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340 nature of Prakriti and Purusha. This subject, however, need not be pursued at length, as it has been pretty fully treated by me in an article in the Theosophist for July last (Vol. IV, No. 10.), to which reference may be made for fuller information.

Now to turn to the evolution of conscious existence. If it is maintained that the great first cause—Parabrahman—is unconscious, in the sense that it is the negation of all consciousness—it is a great fallacy. If, on the other hand, it is imagined to be conscious in our sense of consciousness—it is equally fallacious. If words are to have any meaning, conscious existence involves three elements—the Knower, the Knowledge and the Known. Now Parabrahman is "Only One without a second"—ekamevadvitiyam,—or, in other words, the unification of the three elements of conscious existence, mentioned above—the break-up of the three receptacles as it is technically called—triputi bhangam. Therefore there can be no conscious existence in Parabrahman. On the other hand, if Parabrahman is regarded as absolute unconsciousness violence will be done to the first principles of our philosophy. Unconsciousness is the negation of every form of consciousness, and therefore, without any relation thereto; to derive the latter from the former is to establish some sort of relation between the two, which, as we have seen is impossible. Therefore, Parabrahman is not unconsciousness, and as has been showed before, it is not conscious, in the sense the word must always be used. We are, therefore, reduced to the conclusion that Parabraman is absolute consciousness, or nirupadhikam maha-chaitanyam, as the Upanishad says. This, again, is verified by the experience of practical occultists. The emanations of Mulaprakriti become conscious by the reflection of this absolute consciousness. By the interposition of the veils of Maya, this absolute consciousness gives rise to conditioned Sopadhikam—consciousness, or conscious existence. The details of the process cannot be entered into here, as they touch many grand secrets of initiation.