104 CONCEPTIONS OF ULTIMATE REALITYconcerning the nature of Brahman – that being whose existence does not
depend on anything else. The Advaita reading is Absolutistic (non-dualist),
the Dvaita and Vsistadvaita (dualist and qualifiedly dualist) readings are
monotheistic.
At issue are various texts, some of which express the view that the soul or
individual human person is literally identical to Brahman, others of which
express the view that the human soul is more like Brahman than are other
things. The core issue is which texts – the monotheistic or the Absolutistic –
are to be read literally and which read non-literally.
Here is the monotheistic reading of such passages.
Only on account of having for his essence qualities
similar to those of Brahman is the soul spoken of as
Brahman, as in the case of the all-wise Brahman. Since
the essence, i.e. the very nature of the soul, consists only
of wisdom, bliss, and other qualities similar [in some
degree] to those of Brahman, there proceeds the
statement that the soul is one with [like] Brahman; just
as in the text, “All this is indeed Brahman.”^6 Brahman is
spoken of as “identical with all [the world] on account of
there being qualities in Brahman which are predicated of
the whole world.” The following is in the Bhavishyat
Purana: “The souls are separate, the perfect Lord is
separate, still owing to the similarity of intelligent nature
they are spoken of as Brahman in the various Scriptural
disquisitions.”^7In sum: like Brahman, who is a self-conscious Person, all-wise, filled with
bliss, human persons also are self-conscious, capable of possessing some
wisdom and some bliss. They are similar in ways that make both persons:
one an Independent Person on whom everything else depends, one a
dependent person who has sinned and thus both owes her existence to, and
needs gracious forgiveness from, the One on whom she depends. This, again,
is monotheism. Nonmonotheistic or Absolutist Advaita Vedanta rejects this
reading of such passages.
Here is the nonmonotheistic reading.
The difference between God and the individual soul is due
to these differing limiting adjuncts [namely, the mind and
the senses]. When these are absolutely negated... then
there is no God and no individual, but there remains only
the eternal, absolute, and pure Brahman... Scripture
[Upanishads] says that the limiting adjuncts are accidental,