ether,
although all-pervading, is spoken of as limited and minute, if
considered in its connexion with the eye of a needle; so Brahman also.
But it is an understood matter that the attributes of limitation of
abode and of minuteness depend, in Brahman's case, entirely on special
forms of contemplation, and are not real. The latter consideration
disposes also of the objection, that if Brahman has its abode in the
heart, which heart-abode is a different one in each body, it would
follow that it is affected by all the imperfections which attach to
beings having different abodes, such as parrots shut up in different
cages, viz. want of unity, being made up of parts, non-permanency, and
so on.

8. If it is said that (from the circumstance of Brahman and the
individual soul being one) there follows fruition (on the part of
Brahman); we say, no; on account of the difference of nature (of the
two).

But, it may be said, as Brahman is omnipresent like ether, and therefore
connected with the hearts of all living beings, and as it is of the
nature of intelligence and therefore not different from the individual
soul, it follows that Brahman also has the same fruition of pleasure,
pain, and so on (as the individual soul). The same result follows from
its unity. For in reality there exists no transmigratory Self different
from the highest Self; as appears from the text, 'There is no other
knower but he' (B/ri/. Up. III, 7, 23), and similar passages. Hence the
highest Self is subject to the fruition connected with transmigratory
existence.

This is not so, we reply; because there is a difference of nature. From
the circumstance that Brahman is connected with the hearts of all living
beings it does not follow that it is, like the embodied Self, subject to
fruition. For, between the embodied Self and the highest Self, there is
the difference that the former acts and enjoys, acquires merit and
demerit, and is affected by pleasure, pain, and so on; while the latter
is of the opposite nature, i.e. characterised by being free from all
evil and the like. On account of this difference of the two, the
fruition of the one does not extend to the other. To assume merely on
the ground of the mutual proximity of the two, without considering their
essentially different powers, that a connexion with effects exists (in
Brahman's case also), would be no better than to suppose that space is
on fire (when something in space is on fire). The same obj