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I ADHYAYA, 2 PÂDA, 3.
cannot refer to Brahman, may refer to it. For as Brahman is the Self of everything, qualities such as consisting of mind and the like, which belong to the individual soul, belong to Brahman also. Accordingly Sruti and Smriti say of Brahman, 'Thou art woman, thou art man; thou art youth, thou art maiden; thou as an old man totterest along on thy staff; thou art born with thy face turned everywhere' (Sve. Up. IV, 3), and 'its hands and feet are everywhere, its eyes and head are everywhere, its ears are everywhere, it stands encompassing all in the world' (Bha. Gîtâ III, 13).
The passage (quoted above against our view), 'Without breath, without mind, pure,' refers to the pure (unrelated) Brahman. The terms' consisting of mind; having breath for its body,' on the other hand, refer to Brahman as distinguished by qualities. Hence, as the qualities mentioned are possible in Brahman, we conclude that the highest Brahman only is represented as the object of meditation.
III
3. On the other hand, as (those qualities) are not possible (in it), the embodied (soul is) not (denoted by manomaya, &c.).
The preceding Sûtra has declared that the qualities mentioned are possible in Brahman; the present Sûtra states that they are not possible in the embodied Self. Brahman only possesses, in the manner explained, the qualities of consisting of mind, and so on; not the embodied individual soul. For qualities such as expressed in the words, ' He whose purposes are true, whose Self is the ether, who has no speech, who is not disturbed, who is greater than the earth,' cannot easily be attributed to the embodied Self. By the term 'embodied' (sârîra) we have to understand 'residing' in a body. If it be objected that the Lord also resides in the body, we reply, True, he does reside in the body, but not in the body only; for sruti declares him to be all-pervading; compare, 'He is greater than the earth; greater than the. atmosphere, omnipresent like the ether, eternal.' The individual soul, on the other 1 Because he is vyâpin.
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