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CHAPTER III, 7.
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Chapter III. There is no destruction here of actions good or not good !. Coming to one body after another they become ripened in their respective ways. As a fruitful (tree) producing fruit may yield much fruit, so does merit performed with a pure mind become expanded. Sin, too, performed with a sinful mind, is similarly (expanded). For the self engages in action, putting forward this mind. And now further, hear how a man, overwhelmed with action, and enveloped in desire and angero, enters a womb. Within the womb of a woman, (he) obtains as the result of action a body good or else bad?, made up of virile semen and blood. Owing to (his) subtlety and imperceptibility, though he obtains a body appertaining to the Brahman, he is not attached anywhere; hence is he the eternal Brahman'. That is the seed of all beings; by that
"Cf. Maitri-upanishad, p. 53, and Mundaka, p. 270. And see generally as to this passage, Sârfraka Bhashya, pp. 751–760.
'l.c. tbey yield their respective fruits ; cf. Maiui, p. 43, and KHåndogya, p. 358.
• This explains, say the commentators, how even a little merit or sin requires sometimes more than one birth to enjoy and exhaust.
• As a king performs sacrifices 'putting forward' a priest, Arguna Misra ; and cf. Dhammapada, the first two verses.
• Arguna Misra bas tatha, 'in the same way,' instead of this, and renders it to mean . putting forward' the mind.
• Hence be docs not get rid of birth and death.
'Good=of gods or men; bad=of the lower species of creatures, Arguna.
• He, in the preceding sentences, according to Arguna Misra, means the self, through the mind, or 'puiting forward' the mind, as said above. In this sentence, he takes be' to mean the mind itself ; Brahman=the self; and the mind, he says, is called the Brahman, as it, like the self, is the cause of the Kaitanya, intelligence, in all creatures.
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