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386
VIVEKACŪDAMANI
the identification of the ātman with sons etc., and the body etc., being annulled, where will there be any occasion for action?55 The śruti also says, 'athāyamasariro 'mộtaḥ prāņo brahmaiva teja iva: "Then this ātman, unembodied, is immortal, the giver of life-breath for all, Brahman only, effulgent”.
399 It is said in this sloka that if samādhi is practised with effort annihilating the seen world in the beginning, for him so established in samādhi, the perceived world, though cognised earlier, becomes like the horns of a hare.
समाहितायां सति चित्तवृत्तौ परात्मनि ब्रह्मणि निर्विकल्पे।
न दृश्यते कश्चिदयं विकल्पः प्रजल्पमात्रः परिशिष्यते ततः ॥३९९ ॥ samāhitāyām sati cittavrttau
parātmani brahmani nirvikalpe na drśyate kaścidayam vikalpaḥ
prajalpamätraḥ pariśişyate tataḥ 11
If the mental functions are established in the true, unchanging, Higher Self, Brahman, this awareness of the phenomenal world is not experienced. What remains thereafter is merely a matter of meaningless word.
If the mental functions are established unwaveringly in the true and real non-sublatable Paramātman which is unchanging, this phenomenal world is not seen in the least. Then it remains a matter of words. sabdajñānānupāti vastuśūnyo vikalpaḥ (Yogasūtra): "Vikalpa means indicating by a sound without a corresponding object”. As the ajñāna has been completely uprooted, the imagined wrong identification of the ātman with the anātman does not survive; for such wrong identification is the result of ajñāna. What remains is only the infinite saccidānanda Brahman. As what is asat (non-existent) like a sky-flower cannot lead to activity, the world that previously aroused joy, sorrow, desire, fear, anger, etc., does not-like a serpent whose fangs have been removed-induce the Brahmanistha to action.
400 By the preceding, the anātmavāsanās in the mind of the sişya have been annulled and it is now inclined to the perception of the
55 The ātman identified with sons etc., is called 'gauņātmā'; that identified with the body is called 'mithyatma'; that which is the inmost core of one's being is called 'mukhyātma'. It is also known as 'pratyagātmā'.
