The Atma is 'unbound' at first; but, later it is seen as limited and restricted. Through good deeds and activities, it resumes its vastness and boundlessness. Everyone without any difference has the opportunity to achieve this transformation. When the time gets ripe, everyone can succeed in this and liberate himself from the bounds and bonds. But, the Jagat (Cosmos) will not end. That is eternal, incapable of being destroyed. This is the explanation of the second school of philosophy in India. The first one is the Dualist or the Dwaitha. The second one is the Visishta-adwaitha or the Special-Adwaitha. This is a higher stage in spiritual enquiry and experience. It posits three entities - God, the Atma, and Nature, and speaks of an integration of the three. The Dualists posit that the Cosmos is a vast machine designed and operated by God. The Visishta-Adwaithins declare that it is a phenomenon that is interpenetrated and imbued with the Divine. But, the Adwaithins or the Non-Dualists assert that God is not outside the Cosmos, that He became the Cosmos (Jagat), and that He is all that is. There is nothing except God, no Other, no Second. This truth has to be accepted by all. This is the highest Truth. To say that God is the Atma and the Cosmos is as the Body which He operates and lives in, is not correct. To assert that the Atma (God) is eternal and changeless but the Cosmos which is His Body can be subject to change and transformation is also not satisfying.

What does it signify when it is said, "God is the Upadana-karana, the Proximate Cause of the Cosmos"? Proximate cause means the cause which produced the effect. The 'effect' is the 'cause' in another form. It cannot be separate from the cause. Every effect that we notice is but the cause that has assumed a new form. The Cosmos is the effect, God is the Cause - these statements only stress the fact that the Cosmos is but God in another form. When it is argued that the Body is limited and subtle, and that It leads one to the Cause, that is, God, or it was from God that it has evolved and taken shape, the Non-Dualists would reply that it was God Himself who manifested in the form of the Cosmos.

It may be doubted whether all this multiplicity of things and beings are really God. Yes. It is the Truth. All these that the senses cognise, that come into the awareness, are God. There is nothing else but He. Our bodies, minds, intellects, consciousness - all are God.