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38 that the former was a kind of Rationalistic Vedantism, while the latter might be regarded as Transcendental Buddhism. If the Aryan esotericism applies the term Jîvâtmá to the seventh principle, the pure and per se unconscious spirit—it is because the Vêdânta postulating three kinds of existence—(1) the paramârthika,—(the true, the only real one,) (2), the vyavahârika (the practical,) and (3) the pratibhasika (the apparent or illusory life)—makes the first life or Jiva the only truly existent one. Brahma or the is its only representative in the universe, as it is the universal Life in toto, while the other two are but its "phenomenal appearance," imagined and created by ignorance, and complete illusions suggested to us by our blind senses. The Buddhists, on the other hand, deny either subjective or objective reality even to that one Self-Existence. Buddha declares that there is neither Creator nor an Being. Buddhist rationalism was ever too alive to the insuperable difficulty of admitting one absolute consciousness, as in the words of Flint—"wherever there is consciousness there is relation, and wherever there is relation there is dualism." The is either "" (absolute and unconditioned) and can have no relation to anything nor to any one; or it is "" (bound and conditioned), and then it cannot be called the ; the limitation, moreover, necessitating another deity as powerful as the first to account for all the evil in this world. Hence, the Arahat secret doctrine on cosmogony admits but of one absolute, indestructible, eternal, and uncreated (so to translate), of an element (the word being used for want of a better term) absolutely independent of everything else in the universe; a something ever present or ubiquitous, a Presence which ever was, is and will be, whether there is a God, gods, or none; whether there is a universe, or no universe; existing during the eternal cycles of Maha Yugs, during the Pralayas; as during the periods of Manvantara: and this is, the field for the operation of the eternal Forces and natural Law, the basis (as Mr. Subba Row rightly calls it) upon which take place the eternal