In plain words
— even such a country, with no divisions at all, with no religious differences, without worship of many gods — even Japan — lay for a time under the domination of foreigners, and had to languish. What is the reason? Does Germany not teach us the lesson that religious differences alone are not the cause of a country's decline?
Nobody can even imagine a world with no differences at all. Differences are born of the inner disposition and mental impressions of living beings. Every single birth is simply the outward form of a particular mental disposition. Everything that exists in creation, the inert and the sentient alike, is the outcome of these differences in disposition. The parrot sees the world one way, the crow another. The nature of animals is one thing; the nature of humans is another. Even between one human being and another there is a difference in the level of their understanding. Not only that — even in people's complexion, in their features and looks, in their bodily members, and in their affections, sentiments and similar qualities, all of these are not merely a matter of intellect but of individual character as well. We need not go even that far: even twins born of the same womb do not resemble each other exactly, nor do they share identical qualities. What is the reason for this? Mental disposition alone. Therefore, one can never see absolute non-difference in creation, or perfect equality throughout the whole of humankind — it simply is not possible. To wish to see it is mere fancy, a flower blooming in the sky.
A beast conducts itself with the knowledge 'I am a beast,' a bird with the knowledge 'I am a bird,' a woman with the knowledge 'I am a woman,' and a man with the knowledge 'I am a man.' With that very same knowledge that existed before sleep, the jīva takes up its work again after waking. Just as a person, having done a certain piece of work up to a certain point on the previous day and left it there, resumes it from that very point the next day after rising from sleep — in just the same way, a human being, up to wherever he had carried on his affairs in his previous birth and left off,