Shankara on Soul and Lord

A. J. Alston:

There are texts in the Upanishads and in the Epics and Purāṇas, including the Gītā, which imply that the individual soul is different from the Lord and that he should approach Him in devotion and that he may perhaps attain to Him or to ‘his world’ through his grace.

For Śaṅkara, these texts had validity within the world of nescience. But if they were to be taken as the final truth, they would conflict with the other texts speaking of the utter transcendence of the one and only non-dual Self, bereft of all duality and all empirically knowable characters.

While the individual soul in its true nature is identical with (is nothing other than) the Lord, the Lord in his true nature is not identical with the individual soul in its individual nature. In particular, the Lord is not in his true nature the transmigrant. The individual soul is dependent on the Lord for his power to act.

The relation between the individual soul and the Lord appears different from different standpoints. From the standpoint of nescience they may seem different, and identity with the Lord then appears to be a ‘goal’ that has to be ‘attained’.

From the standpoint of knowledge, this identity is a fact. Bondage and liberation, in turn, depend on whether the student feels himself to be different from or identical with the Lord.

~Alston, 'Shankara and the Soul', pp. 70-1