply as follows:  Brahman is apprehended under two forms; in the first place as qualified by limiting conditions owing to the multiformity of the evolutions of name and form (i.e. the multiformity of the created world); in the second place as being the opposite of this, i.e. free from all limiting conditions whatever.  Compare the following passages:  B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 5, 15, ’For where there is duality as it were, then one sees the other; but when the Self only is all this, how should he see another?’ Ch.  Up.  VII, 24, 1, ’Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the greatest.  Where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else, that is the little.  The greatest is immortal; the little is mortal;’ Taitt.  Up.  III, 12, 7, ’The wise one, who having produced all forms and made all names, sits calling (the things by their names[100]);’ Sv.  Up.  VI, 19, ’Who is without parts, without actions, tranquil, without faults, without taint, the highest bridge of immortality, like a fire that has consumed its fuel;’ B/ri/.  Up.  II, 3, 6, ‘Not so, not so;’ B/ri/.  Up.  III, 8, 8, ’It is neither coarse nor fine, neither short nor long;’ and ’defective is one place, perfect the other.’  All these passages, with many others, declare Brahman to possess a double nature, according as it is the object either of Knowledge or of Nescience.  As long as it is the object of Nescience, there are applied to it the categories of devotee, object of devotion, and the like[101].  The different modes of devotion lead to different results, some to exaltation, some to gradual emancipation, some to success in works; those modes are distinct on account of the distinction of the different qualities and limiting conditions[102].  And although the one highest Self only, i.e. the Lord distinguished by those different qualities constitutes the object of devotion, still the fruits (of devotion) are distinct, according as the devotion refers to different qualities.  Thus Scripture says, ’According as man worships him, that he becomes;’ and, ’According to what his thought is in this world, so will he be when he has departed this life’ (Ch.  Up.  III, 14, 1).  Sm/ri/ti also makes an analogous statement, ’Remembering whatever form of being he leaves this body in the end, into that form he enters, being impressed with it through his constant meditation’ (Bha.  Gita VIII, 6).

Although one and the same Self is hidden in all beings movable as well as immovable, yet owing to the gradual rise of excellence of the minds which form the limiting conditions (of the Self), Scripture declares that the Self, although eternally unchanging and uniform, reveals itself[103] in a graduated series of beings, and so appears in forms of various dignity and power; compare, for instance (Ait.  Ar.  II, 3, 2, 1), ‘He who knows the higher manifestation of the Self in him[104],’ &c.  Similarly Sm/ri/ti