The purpose of human birth is to know the Supreme Brahman and it is the only goal worth pursuing, say the scriptures. They try to answer the query who this Brahman is and how to recognise Him. They hail Brahman as the One Imperishable, Infinite and Highest Truth who creates and sustains all that is manifest as the Many in this entire creation. To understand Brahman in these two aspects of the One and the Many is the true knowledge that liberates, pointed out Sri R. Krishnamurthy Sastrigal in a discourse.
In the Supreme Brahman, Knowledge, Vidya, and Ignorance, Avidya, are skilfully hidden by the web of Maya. Brahman casts this Maya as one would cast a net on the entire creation. He holds everything under His sway and also stands apart from all these. Brahman is the cause for the birth, growth and decay of all living beings. He is the creator of individual characteristics of all the objects and beings. But such is the power of His Maya that it deludes one into believing that the apparent manifest world is alone the truth. One identifies with the body and does not realise the atma within. Unless the spiritual aspirant is keen to seek the Truth and aims to attain the jnana pertaining to the real and the unreal, he cannot cross the samsara. Brahman’s all pervasiveness has to be intuitively grasped.
For example, a piece of cloth is woven with the help of threads. Suppose one identifies with the thread alone, can it become the cloth that has its own identity in terms of shape, size, texture, utility value, etc? The truth that ghee is present in milk has to be uncovered by the awareness of the processes by which it is extracted. If realised souls know the Supreme Brahman as the Eternal Creator of manifold form, it is owing to His grace alone.