In plain words
is of infinite forms. In whatever form a devotee's own liking calls for, in that form his manifestation comes about — these indeed are his incarnations. Through these forms, Īśvara does not become bound by any limiting condition; rather, in every one of these forms he is fully manifest. That is, in every single incarnation he is manifest, complete with perfect power.
Among the incarnations, some are partial incarnations and some are full incarnations. Besides these, there are also ādeśāvatāras. Great souls such as Narada and Sanatkumara belong to this class; since not all of Īśvara's qualities are present in them, people do not worship them. The soul, by its own nature, is eternal — that is, without beginning or end, without birth or death. It is self-luminous. The knowledge, the knower, the enjoyer, and the doer — the soul itself is all of these. And yet, the soul, unlike Īśvara, is not an independent agent. In every act, the Ātma, the body, the various sense-organs such as hearing, the various vital functions such as prāṇa and apāna, and the divine — all of these are joined together. Nevertheless, the soul is not some machine that operates devoid of will. Just as the karmas of a former birth determine those of the present birth, so too, through its present karmas, the soul as agent can shape its own future. Īśvara decides in accordance with each soul's own nature; though he has the power to change that nature, he himself does not do so — he leaves it entirely to the soul's own free will. The jīva is not a part of Īśvara in the way that a fragment of rock is a part of the rock. In one respect, the soul and the world are both different from Brahman; in another respect, they are not different from Brahman at all. This relation of difference-and-non-difference is not something the intellect can grasp — it becomes knowable only through the Śrutis. This is the principal essence of the Paramartha Vahini.