Substance—the One—is thus the abstract Power, it at the same time appears as the inert element, as formless, inert matter; here we have specially the forming activity, as we should express it.
The one Substance, because it is only the One, is the Formless: thus this, too, is a mode in which it becomes apparent that substantiality does not satisfy; that is to say, it fails to do so because form is not present.
Thus Brahma, the one self-identical Essence, appears as the Inert, as that which indeed begets, but which at the same time maintains a passive attitude—like woman, as it were. Krischna therefore says of Brahma, “Brahma is my uterus, the mere recipient in which I lay my seed, and out of which I beget All.” In the determination, too, “God is Essence,” there is not the principle of movement, of production; there is no activity.
Out of Brahma issues everything,—gods, the world, mankind; but it at once becomes apparent that this One is inactive. In the various cosmogonies or descriptions of the creation of the world, what has just been thus indicated makes its appearance.
Such a description of the creation of the world occurs in the Vedas. In these Brahma is represented as being thus alone in solitude, and as existing wholly for himself, and a Being which is represented as a higher one then says to him that he ought to expand and to beget himself. But Brahma, it is added, had not during a thousand years been in a condition to conceive of his expansion, and had returned again into himself.
Here Brahma is represented as world-creating, but, owing to the fact that he is the One, as inactive, as one who is summoned by another higher than himself, and is formless. Thus the need of another is directly present. To speak generally, Brahma is this one absolute Substance.
Power as this simple activity is Thought. In the Indian religion this characteristic is the most prominent one of all;
