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108
VEDÂNTA-SÛTRAS.
He is without breath, without mind, pure.'—But, it may be objected, the passage, All this indeed is Brahman,' mentions Brahman directly; how then can you suppose that the embodied Self forms the object of meditation ?- This objection does not apply, the pûrvapakshin rejoins, because the passage does not aim at enjoining meditation on Brahman, but rather at enjoining calmness of mind, the sense being : because Brahman is all this, taggalân, let a man meditate with a calm mind. That is to say: because all this aggregate of effects is Brahman only, springing from it, ending in it, and breathing in it; and because, as everything constitutes one Self only, there is no room for passion; therefore a man is to meditate with a calm mind. And since the sentence aims at enjoining calmness of mind, it cannot at the same time enjoin meditation on Brahman'; but meditation is separately enjoined in the clause, 'Let him form the determination, i.e. reflection. And thereupon the subsequent passage, 'He who consists of mind, whose body is breath,' &c. states the object of the meditation in words indicatory of the individual soul. For this reason we maintain that the meditation spoken of has the individual soul for its object. The other attributes also subsequently stated in the text, 'He to whom all works, all desires belong,' &c. may rightly be held to refer to the individual soul. The attributes, finally, of being what abides in the heart and of being extremely minute which are mentioned in the passage, 'He is my Self within the heart, smaller than a corn of rice, smaller than a corn of barley,' may be ascribed to the individual soul which has the size of the point of a goad, but not to the unlimited Brahman. If it be objected that the immediately following passage,' greater than the earth,' &c., cannot refer to something limited, we reply that smallness and greatness which are mutually opposite cannot indeed be ascribed to one and the same thing; and that, if one attribute
1 The clause he is to meditate with a calm mind' if taken as a gunavidhi, i.e. as enjoining some secondary matter, viz. calmness of mind of the meditating person, cannot at the same time enjoin meditation ; for that would involve a so-called split of the sentence (vâkyabheda).
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