We must always remember that the Supreme Lord has His creative function and that the infinitesimal living entities have their creative functions also. It is not that their creative function is lost when they are liberated and enter into the Supreme after the dissolution of the material body. On the contrary, the creative function of the living entity is properly manifested in the liberated state. If the living entity's activities are manifest even when he is materially conditioned, then how is it possible for his activities to stop when he attains liberation? The living entity's entering the state of liberation may be compared to a bird entering a tree, or an animal entering the forest, or a plane entering the sky. In no case are activities stopped.
When explaining the second aphorism of the Vedānta-sūtra, Śaṅkara has most unceremoniously tried to explain that Brahman, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is impersonal. He has also cunningly tried to switch the doctrine of by-products into the doctrine of change. For the Supreme Absolute Truth, there is no change. It is simply that a by-product results from His inconceivable powers of action. In other words, a relative truth—a by-product—is produced out of the Supreme Truth. For example, when a chair is produced out of crude wood, it is said that a by-product is produced. The Supreme Absolute Truth, Brahman, is immutable, and when we find a by-product—the living entity or this cosmic manifestation—it is a transformation of the Supreme's energies, or a by-product of the Supreme. It is like milk being transformed into yogurt. In this way, if we study the living entities in the cosmic manifestation, it will appear that they are not different from the original Absolute Truth, but from the Vedic literature we understand that the Absolute Truth has varieties of energy and that the living entities and the cosmic manifestation are but a demonstration of His energies. The energies are not separate from the energetic; therefore the living entity and cosmic manifestation are inseparable truths, part of the Absolute Truth. Such a conclusion regarding the Absolute Truth and the relative truth should be acceptable to any sane man.
The Supreme Absolute Truth has His inconceivable potency, out of which this cosmic manifestation has been produced. In other words, the Supreme Absolute Truth supplies the ingredients, and the living entity and cosmic manifestation are the by-products. In the Taittirīya Upaniṣad it is clearly stated, yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante: "The Absolute Truth is the original reservoir of all ingredients, and this material world and its living entities are produced from those ingredients."
Less intelligent persons who cannot understand this doctrine of by-products cannot grasp how the cosmic manifestation and the living entity are simultaneously one with and different from the Absolute Truth. Not understanding this, one concludes that the doctrine of by-products implies that the Absolute Truth itself is transformed. Unnecessarily fearing this, one then concludes that this cosmic manifestation and the living entity are false. Śaṅkarācārya gives the example of a rope being mistaken for a snake, and sometimes the example of mistaking an oyster shell for gold is cited, but surely such arguments are ways of cheating. As mentioned in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the examples of mistaking a rope for a snake and an oyster shell for gold have their proper applications and can be understood as follows. The living entity in his original constitutional position is pure spirit. When a human being identifies himself with the material body, his misidentification is like mistaking a rope for a snake, or an oyster shell for gold. The doctrine of illusory transformation of state is accepted when one thing is mistaken for another. Actually the body is not the living entity, but according to the doctrine of illusory transformation of state one accepts the body as the living entity. Every conditioned soul is undoubtedly contaminated by this doctrine of illusory transformation of state.
The conditioned state of the living entity is his diseased condition. Originally the living entity and the original cause of this cosmic manifestation exist outside the state of transformation. But mistaken thoughts and arguments can overcome a person when he forgets the inconceivable energies of the Supreme Lord. Even in the material world there are many examples of inconceivable energy. The sun has been producing unlimited energy from time immemorial, and so many by-products result from the sun; yet there is no change in the heat and temperature of the sun itself. Despite its being a material product, if the sun can maintain its original temperature and yet produce so many by-products, is it difficult to understand that the Supreme Absolute Truth remains unchanged in spite of producing so many by-products by His inconceivable energy? Thus there is no question of transformation as far as the Supreme Absolute Truth is concerned.