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CHAPTER XVIII, 8.
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emancipated, I am a forester, and I likewise perform the duties of a householder, observing vows. I am not such, O beautiful one! as you see me with the eye. I pervade every single thing that is in this world. Whatever creatures there are in the world, movable or not moving, know me to be the destroyer of them as fire is of wood'. Sovereignty over the whole world, and even over heaven; that, or else this knowledge ; (of these two) knowledge is my only wealth. This is the path of the Brahmanas, by which those who understand that proceed, to households, or residence in forests, or, dwelling with preceptors, or among mendicants 6. With numerous unconfused symbols only one knowledge is approached. And those who, adhering to various symbols and Asramas, have their understanding full of tranquillity, go to the single entity as rivers to the ocean. This path is traversed by the understanding, not by the body? Actions have a beginning and an end, and the body is tied down by action. Hence, O beautiful one! you
doubt, on which your question is based as to what world you will go to by being joined to me, is wrong. See p. 256 supra.
He is speaking here on the footing of the essential identity of everything. Cl. Gita, p. 62.
• The expression here is clumsy; the meaning is that he prefers knowledge to sovereignty, if the alternative is offered him. · Viz, knowledge.
• I.e, the Brahman. • These are the four orders or Asramas.
• The knowledge to be acquired, by whatever symbols tbc attempt to acquire it is made, is but this, that all is one; and that is acquired certainly when tranquillity has been achieved.
'l.e. by realising the identity of everything, not by the actions performed with the body, which, as be goes on to show, ure perishable, and cannot lead to any lasting result
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