________________
I ADHYÂYA, 4 PÂDA, 22.
395
rejecting other views, accepts the theory of Kasakritsna. Returning to the Maitreyi-brahmana we proceed to explain the general sense, from the passage previously discussed onwards. Being questioned by Maitreyi as to the means of immortality, Yagñavalkya teaches her that this means is given in meditation on the highest Self (The Self is to be seen,' &c.). He next indicates in a general way the nature of the object of meditation (When the Self is seen,' &c.), and-availing himself of the similes of the drum, &c.of the government over the organs, mind, and so on, which are instrumental towards meditation. He then explains in detail that the object of meditation, i.e. the highest Brahman, is the sole cause of the entire world; and the ruler of the aggregate of organs on which there depends all activity with regard to the objects of the senses As clouds of smoke proceed,' &c.; 'As the ocean is the home of all the waters'). He, next, in order to stimulate the effort which leads to immortality, shows how the highest Self abiding in the form of the individual Self, is of one uniform character, viz. that of limitless intelligence (As a lump of salt,' &c.), and how that same Self characterised by homogeneous limitless intelligence connects itself in the Samsára state with the products of the elements (a mass of knowledge, it rises from those elements and again vanishes into them'). He then adds, When he has departed, there is no more knowledge'; meaning that in the state of Release, where the soul's unlimited essential intelligence is not contracted in any way, there is none of those specific cognitions by which the Self identifying itself with the body, the sense-organs, &c., views itself as a man or a god, and so on. Next-in the passage, 'For where there is duality as it were'-he, holding that the view of a plurality of things not having their Self in Brahman is due to ignorance, shows that for him who has freed himself from the shackles of ignorance and recognises this whole world as animated by Brahman, the view of plurality is dispelled by the recognition of the absence of any existence apart from Brahman. He then proceeds, 'He by whom he knows all this, by what means should
Digitized by Google
