not the one and only truth.
Erroneous thoughts as to the joy of heaven are still entwined by the
fast cords of lust. The nobleman attending to the spoken law the cloud
of darkness opened before the shining splendor. Thus he attained true
sight, erroneous views forever dissipated; even as the furious winds of
autumn sway to and fro and scatter all the heaped-up clouds. He argued
not that Isvara was cause, nor did he advocate some cause heretical, nor
yet again did he affirm there was no cause for the beginning of the
world. "If the world was made by Isvara deva, there should be neither
young nor old, first nor after, nor the five ways of birth; and when
once born there should be no destruction. Nor should there be such thing
as sorrow or calamity, nor doing wrong nor doing right; for all, both
pure and impure deeds, these must come from Isvara deva. Again, if
Isvara deva made the world there should be never doubt about the fact,
even as a son born of his father ever confesses him and pays him
reverence. Men when pressed by sore calamity ought not to rebel against
him, but rather reverence him completely, as the self-existent. Nor
ought they to adore more gods than one. Again, if Isvara be the maker he
should not be called the self-existent, because in that he is the maker
now he always should have been the maker; but if ever making, then ever
self-remembering, and therefore not the self-existent one--and if he
made without a purpose then is he like the sucking child; but if he made
having an ever prompting purpose, then is he not, with such a purpose,
self-existent? Sorrow and joy spring up in all that lives, these at
least are not the works of Isvara; for if he causes grief and joy, he
must himself have love and hate; but if he loves unduly, or has hatred,
he cannot properly be named the self-existent. Again, if Isvara be the
maker, all living things should silently submit, patient beneath the
maker's power, and then what use to practise virtue? Twere equal, then,
the doing right or wrong: there should be no reward of works; the works
themselves being his making, then all things are the same with him, the
maker, but if all things are one with him, then our deeds, and we who do
them, are also self-existent. But if Isvara be uncreated, then all
things, being one with him, are uncreated. But if you say there is
another cause beside him as creator, then Isvara is not the 'end of
all'; Isvara, who ought to be inexhaustible, i