Page:Philosophy of bhagawad-gita.pdf/32

8 I shall point out what position each of these principles occupies in the evolution of nature, and in passing from the First Cause to the organised human being of the present day, I shall give you the basis of the fourfold classification that I have promised to adopt.

The first principle, or rather the first postulate, which I have to lay down is the existence of what is called Parabrahmam. Of course there is hardly a system of philosophy which has ever denied the existence of the First Cause. Even the so-called atheists have never denied it. Various creeds have adopted various theories as to the nature of this First Cause. All sectarian disputes and differences have arisen, not from a difference of opinion as to the existence of the First Cause, but from the difference of the attributes that man's intellect has constantly tried to impose upon it. Is it possible to know anything of the First Cause ? No doubt it is possible to know something about it. It is possible to know all about its manifestations, though it is next to impossible for human knowledge to penetrate into its inmost essence and say what it really is in itself. All religious philosophers are agreed that this First Cause is omnipresent and eternal. Further, it is subject to periods of activity and passivity. When cosmic pralaya comes, it is inactive, and when evolution commences, it becomes active.

But even the real reason for this activity and passivity is unintelligible to our minds. It is not matter