Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1773

I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 4.
43
name of the one to the other is not figurative, but simply founded on error. Such is, for instance, the case of a man who at the time of twilight does not discern that the object before him is a post, and applies to it the conception and designation of a man; such is likewise the case of the conception and designation of silver being applied to a shell of mother-of-pearl somehow mistaken for silver. How then can it be maintained that the application of the word and the conception of the Ego to the body, &c., which application is due to the non-discrimination of the Self and the NotSelf, is figurative (rather than simply false) ? considering that even learned men who know the difference of the Self and the Not-Self confound the words and ideas just as common shepherds and goatherds do.
As therefore the application of the conception of the Ego to the body on the part of those who affirm the existence of a Self different from the body is simply false, not figurative, it follows that the embodiedness of the Self is (not real but) caused by wrong conception, and hence that the person who has reached true knowledge is free from his body even while still alive. The same is declared in the Sruti passages concerning him who knows Brahman: "And as the slough of a snake lies on an ant-hill, dead and cast away, thus lies this body; but that disembodied immortal spirit is Brahman only, is only light' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 7); and With eyes he is without eyes as it were, with ears without ears as it were, with speech without speech as it were, with a mind without mind as it were, with vital airs without vital airs as it were.' Smriti also, in the passage where the characteristic marks are enumerated of one whose mind is steady (Bha. Gîtâ II, 54), declares that he who knows is no longer connected with action of any kind. Therefore the man who has once comprehended Brahman to be the Self,.does not belong to this transmigratory world as he did before. He, on the other hand, who still belongs to this transmigratory world as before, has not comprehended Brahman to be the Self. Thus there remain no unsolved contradictions.
With reference again to the assertion that Brahman is not
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