संभोगप्राप्तिरिति चेत्, न, वैशेष्यात् ॥ ८ ॥
saṃbhogaprāptiriti cet, na, vaiśeṣyāt || 8 ||
saṃbhogaprāptiḥ—That it has experience (of pleasure and pain); iti cet—if it be said; na—not so; vaiśeṣyāt—because of the difference in nature;
8. If it be said that (being connected with the hearts of all individual souls on account of Its omnipresence, It would also) have experience (of pleasure and pain), (we say,) not so, because of the difference in the nature (of the two).
The mere fact that Brahman is all-pervading and connected with the hearts of all individual souls, and is also intelligent like them, does not make It subject to pleasure and pain. For the individual soul is an agent, the doer of good and bad deeds, and therefore experiences pleasure and pain, while Brahman is not an agent, and therefore does not experience pleasure and pain. A fallacious argument is often put forward that because Brahman and the individual soul are in reality identical, therefore the former is also subject to the pleasure and pain experienced by the latter. But then this identity only refutes the experience of pleasure and pain even by the individual soul as being due to ignorance; for in reality, there is neither the individual soul nor pleasure and pain. Therefore the argument of identity cannot be turned the other way to make even the ever pure Brahman subject to evil.