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I ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDA, 23..
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highest Self, and the highest Self from the individual soul. For the Self is indeed called by many different names, but it is one only. Nor does the passage, He who knows Brahman which is real, knowledge, infinite, as hidden in the cave' (Taitt. Up. II, 1), refer to some one cave (different from the abode of the individual soul)?. And that nobody else but Brahman is hidden in the cave we know from a subsequent passage, viz. Having sent forth he entered into it' (Taitt. Up. II, 6), according to which the creator only entered into the created beings.—Those who insist on the distinction of the individual and the highest Self oppose themselves to the true sense of the Vedanta-texts, stand thereby in the way of perfect knowledge, which is the door to perfect beatitude, and groundlessly assume release to be something effected, and therefore non-eternal. (And if they attempt to show that moksha, although effected, is eternal) they involve themselves in a conflict with sound logic.
23. (Brahman is) the material cause also, on account of (this view) not being in conflict with the promissory statements and the illustrative instances.
It has been said that, as practical religious duty has to be enquired into because it is the cause of an increase of happiness, so Brahman has to be enquired into because it is the cause of absolute beatitude. And Brahman has been defined as that from which there proceed the origination, sustentation, and retractation of this world. Now as this definition comprises alike the relation of substantial causality in which clay and gold, for instance, stand to golden ornaments and earthen pots, and the relation of operative
'So according to Go. Ân. and Ân. Gi., although their interpretations seem not to account sufficiently for the ekâm of the text.
-Kâmkid evaikâm iti gîvasthânâd anyâm ily arthah. Go. Ân. -- Gîvabhâvena pratibimbâdhârâtiriktâm ity arthah. Ân. Gi.
? While relcase, as often remarked, is eternal, it being in fact not different from the eternally unchanging Brahman.
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