Nimbarka expounded a theory of difference with
non-difference (Davita-Advaita). Brahman is a personal God, identified with
Krishna by Nimbarka and has infinite auspicious attributes like knowledge and
action. He is both material and the efficient cause of the world. He creates the
world out of his own powers and by his mere will and invests the self with
instruments of knowledge and action.
God and the selves are neither totally identical nor absolutely different from one another.
Authority texts speak both of identity and difference, and hence both are accommodated
as real in his philosophy. Difference between God, on the one hand, and the
selves (chit) and the world (achit), on the other, is due to their opposite
natures. Identity is because of their dependence (paratantrya) on God for their
very being.
The examples of such difference with non-difference are the sun
and its rays, fire, and its sparks, water and waves, and rope and its coils.
Selves are, each one of them, an individuated power of God.
This individuation, however, is due to ignorance (avidya) being there
beginninglessly. This ignorance inclines the self to action which by its
results, commits the self to birth and death. This ignorance can be put to an
end only God’s grace.
Total surrender to his dispensation and unremitting devotion
are the way to release, which is realization of the glory and immensity of God
and His powers. This surrender carries with it the discipline of knowledge of
God, one’s own nature, the nature of and means of release, the obstacles in the
way of God-realization, like the false identification of oneself with the
body-mind complex.
The world is real transformation of God, and all the
spiritual endeavors in it are genuine and purposeful.