transformed into yogurt

While explaining Code Number One of the First Chapter of Vedanta Sutra, Sankara has most unceremoniously tried to explain that Brahman or the Supreme Absolute Truth is impersonal. Similarly, he has tried to twist most cunningly the doctrine of by-product into the doctrine of state of change. Actually, there is no change of state for the Supreme Absolute. It is simply by His inconceivable power of doing things that there comes a by-product. A relative truth produced out of another truth is called the transformation of a by-product. For example, when a sitting chair is produced out of crude wood it is the transformation of a by-product. Similarly, the Supreme Absolute Truth, Brahman, is immutable, and when we find a by-product-the living entity or this cosmic manifestation-it is called a transformation of that byproduct of the Supreme. Another example can be cited in this connection: that of milk and yogurt. Yogurt is a transformation of milk. In this way, if we study the living entities and the cosmic manifestation, it will appear that they are not different from the original Absolute Truth.    (More...)