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VEDÂNTA-SÚTRAS.
sacred text, which at first distinguishes between the higher and the lower Brahman (the syllable Om is the higher and the lower Brahman'),and afterwards speaks of the highest Person to be meditated upon by means of the syllable Om, gives us to understand that the highest Person is nothing else but the highest Brahman. That the highest Self constitutes the object of meditation, is moreover intimated by the passage declaring that release from evil is the fruit (of meditation), 'As a snake is freed from its skin, so is he freed from evil.'—With reference to the objection that a fruit confined to a certain place is not an appropriate reward for him who meditates on the highest Self, we finally remark that the obiection is removed, if we understand the passage to refer to emancipation by degrees. He who meditates on the highest Self by means of the syllable Om, 'as consisting of three mâtrås, obtains for his (first) reward the world of Brahman, and after that, gradually, complete intuition.
14. The small (ether) (is Brahman) on account of the subsequent (arguments).
We read (Kh. Up. VIII, 1, 1), There is this city of Brahman, and in it the palace, the small lotus, and in it that small ether. Now what exists within that small ether that is to be sought for, that is to be understood,'&c.—Here the doubt arises whether the small ether within the small lotus of the heart of which Scripture speaks, is the elemental ether, or the individual soul (vigñanâtman), or the highest Self. This doubt is caused by the words 'ether' and 'city of Brahman.' For the word 'ether,' in the first place, is known to be used in the sense of elemental ether as well as of highest Brahman. Hence the doubt whether the small ether of the text be the elemental ether or the highest ether, i. e. Brahman. In explanation of the expression city of Brahman,' in the second place, it might be said either that the individual soul is here called Brahman and the body Brahman's city, or else that the city of Brahman means the city of the highest Brahman. Here (i. e. in consequence of this latter doubt) a further doubt arises as to
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