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MAITRÂVANA-BRAHMANA-UPANISHAD.
vital airs). And that which flares up, that is the manifest form of Brahman, that is the highest place of Vishnu?, that is the essence of Rudra. And this, dividing his Self in endless .ways, fills all these worlds. And thus it is said :
As the sparks from the fire, and as the rays from the sun, thus do his Pranas and the rest in proper order again and again proceed from him here on earth?'
27. And thus it has also been said elsewhere: This is the heat of the highest, the immortal, the incorporeal Brahman, viz. the warmth of the body. And this body is the clarified butter (poured on it, by which the heat of Brahman, otherwise invisible, is lighted up). Then, being manifest, it is placed in the ether (of the heart). Then by concentration they thus remove that ether which is within the heart, so that its light appears, as it weret. Therefore the worshipper becomes identified with that light with : out much delay. As a ball of iron, if placed in the earth, becomes earth without much delay, and as, when it has once become a clod of earth, fire and smiths have nothing more to do with that ball of iron, thus does thought (without delay) disappear, together with its support. And thus it is said :
1 As the fire which exists invisibly in a heated vessel becomes visible when the heated vessel is touched with sticks dipped in butter, thus the Âtman in the body appears only when the Prânas are diffused in it. Or, as the clarified butter, heated together with the vessel, lights up grass that comes in contact with it, so does this Atman (called Not-breath), by heating its two bodies which are pervaded by the reflections of the thinker, light up everything brought in contact with it, viz. the world.
? See Katha Up. III, 9. 8 See VI, 31; Brih. Up. II, 1, 10. • The light was always there, but it seems then only to appear. • The commentator explains this differently. He says that the
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