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VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
to the highest Self. On the presupposition of all ideas being finally based on Brahman and hence all words also finally denoting Brahman, the texts therefore make such statements of mutual implication as 'I am thou, O holy divinity, and thou art me.' On this view of the relation of individual soul and highest Self there is no real contradiction between two, apparently contradictory, sets of texts, viz. those on the one hand which negative the view of the soul being different from the highest Self, Now if a man meditates upon another divinity, thinking the divinity is one and I another," he does not know'; 'He is incomplete, let him meditate upon Him as the Self'; "Everything abandons him who views anything apart from the Self' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 10; 7-II, 4, 6); and on the other hand those texts which set forth the view of the soul and the highest Self being different entities, 'Thinking of the (individual) Self and the Mover as different' (Svet. Up. I, 6). For our view implies a denial of difference in so far as the individual 'I' is of the nature of the Self; and it implies an acknowledgment of difference in so far as it allows the highest Self to differ from the individual soul in the same way as the latter differs from its body. The clause he is incomplete' in one of the texts quoted above) refers to the fact that Brahman which is different from the soul constitutes the Self of the soul, while the soul constitutes the body of Brahman.-It thus remains a settled conclusion that Brahman is to be meditated upon as constituting the Self of the meditating Devotee.- Here terminates the adhikarana of 'meditation under the aspect of Self.'
4. Not in the symbol; for (the symbol) is not that one (i. e. the Self of the Devotee).
Let a man meditate on mind as Brahman' (Kh. Up. III. 18. I): "He who' meditates on name as Brahman (Kh. Up. VII, 15)- with regard to these and similar meditations on outward symbols (pratîka) of Brahman there arises a doubt, viz. whether in them the symbols are to be thought' of as of the nature of Self or not. The Parva
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