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154
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
THIRD PÅDA.
REVERENCE TO THE HIGHEST SELF! 1. The abode of heaven, earth, and so on (is Brahman), on account of the term 'own,' i.e. Self.
We read (Mu. Up. II, 2, 5), 'He in whom the heaven, the earth, and the sky are woven, the mind also with all the vital airs, know him alone as the Self, and leave off other words! He is the bridge of the Immortal.'—Here the doubt arises whether the abode which is intimated by the statement of the heaven and so on being woven in it is the highest Brahman or something else.
The pūrvapakshin maintains that the abode is something else, on account of the expression, 'It is the bridge of the Immortal.' For, he says, it is known from every-day experience that a bridge presupposes some further bank to which it leads, while it is impossible to assume something further beyond the highest Brahman, which in Scripture is called 'endless, without a further shore' (Bri. Up. II, 4, 12). Now if the abode is supposed to be something different from Brahman, it must be supposed to be either the pradhâna known from Smriti, which, as being the (general) cause, may be called the (general) abode; or the air known from Sruti, of which it is said (Bri. Up. III, 7, 2, 'Air is that thread, O Gautama. By air as by a thread, O Gautama, this world and the other world and all beings are strung together '), that it supports all things; or else the embodied soul which, as being the enjoyer, may be considered as an abode with reference to the objects of its fruition.
Against this view we argue with the sûtrakâra as follows: Of the world consisting of heaven, earth, and so on, which in the quoted passage is spoken of as woven (upon something), the highest Brahman must be the abode.'—Why?On account of the word 'own,' i.e. on account of the word
Self. For we meet with the word 'Self' in the passage, 'Know him alone as the Self.' This term 'Self' is
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