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VI PRAPATHAKA, 31.
329
One of them (the Sushumna) leads upwards, piercing the solar orb: by it, having stepped beyond the world of Brahman, they go to the highest path.
The other hundred rays' rise upwards also, and on them the worshipper reaches the mansions belonging to the different bodies of gods.
But the manifest rays of dim colour which lead downwards, by them 'a man travels on and on helplessly, to enjoy the fruits of his actions here.'
Therefore it is said that the holy Âditya (sun) is the cause of new births (to those who do not worship him), of heaven (to those who worship him as a god), of liberty (to those who worship him as Brahman)2.
31. Some one asks: 'Of what nature are those organs of sense that go forth (towards their objects)? Who sends them out here, or who holds them back ?'
Another answers : 'Their nature is the Self; the Self sends them out, or holds them back; also the Apsaras (enticing objects of sense), and the solar rays (and other deities presiding over the senses).'
Now the Self devours the objects by the five rays (the organs of sense); then who is the Self?
He who has been defined by the terms pure, clean, undeveloped, tranquil3, &c., who is to be apprehended independently by his own peculiar signs. That sign of him who has no signs, is like what the pervading
1 A similar verse, but with characteristic variations, occurs in the Khând. Up. VIII, 6, 6, and in the Katha Up. VI, 16.
? Here ends the story of Sâkâyanya, which began I, 2, and was carried on through chap. VI, though that chapter and the seventh are called Khilas, or supplements, and though the MS. M. also ends, as we saw, with the eighth Paragraph of the sixth chapter.
3 See before, II, 4 VI,S
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