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I ADHYAYA, 16.
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but it has to be seized again and again by means of the stick and the under-wood, so it is in both cases, and the Self has to be seized in the body by means of the pranava (the syllable Om).
14. By making his body the under-wood, and the syllable Om the upper-wood, man, after repeating the drill of meditation, will perceive the bright god, like the spark hidden in the wood'.
15. As oil in seeds, as butter in cream, as water in (dry) river-beds, as fire in wood, so is the Self seized within the self, if man looks for him by truthfulness and penances;
16. (If he looks) for the Self that pervades everything, as butter is contained in milk, and the roots whereof are self-knowledge and penance. That is the Brahman taught by the Upanishad. is rather obscure at first sight, but very exact when once understood. Fire, as produced by a fire drill, is compared to the Self. It is not seen at first, yet it must be there all the time; its linga or subtle body cannot have been destroyed, because as soon as the stick, the indhana, is drilled in the under-wood, the yoni, the fire becomes visible. In the same way the Self, though invisible during a state of ignorance, is there all the time, and is perceived when the body has been drilled by the Pranava, that is, after, by a constant repetition of the sacred syllable Om, the body has been subdued, and the ecstatic vision of the Self has been achieved.
Indhana, the stick used for drilling, and yoni, the under-wood, in which the stick is drilled, are the two aranis, the fire-sticks used for kindling fire. See Tylor, Anthropology, p. 260.
1 Cf. Dhyânavindûpan. verse 20; Brahmopanishad, p. 256.
? Srotas, a stream, seems to mean here the dry bed of a stream, which, if dug into, will yield water.
3 The construction is correct, if we remember that he who is seized is the same as he who looks for the hidden Self. But the metre would be much improved if we accepted the reading of the Brahmopanishad, evam âtmâ âtmani grihyate 'sau, which is confirmed by B. The last line would be improved by reading, satyenainam ye ’nupasyanti dhîrâh.
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