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VIVEKACUDĀMANI
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brahma-sargayoh na bhedam: vide the śruti: brahmaivedam sarvam (Mund.). The world is imagined by super-imposition on Brahman like the rope-snake. So, there is no difference between the superimposed and the substratum.
Also by the śrutis: yatra tvasya sarvamātmaivābhūt tat kena kam paśyet (Brh.): "Where everything for him was the ātmā, then by what can one perceive and whom?;" nānyat paśyati (Brh.) etc: "He does not see another" etc. And by the śruti: yadā hyevaişa etasminnudaram antaram kurute, atha tasya bhayam bhavati (Taitt.): “When he makes a difference in it, then there arises fear for him", for the jīvanmukta established in Brahman which makes for fearlessness there is no awareness of difference. So, by the absence of difference only, there is no awareness of such difference. For like the horn of a hare, it is subject to sublation in all the three periods of time. One is said to be of little knowledge only in respect of what exists, not in respect of what does not exist at all. For, to the yogins who are all-knowing, their character as all-knowing will not be affected by their not knowing impossible things like the horns of a hare.
Therefore, the jivanmukta is not aware of difference by his unchanging consciousness which has been disciplined by a mind fashioned by the study of the several śāstras. The only criterion of a śāstra is that it intimates what is purposeful, not known previously and what cannot be sublated (at any point of time): "śāstrasya prayojanavadanadhigata-abādhitärtha-bodhakatvenaiva prāmānyāt." How can difference which pertains to the ajñāna of men, which is purposeless, and which is cancelled along with its material become the object of cognition, in the infinite mode of Brahman-consciousness? As said earlier in the sloka 286: pratitir jīvajagatoh svapnavad bhāti yāvatā itāvannirantaram vidvan svādhyāsāpanayam kuru 1. When all delusion has been removed, there will be no awareness of difference. One of such quality is said to be a jivanmukta.
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साधुभिः पूज्यमानेऽस्मिन् पोड्यमानेऽपि दुर्जनः ।
समभावो भवेद्यस्य स जीवन्मुक्त इष्यते ॥४४१॥ sādhubhiḥ pūjyamāne'smin pīdyamāne’pi durjanaiḥ samabhāvo bhaved yasya sa jīvanmukta işyate in
