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VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
meditation again is defined by its own object only, so that the injunctive word immediately suggests an object of meditation ; and as such an object there presents itself, the Self' mentioned in the same sentence. Now there arises the question, What are the characteristics of that Self? and in reply to it there come in texts such as 'The True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman'; 'Being only this was in the beginning, one without a second. As these texts give the required special information, they stand in a supplementary relation to the injunctions, and hence are means of right knowledge; and in this way the purport of the Vedanta-texts includes Brahman-as having a definite place in meditation which is the object of injunction. Texts such as 'One only without a second' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 1);
That is the true, that is the Self' (Kh. Up. VI, 8, 7); "There is here not any plurality' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 19), teach that there is one Reality only, viz. Brahman, and that everything else is false. And as Perception and the other means of proof, as well as that part of Scripture which refers to action and is based on the view of plurality, convey the notion of plurality, and as there is contradiction between plurality and absolute Unity, we form the conclusion that the idea of plurality arises through beginningless avidya, while absolute Unity alone is real. And thus it is through the injunction of meditation on Brahman—which has for its result the intuition of Brahman—that man reaches final release, i.e. becomes one with Brahman, which consists of non-dual intelligence free of all the manifold distinctions that spring from Nescience. Nor is this becoming one with Brahman to be accomplished by the mere cognition of the sense of certain Vedanta-texts; for this is not observed --the fact rather being that the view of plurality persists even after the cognition of the sense of those texts, and, moreover, if it were so, the injunction by Scripture of hearing, reflecting, &c., would be purposeless.
To this reasoning the following objection might be raised. -We observe that when a man is told that what he is afraid of is not a snake, but only a rope, his fear comes to an end; and as bondage is as unreal as the snake imagined in the
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