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I ADHYAYA, 3 PÂDA, 19.
in the state when it has reached the nature of Brahman ('It appears in its own form '), and thus proves the soul to be non-different from the highest Brahman whose characteristics are immortality and fearlessness.
Some (teachers) however are of opinion that if the highest Self is meant (in the fourth section) it would be inappropriate to understand the words' This (him) I will explain further,' &c., as referring to the individual soul, and therefore suppose that the reference is (not to the individual soul forming the topic of the three preceding sections, but) to the Self possessing the qualities of freeness from sin, &c., which Self is pointed out at the beginning of the entire chapter (VII, 1).-Against this interpretation we remark that, in the first place, it disregards the direct enunciation of the pronoun (i. e. the 'this' in 'this I will explain ') which rests on something approximate (i. e. refers to something mentioned not far off), and, in the second place, is opposed to the word 'further' (or ' again') met with in the text, since from that interpretation it would follow that what had been discussed in the preceding sections is not again discussed in the subsequent section. Moreover, if Pragâpati, after having made a promise in the clause, 'This I shall explain' (where that clause occurs for the first time), did previously to the fourth section explain a different topic in each section, we should have to conclude that he acted deceitfully.-Hence (our opinion about the purport of the whole chapter remains valid, viz. that it sets forth how) the unreal aspect of the individual soul as such-which is a mere presentation of Nescience, is stained by all the desires and aversions attached to agents and enjoyers, and is connected with evils of various kinds-is dissolved by true knowledge, and how the soul is thus led over into the opposite state, i. e. into its true state in which it is one with the highest Lord and distinguished by freedom from sin and similar attributes. The whole process is similar to that by which an imagined snake passes over into a rope as soon as the mind of the beholder has freed itself from its erroneous imagination.
Others again, and among them some of ours (asmadîyas ka kekit), are of opinion that the individual soul as such
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