"To each and every one, His own nature imparting Our Lord stands alone, Supreme, full of Grace."

Tiruvachakam.

We proceed to explain the two verses quoted from Tirumular at the close of our last article. The two verses seem so alike that unless they are looked into more closely, their meaning is likely to be lost. These verses explain in fact the Bhanda and Moksha conditions of the soul, and the soul's ascent through various stages, called Tattva Darsanam, Atma Darsanam and Siva or Para Darsanam. The verse, "The gold was concealed in the golden ornament etc." has to be taken first. The object before the seer is a golden ornament. The thing can be looked at from two different points of view, in two different aspects. It can be viewed as merely gold, and then we are solely engaged in looking at its colour, its fineness, specific gravity etc, and while we are so engaged, the other view of it, whether it is a brooch, or medal or a bracelet etc, is altogether lost to view. And in the same manner when we are viewing the object as a mere ornament, then all idea of the gold, its fineness etc. is lost. This happens when the object before us is one and the same, and neither the gold as gold, nor the ornament as ornament can be said to non-exist, in either case, can be said to be unreal or a mere delusion. We merely change our point of view, and we are ourselves under no delusion at either moment.

The delusion is neither in the gold nor in the ornament nor in ourselves. The object before us is so made that it possesses this double nature or aspect, so to say, and our own psychological structure is such that we can change from one to the other point. And each point of view has its own vantage ground. A person going to a jeweller's shop cannot afford to lose sight of either point, and if he does, he is sure to make a bad bargain. What would we think of this man, if he goes into the shop with the firm idea, that, of the jewel he is going to buy, the gold is a mere name and delusion, or the ornament is a mere name and delusion. When bargaining, however, after he had once tested the fineness of the gold, and colour, he need trouble himself no more about it, and he can proceed to examine the shape of the ornament, its size etc.

Taking this analogy, Tirumular proceeds to point out the same relation between the individual ego, the subject, and its objective senses. The word used is standing as it does for the individual ego, jiva, soul, pasu, or chit. The phrase

also brings out the meaning ofand it cannot refer to the Supreme Brahman, as was interpreted by a Hindu Idealist. Of course he could not help saying so, as the being which he postulates above 'its senses'is

God, the Supreme. Saint Tirumular was prophetic enough to see such a misinterpretation of his words, and it is therefore why he sung the next verse, the tree was concealed etc.' In our article on 'Mind and Body' we have fully discussed the relation which Saint Tirumular perceives between the Individual Ego, the soul and its body and senses. When the individual pasu lives a purely objective existence, by caring for his body, his comforts, his wealth, his pleasures, etc, his true self, the mind, is altogether identified with the world; and he himself lies buried, concealed. Look at the words, our Saint has selected. He does not cry false, false, delusion, delusion at every turn. He actually uses "concealed" and "is concealed"! Neither the soul nor the world is a myth, a delusion; but only when the mind was in an objective condition, it was concealed by the object. When the soul regains its own self, by forgetting the world, the world has not become a myth, only it lies concealed, merged in the soul itself. The thoughtless critic is apt to consider such distinctions, as mere wordy warfare, but no student of philosophy can easily afford to ignore the first principles of correct reasoning, by choosing his words, each one to express one particular idea and no other; and many a specious and delusive argument has had its genesis in such ignorant and ambiguous use of words. To proceed, when the soul lies so concealed in the world, this constitutes its bandha, bound condition, and the thing so concealing is called bandha or Pasa, When the soul learns to discriminate between its own nature and the nature of the world, and to rate the lower as its own worth, then it attains to Tattva Darsanam and Atma Darsanam. And the whole field of Ethics is evolved from our perception of these relations aright.

When man perceives that the more he is attached to the world, the more his own faculties get clouded and he is led more into sorrow and suffering, and the more he frees himself from such attachment, the more he frees himself from sin and sorrow, and developes in himself his higher spiritual nature, then it is that his moral faculties are developed, and in course of time strengthened by constant practice. But then, there is this peculiarity about the mind of man, which is nowhere noticed in any other system that we know of, and which we have already referred to in our last article, its intermediate nature between Sat and Asat, and which therefore gives it its name of Satasat and which peculiarity Kannudaiya Vallalar (author of Olivilodukkam) emphasises by using the expressive name of