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qualities. The same view is expressed by the Bhashyakara in the passage beginning Although he who bases himself on the knowledge of Being.'-Texts such as 'He knows Brahman, he becomes Brahman' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 9) have the same purport, for they must be taken in connexion with the other texts (referring to the fate of him who knows) such as 'Freed from name and form he goes to the divine Person who is higher than the high'; 'Free from stain he reaches the highest oneness' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 8; III, 1, 3); “Having approached the highest light he manifests himself in his own shape' (Kh. Up. VIII, 3, 4). Of him who has freed himself from his ordinary name and form, and all the distinctions founded thereon, and has assumed the uniform character of intelligence, it may be said that he is of the character of Brahman.-Our Purâna also propounds the same view. The sloka (VI, 7, 91),
Knowledge is the means to obtain what is to be obtained, viz. the highest Brahman: the Self is to be obtained, freed from all kinds of imagination, states that that Self which through meditation on Brahman, is freed from all imagination so as to be like Brahman, is the object to be attained. (The three forms of imagination to be got rid of are socalled karma-bhavana, brahma-bhavana and a combination of the two. See Vi. Pu. VI, 7.) The text then goes on,
The embodied Self is the user of the instrument, knowledge is its instrument; having accomplished Release whereby his object is attained-he may leave off.' This means that the Devotee is to practise meditation on the highest Brahman until it has accomplished its end, viz. the attainment of the Self free from all imagination. The text continues, "Having attained the being of its being, then he is non-different from the highest Self; his difference is founded on Nescience only.' This sloka describes the state of the released soul. Its being' is the being, viz. the character or nature, of Brahman; but this does not mean absolute oneness of nature; because in this latter case the second being' would be out of place and the sloka would contradict what had been said before. The meaning is: when the soul has attained the nature of
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