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III ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 56.
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fallen off if you had not come to me'; 'you would have become blind,' and so on. This also shows that the reference to the text enjoining meditations on name, &c., proves nothing as to our passage. For there the text says nothing as to disadvantages connected with those special meditations; it only says that the meditation on plenitude (bhûman) has a more excellent result. The section, therefore, although really concerned with enjoining the meditation on the bhūman, at the same time means to declare that the special meditations also are fruitful; otherwise the meditation on the bhuman could not be recommended, for the reason that it has a more excellent result than the preceding meditations. The conclusion, therefore, is that the text enjoins a meditation on the collective Vaisvânara Self only. Here terminates the adhikarana of the pre-eminence of plenitude.'
56. (The meditations are) separate, on account of the difference of words, and so on.
The instances coming under this head of discussion are all those meditations on Brahman which have for their only result final Release, which consists in attaining to Brahman—such as the meditation on that which is, the meditation on the bhOman, the meditation on the small space within the heart, the Upakosala meditation, the Sandilya meditation, the meditation on Vaisvanara, the meditation on the Self of bliss, the meditation on the Imperishable, and others whether they be recorded in one såkhå only or in several såkhas. To a different category belong those meditations which have a special object such as Prana, and a special result.--The doubt here arises whether the meditations of the former class are all to be considered as identical, or as separate.--The Purvapakshin holds that they are all one; for, he says, they all have one and the same object of meditation, viz. Brahman. For the nature of all cognition depends on the object cognised; and the nature of the meditations thus being one, the meditations themselves are one. This view the Sutra controverts.
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