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164
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
things are already effected by the indication of the true nature of Brahman as devoid of all plurality; just as the pointing out of the true nature of the rope has for its immediate result the cognition of the true nature of the rope, and the dissolution of the appearance of a snake or the like. And what is done once need not be done again? -We moreover ask the following question : Does the individual soul on which the injunction is laid belong to the unreal element of the phenomenal world or to the real element, i.e. Brahman, which underlies the phenomenal world? If the former, the soul itself is dissolved just as earth and the other elements are, as soon as the knowledge of Brahman's true nature has arisen, and on whom then should the dissolution of the world be enjoined, or who should, by acting on that injunction, obtain release ?- If the latter, we are led to the same result. For as soon as there arises the knowledge that Brahman, which never can become the subject of an injunction, is the true being of the soul while the soul as such is due to Nescience, there remains no being on which injunctions could be laid, and hence there is no room for injunctions at all.
What then, it may be asked, is the meaning of those Vedic passages which speak of the highest Brahman as something to be seen, to be heard, and so on 7—They aim, we reply, not at enjoining the knowledge of truth, but merely at directing our attention to it. Similarly in ordinary life imperative phrases such as 'Listen to this!' 'Look at this !' are frequently meant to express not that we are immediately to cognize this or that, but only that we are to direct our attention to it. Even when a person is face to face with some object of knowledge, knowledge may either arise or not; all that another person wishing to inform him about the object can do is to point it out to him ; knowledge will thereupon spring up in his mind of itself, according to the object of knowledge and according
11.e. after the true nature of Brahman has been once known, there is no longer room for a special injunction to annihilate this apparent world.
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| SR No. | 007682 |
| Book Title | Questions of King Milinda Part 02 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | T W Rhys Davids |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1894 |
| Total Pages | 2240 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 38 MB |