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CHAPTER I
common with our empirical reality. That is why the Upanisadic thinker frankly states that it can be described only by negative attributes. We can only speak of it as neti neti, not this, not this. That is exactly why Gautama Buddha kept silent whenever he was asked by his disciples to give some information about the Self or Atma. Again, that is exactly the reason why the founder of Christianity always emphasised that the Path leading to the Kingdom of God is extremely narrow and steep. It is this very same truth that is communicated to us by our author in this gāthā. Instead of taking refuge in a cheap agnosticism that the Ultimate Reality is unknowable, he merely states that it is extremely difficult to apprehend. Then he promises that one who has the courage and conviction to plod along the steep and narrow path can, however, reach the Summit, the spiritual hilltop, and thus have a complete view of the sublime reality, a privilege not available to the ordinary mortals roaming about in the valley below.
तं यत्तविभत्तं दाहं अप्पणी सविहवेण ।
जदि दाएज्ज पमाणं चुविकज्ज छलं ण घेत्तव्वं ॥ ५ ॥
tam eyattavibhattam dayeham appano savihavena
jadi dayejja pamāņam cukkijja chalam na ghettavvam (5) तमेकत्वविभक्तं दर्शयेऽहमात्मनः स्वविभवेन ।
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यदि दर्शयेयं प्रमाणं च्युतो भवामि छलं न गृहीतव्यं ॥ ५ ॥
5. That Higher Unity differentiated from alien conditions, I will try to reveal as far as I can. Accept it if it satisfies the condition of Truth or Pramaņas. But if I fail in my description, you may reject it.
COMMENTARY
It is a general belief among Indian thinkers that the metempirical Self or the Ego-in-itself is to be approached only through undergoing a special kind of spiritual discipline called yoga or tapas. This discipline opens up a new door-way to approach the Ultimate Reality which cannot be apprehended through ordinary sense-perception. Such a super-sensuous faculty of apprehending the Inner Self is the privilege of those few who by the practice of yoga successfully obtain it. Such a supersensuous experience of metempirical Reality must have 2
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