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I ADHYÂYA, I PADA, I.
IOI
Brahman, i.e. when it has freed itself from all false imagination, then it is non-different from the highest Self. This non-difference is due to the soul, as well as the highest Self, having the essential nature of uniform intelligence. The difference of the soul-presenting itself as the soul of a god, a man, &c.—from the highest Self is not due to its essential nature, but rests on the basis of Nescience in the form of work: when through meditation on Brahman this basis is destroyed, the difference due to it comes to an end, and the soul no longer differs from the highest Self. So another text says, 'The difference of things of one nature is due to the investing agency of outward works; when the difference of gods, men, &c., is destroyed, it has no longer any investing power' (Vi. Pu. II, 14, 33).—The text then adds a further explanation, when the knowledge which gives rise to manifold difference is completely destroyed, who then will produce difference that has no real existence ?' The manifold difference is the distinction of gods, men, animals, and inanimate things: compare the saying of Saunaka: 'this fourfold distinction is founded on false knowledge.' The Self has knowledge for its essential nature; when Nescience called work—which is the cause of the manifold distinctions of gods, men, &c.— has been completely destroyed through meditation on the highest Brahman, who then will bring about the distinction of gods, &c., from the highest Self-a distinction which in the absence of a cause cannot truly exist.—That Nescience is called karman (work) is stated in the same chapter of the Purana (st. 61-avidyå karmasamgña).
The passage in the Bhagavad Gita, 'Know me to be the kshetragña' (XIII, 2), teaches the oneness of all in so far as the highest Self is the inward ruler of all; taken in any other sense it would be in conflict with other texts, such as 'All creatures are the Perishable, the unchanging soul is the Imperishable ; but another is the highest Person' (Bha. Gi. XV, 16). In other places the Divine one declares that as inward Ruler he is the Self of all : 'The Lord dwells in the heart of all creatures' (XVIII, 61), and 'I dwell within the heart of all' (XV, 15), and 'I am the
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